Moving towards multimodality with Mobility as a Service

October 28, 2019

Turku is the first Finnish city to use all-electric vehicles on an entire line of public transport

IMAGE: Pasi Leino

Turku – achieving smart multimodal mobility

By Ana Drǎguțescu, ICLEI Europe, and Roope Virta, City of Turku

MaaS has undoubtedly had a head start in Finland. Recently, the Finnish Transport Agency invested in two MaaS start-ups, Whim in Helsinki and Tuup in Turku.

Against this backdrop, the city of Turku has set itself the objective to create a MaaS ecosystem incorporating several transport operators: its participation in the CIVITAS ECCENTRIC project is fostering this process.

Like many small- and medium-sized cities with limited budgets, MaaS appeals to Turku as it facilitates the integration of diverse mobility measures, including first and last mile solutions, mobility services in low demand areas, and parking space optimisation. This helps increase the efficiency of the overall transport system without too much financial outlay.

MaaS will also help Turku develop new solutions to raise the service level of public transport and establish shared mobility as a real alternative to car ownership. The combined impact of these should make the city a better place to live and work.

Yet there remains the crucial question - how should MaaS be implemented? Up to four MaaS business models are thought to be employed at the moment: commercial car sharing, peer-to-peer car sharing, taxi/ride sharing, and subscription services combining local bus, taxi and car sharing services. Currently, the latter two are in place in Turku.

Turku Region Public Transport, also known as Föli, covers an area with 285,000 inhabitants. Together with numerous operators, Föli provides both individuals and companies with a range of applications and packages that make travelling easier.

A Föli ticket scanning machine provides access to sustainable mobility

IMAGE: Anna Lilja

Elba’s Shared Use Mobility Agency - MaaS in a touristic destination

By Giorgio Ambrosino and Saverio Gini, MemEx, Italy

On the Italian island of Elba, MaaS is taking a slightly different form. The island’s “Shared Use Mobility Agency” (SUMA), designed as part of the CIVITAS DESTINATIONS project, is tailoring the concept to the needs of a touristic island with small communities.

Consisting of seven municipalities, Elba has numerous towns and small settlements spread across the island with predominantly rural areas in between them. In this way, it can be considered to be a Functional Urban Area with large peripheral zones. The island's public transport services operate mainly along its key transport arteries.

However, the summer tourist season brings with it a 30 per cent increase in transport demand, alongside an increase in trips to tourist destinations beyond the main transport network.

Currently, the island’s (public) transport system cannot meet these needs. This situation is further exacerbated by the fragmented nature of Elba’s mobility offer (including rental operators): services are uncoordinated and information spread across various sources.

To tackle these problems and create a mobility ecosystem fit for residents and tourists, the Elba municipalities of Portoferraio and Rio and MemEx, a consultancy, have joined forces to design SUMA.

SUMA works on the basis that transport authorities should act as promoters of MaaS, and ensure that ridesharing services are fully incorporated into the public transport and overall mobility service offer.

Its role is to integrate the various services available, make them easily accessible, and coordinate the responsible operators. To achieve this, an IT platform is being developed that will be accessible via a mobile app and website. When released, this will be called “Elba Sharing".

By aggregating data from various sources and systems, it will provide different services to facilitate multimodal travel, such as a journey planner and in-app payment, and offer a single access point to Elba's ridesharing services and rental operators. This should make it possible for users to combine public transport with ridesharing and rental options for journeys of different lengths and at times of varying demand.

Ridesharing possibilities are numerous, including sharing a trip when a user is on the ferry; planning shared trips in advance; and sharing a taxi trip. These will be managed through a notice board on which passengers and drivers can publish their trip share requests and offers.

Moreover, a search engine function will make it possible to identify opportunities to combine ridesharing offers and requests with public transport. Features such as journey tracking and user evaluation of vehicle drivers will also be included to improve passenger safety.

This demand- and user-driven model should help to reduce the number of private trips made over summer and convince more people to use collective transport outside of the tourist season.

A SUMA prototype was ready in April 2019 for internal testing, whilst its first features are expected to be operational by the end of summer 2019. Find out more on SUMA’s design at:

 www.memexitaly.it

Overlooking Antwerp Central Station

IMAGE: Stadt Antwerpen

Antwerp (Belgium) – creating a market for MaaS

By Katia Kishchenko, City of Antwerp

In Antwerp, MaaS has the potential to help alleviate major pressure on the city's (road) infrastructure. This is causing a challenging mobility situation that is impacting negatively on the city's liveability and appeal to tourists and businesses.

With the support of the CIVITAS PORTIS project, Antwerp is creating the building blocks for the successful establishment of a MaaS marketplace in the city. This falls under the “Smart Ways to Antwerp” (SWtA) project, whose development forms a major part of Antwerp’s CIVITAS PORTIS work.

SWtA is developing various measures and tools to instigate a shift towards sustainable modes, change user mobility patterns, and improve travel times - both for passenger transport and urban freight. Through this, it enables and inspires people to choose alternative mobility solutions where possible and facilitates multimodality.

Soon after SWtA began, it became clear that people are not always aware of the range of mobility solutions available or cannot find the information to make use of them. The need for a multimodal travel planner was obvious.

After several market consultations, it turned out that no truly multimodal travel planner was available that supported the city of Antwerp’s goals. A new travel planner was developed together with Be-Mobile, a market leader in smart mobility. This brings together the different transport modes offered within Antwerp based on various user scenarios.

Possible journeys combining cars, public transport, park and rides, shared bikes and walking are identified and presented to the end user through the website and dedicated app. Roadworks and traffic diversions are also shown.

The SWtA multimodal travel planner in action

IMAGE: Smart Ways to Antwerp

The next step in the app's development will be to allow users to set preferences. For example, people will be able to filter journey options according to mode. Through this, the planner will offer more personalised route planning.

Whilst sound travel advice is crucial to changing users’ mobility habits, the proper and appropriate mobility solutions must also be in place. To ensure this, SWtA has set up its Marketplace for Mobility.

The Marketplace brings together a wide selection of providers who each support the city to reach its mobility goals. Through project calls and active communication and cooperation with employers, employees and entrepreneurs, the Marketplace is encouraging the development of innovative solutions, such as MaaS.

In combination with existing mobility players and MaaS experts, the city of Antwerp is building up its knowledge related to standardisation, reporting, technical requirements, and the user experience. Together, this information is creating a picture of what the end user really requires and how to best address their needs.

It has become clear that for MaaS services in Antwerp to be efficient and successful, further collaboration the city between the different players and is necessary. In January 2019, the city of Antwerp launched a MaaS-specific project call, whilst it will continue to nurture the MaaS ecosystem within the city.

Conclusion – Mobility power to the people

Mobility is a matter of choice and convenience - people want to feel free to move around as they please. By giving users the full ability to control how and when they travel, MaaS has the potential to become a driving force in attempts to encourage more sustainable travel.

At the same time, it is important to guard against MaaS becoming an exclusive way of travelling inaccessible to those from lower income backgrounds. Tickets and subscription packages must be affordable enough for all to be able to meet their transport needs. Otherwise, a solution that has the potential to bring about great progress may instead create problems further down the line.