Mobility as a Service

August 14th, 2010 saw the build-up of the worst traffic jam in the history of mankind till date on National Highway 110 in the Hebei district of China. The gridlock slowed down thousands of vehicles for more than a hundred kilometer and lasted for two weeks. The situation was so bad that many drivers were able to move only 1 km a day and some poor souls were trapped in the jam for 5 days. The sad truth is road congestion are a part and parcel of everybody’s life. The world today feels like a parking lot and moves like a traffic jam.

This is a little bit surprising if you think about how different cities are all around the world, we have the typically European cites with a dense urban core, good public transportation, not a lot of road capacity. American Cites on the other hand have lots of roads, dispersed over large areas with almost no public transportation and finally we have the emerging world cites with a mixed variety of vehicles, mixed land use patterns often rather dispersed but also with a very dense urban core. All of these cities do experience road congestion in some form or the other despite being so different in their driving patterns and behavior

Whys is it so?

There are several reasons that contribute to impaired traffic flow across a city, of which the number of vehicles on the road is undeniably the greatest factor. Elements such as poor road planning and traffic control and lack of information for drivers can also contribute to the development of congestion.  

Traffic planners all around the world have tried lots of measures to prevent these bottlenecks from happening. These measures include providing people alternative routes to their destinations by building more roads, highways, bridges, tunnels etc. or by providing alternative modes of transportation likes subways, trains, buses, trams etc. but nothing has done wonders.

Public transportation as good they seem to be, people still don’t use them as much as they would like to because of the First- Mile Last- Mile Problem (bus will not come to my home and pick me up and won’t leave me at my destination but to the nearest hub from my destination).

To counter that Problem, we now have transportation on demand as a solution with Ola, Uber, Lyft, MyTaxi and DiDi Chuxings of the world having taken the streets by storm. As the Millennial Generation has now realized that it’s not the Car that they are in need of, what they really need is mobility from point A to Point B, and anyways owning a car is too much of a hassle for them. So what we see now is a shrinkage in growth rate of sales figures of cars worldwide (the growth is stunted but it is still growing nevertheless).

This transportation on Demand service has given way to an even bigger problem that never existed before. In the cities where such services are operating their numbers are unregulated, the increase in the number of vehicles roaming in and around the city in search of a ride has increased astronomically which may lead to increasing number of road congestion.

Ironically all the R&D which is happening now a day is directed towards either making the Internal Combustion Engine more efficient or developing Electric Cars. The problem is not in how do we drive, but in how do we Commute.

Today’s Scenario

Ride Sharing is the Buzz word today. People have realized that even if they hire a taxi for their commute there is plenty of room for others to sit and well it is damn expensive so why not just share the taxi and split the fare. This thought process caught on and we have Bla Bla Cabs, Uber Pool, Ola Share, Zify, Juno, GETT and many more. But one of the major problem with Ride sharing is that although its cheap, it is not the most effective way to commute if you are short on time.

On the other hand, there are substantial number of people who just enjoy driving across the world, but still don’t want to buy a car or they would like to ride one that is just not in their league. Well fear not my friends you can subscribe a car as well.Most of the car renting and lease market is captured by OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), you will pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to a specific set of models to choose from, the fee covers the cost of insurance, maintenance and road side assistance. Thus we have services like Access (by BMW), Book (by Cadillac), Care (by Volvo), Carpe (by Jaguar Land Rover), Porsche Passport and a few more services which will be debuting in early 2019 by likes of Mercedes – Benz and Lexus. All of these services will give access to plethora of cars without spending much, but if you don’t want to drive a BMW or Jaguar day in day out there are other 3rd party lease providers that can provide any car that your heart desires for a month Flexdrive, Less, Borrow, Fair and Carma just to name a few. The down side of such subscription is that these will burn a hole in your pocket thus riding a luxury car still remains a distinct dream for most of us.

Even if you do own a car sharing it can also be a very attractive option if you don’t mind a stranger driving around your car while you are sitting at the office.The car won’t be sitting idle taking up valuable urban real estate costing you money while it’s parked, on the contrary you can earn some cash if you share your car. Chinese – Swedish Car Manufacturer Lynk and Co have a car with a share button and subscription scheme where as the owner of the car you can rent your car and mint some cash while you are busy doing something else. But as they are the new kids on the block, opening their shop in 2016 it might take some time before you have one.

Autonomous Cars are the next big thing after electric vehicles but just like electric vehicles the closest we are right now to a self-driving car is through a parking assist feature which comes in high-end cars only like Tesla Model S, BMW I Series, Mercedes Benz – E Class and Chrysler 200. Although Google does claim that it has achieved conditional Automation capabilities way back in 2012 with its venture Waymo but still there are no cars commercially available with these features.

And Finally we have the much awaited 5th mode of Transportation the Hyperloop, which is still in its testing phase and might be open for the public in Dubai in the end of 2020.

Best of All Worlds

What essentially most of the people want is the mobility from their source to their destination in the cheapest way possible and that too in the least amount of time. We do have a lot of options to choose from to complete our journey like buses, taxis, train, trams, bikes etc. But all these means of transportation work in isolation despite the fact they sometimes coexist in very close proximity of each other. What if someone wanted to go to a place and the best way to reach there is to take combination of these available modes of transportation, but I don’t have a platform where all these services providers converge. 

Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

Mobility as a service (MaaS) is an urban transportation solution that integrates all the modes of transportation into a single platform through which user can determine the best route across several travel services or choose a combination of them according to real time data on subjects like Traffic conditions, time of the day and demand.

MaaS is a digital platform where you can plan and pay for all the modes of public and private transportation within the city - be it train, taxi, bus, car share or bike share. You just enter the destination choose the mode of transportation and in case if there is no single mode of transportation providing door to door service you have the option of choosing a combination of modes of transportation according to your convenience and budget.

