Mobility-as-a-Service: a user centric approach for mobility providers

The Covid-19 pandemic has strongly influenced mobility trends. In the new normal, travel is much more varied than in traditional routines, requiring greater flexibility in the various situations involving people's mobility.

Until recently, owning a car was a categorical imperative, the gold standard, an indispensable status symbol, but today things are changing. The culture of ownership is gradually giving way to other, more comfortable, and economically convenient values, especially in the urban context.

Both citizens and companies are also discovering and starting to increasingly prefer sustainable mobility policies. Moving around exclusively in one's own car, often alone, especially for home-work journeys, is uneconomical and environmentally unfriendly. By using a car sharing service, for example, it is possible to cut down on the purchase and maintenance costs of own cars, reducing the overall number of vehicles, consumption, and parking availability.

Mobility has therefore started to be conceived as a multi-modal service, where many means and solutions can be used seamlessly, thanks to digital services that give us end-to-end access to all necessary services.

Mobility-as-a-Service: one app to move everywhere, in all ways, by any means

The new concepts linked to sustainable mobility find one of their main expressions in the Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. MaaS is oriented towards a customer experience capable of organizing the entire travel itinerary using a single digital tool to offer a series of coordinated services.

The result is a distinctly user-centric approach, which sees in the offerings of modern mobility providers a breakthrough capable of creating all-round benefits for companies that decide to support it.

In the traditional context, to use a taxi, the subway, and a scooter in sequence, we would be forced to use three different services, unable to communicate with each other. MaaS overcomes this fragmentation by integrating all services into a single application, through which we can organize, book, and pay for all the services used during our planned journeys.

CX providers must therefore guarantee this digital continuity by designing a single app that can support the full range of on-demand mobility: car sharing, bike sharing, ride hailing, public transport, scooters, depending on the needs of the moment. All, if possible, using one account and one payment method.

KINTO: an innovative B2B digital ecosystem for Toyota's mobility brand

New trends in sustainable mobility have pushed traditional automotive vendors to change their offerings and create specific business divisions: the mobility providers. Their objective is not to sell products, but to sell mobility services according to the MaaS model. A relevant case in point is KINTO, Toyota's mobility brand, which is also a pioneer on the sustainability front.

KINTO's B2B offer is not limited to renting a fleet of electrified Toyota and Lexus vehicles (Kinto One), but also includes car sharing (KINTO Share), carpooling (KINTO Join) and integrated multimodal mobility (KINTO Go), which allows employees to move freely without a car.

The number one objective of companies in the new normal is marked by two fundamental qualities: flexibility and sustainability. The search for agile, subscription-based formulas that make it possible to avoid long-term investments goes hand in hand with the combination of electrified solutions and soft mobility.

In addition to making cities more livable overall and reducing the stress of their employees, companies that make use of the end-to-end services of a mobility provider like KINTO can achieve their ESG goals with a view to continuous improvement. In addition, this benefit often allows companies to benefit from tax relief and tax concessions.

KINTO's aim is to provide companies with all the necessary services in a seamless way that makes the mobility experience of their employees easier and more enjoyable. The exemplary expression of this is KINTO Join, a carpooling service that is a corporate welfare tool and enables companies to make an active contribution to reducing CO2 and pollutant emissions.?

Thanks to KINTO Join, we at Assist Digital can attest to the positive impact on the environment and the community by spending more time together and making the commute to work less tedious.