MaaS integrates end-to-end trip planning, booking, electronic ticketing, and payment services across all modes of transportation, public or private. It’s a marked departure from where most cities are today, and from how mobility has been delivered until now. Rather than having to locate, book, and pay for each mode of transportation separately, MaaS platforms let users plan and book door-to-door trips and even pay for it via various platforms using a single app. It also helps users to find the best way to get his /her destination by taking into consideration current traffic conditions, availability and preferences.

These apps are not just the talk of the Silicon Valley anymore but are now very much part of our reality in cities like Helsinki, Finland (Whim App), Singapore (Beeline), Vienna, Austria (Smile), Quebec, Canada (Communauto), Boston, Kansas City and Washington D.C., USA (Bridij) and Hamburg, Germany (Ubigo). The concept has been so successful that automotive companies like Daimler (Moovel), Volkswagen (MOIA) and Deutsche Bahn (Qixxit) have started their own ventures to achieve the same. 

As MaaS provides the users with a lot of utilities on a single platform it is better to understand MaaS Layer by Layer. 

Layers of MaaS

The following structure of Layers of a MaaS platform was proposed by Moovel and Juniper in one of their whitepapers whose sole purpose was to demystify MaaS. According to them MaaS value Preposition can be mapped over different layer which are as follows.

•  Mobility Network Layer: - This layer is the Face of MaaS, the user interface that customers will use to choose preferred mode of transportation from point A to point B by selecting between public, private, shared or a combination of all the 3 thus solving the First Mile Last Mile Problem.
• Real Time Mobility Optimization Layer: - This layer is the add on to the mobility Network layer as it would provide real time data about Traffic, availability and Time Required to complete the journey so that customers can take an informed decision.
• Mobility Pricing Layer: - As the name suggests this layer will provide with dynamic pricing options to all the available means of transportation as well as to their different permutation and combinations so as to make the comparisons much easier by giving an estimated cost of their journey via their chosen route
• Value added and Future Services Layer: - These services as of yet are not being provided by any of the MaaS platforms in the world today but can be its essential part in the future. These services would include offers to nearest retail outlet or restaurant, suggested meeting points, loyalty schemes and special discount offers etc.

Challenges for MaaS

The world is not all sunshine and rainbows, therefore there are a few problems with MaaS as well which will need to be addressed which are as follows: -

• Collaboration & Cooperation: - As MaaS is a platform where all the Transportation providers both public and private will converge thus working in tandem with them so as to provide a seamless experience to the user is a huge task in itself. Beside that as payment and ticketing options are also incorporated in it thus we are casting the net even further towards financial institutions. Therefore keeping everyone happy all the time might be an issue.    
•  Technological Barriers: - As every city has its own quirks and nuances about how the people travel thus MaaS of every city will be different from every other city and needs to be custom build as per the habits of commuters of that city. It won’t be like other ride sharing services like Uber where they just slap the same platform everywhere. Doing this for every city would require a lot of on ground research and technological expertise to weave MaaS into the fabric of the city which might not be feasible for every city in the world.       
• Data Security: - As MaaS will be collecting a lot of Data from both the users and the service providers and that too on a real time basis the security of this data bank will be one of the most pressing issues that developers need to get pass through before people even consider using it in the first place.
• Keeping up with Policies & Regulation Changes: - With ever changing polices and regulations about ticketing, speeding and parking across a city it would essential to be on top of these regulations which might prove to be a pain. 

Moovel: The Success Story

Daimler, the company that invented the automobile in 1884 and owns Mercedes - Benz, founded a company to develop a platform which would consolidate all the modes of transportation to reach various destination in all of Europe in 2013. This venture was known as Daimler Mobility Services GMBH which was later changed to Moovel GMBH in April 2014. 

Moovel has partnered with various public and private transporters such as Car2Go, Deutsche Bahn, Nextbike, Mytaxi and Hochbahn to provide a seamless riding experience to passengers. In addition to that it also provides a platform for various ticketing and payment solutions and back office data intelligence. Moovel also provides intelligent routing options as well as algorithms based on ride pooling and provide operators with a variety of smart management tools such as drivers app and operator dashboard so as to maximize their revenue from each trip.

The Moovel Service portfolio consists of the Following Products

• Mobility App – It allows consumers to search, book and pay for their transit. The app also includes other features such as trip planning, next time arrivals, multi modal integration, innovative payment options including Apple and Google Pay. It is also equipped with NFC (Near Field Communication) Bluetooth and QR codes for quick payment and validation of Tickets.
• Rider Web – It’s the website which provides all the functions of the app on your PC/Laptop.
• TOMS – Transaction and Operations Management System is a back office support tool that helps the transit agencies the ability to manage a diverse range of services including accounts orders, ticketing and real time reporting.
• Inspector App – This app is for the Fare enforcement personal which makes the process of validating mobile tickets from any device hassle free.
• Fare Connect – It is hardware agnostic contact less validation platform that allows agencies to implement fare validation system by accepting and validating mobile fares.
• Fare Share – It is a configurable system for transit agencies, universities and business to offer transportation benefits, reduced fares and discounted tickets. This application can be extended to third parties to quickly manage, track and distribute fares to eligible riders, increasing ridership and creating new revenue channels for the local community.
• Moovel on Demand – Its Functionality is more or less like other ride hailing services like Uber, Lyft, DiDi Chuxing and Ola.

Moovel has been operating in cities like Austin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Boston, Madrid, Sydney, Vienna and is aggressively expanding its borders.

MaaS is probably not the best solution to your transportation problem but it sure can provide you with one.