Following recent mega-trends in the mobile and sharing economy, and thanks to the latest ITS developments, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) schemes are seen as the way citizens will use to move themselves and their goods in the future. The “as a service” wave will allow breaking the borders between the different means of transport, offering customers combined mobility packages as a viable alternative to own mobility and car ownership. Indeed, a MaaS is a mobility distribution model in which customer’s major transportation needs are met thanks to one single integrated service provider combining transportation infrastructures, travel information, payment services and more. Overall, nowadays MaaS schemes can be seen as disruptive startup initiatives with great potential, but due to the implied challenges of public/private mobility integration, information handling and sharing, service interoperability and scalability requirements, specific actions to accelerate an appropriate and sustainable take off are needed.
The overall objective of the IMOVE project has been to accelerate the deployment and unlock the scalability of MaaS schemes in Europe, ultimately paving the way for a “roaming” service for MaaS users at the European level. To this end, IMOVE investigated and validate advanced solutions for improving MaaS deployment and operation and their underlying business models.
IMOVE boosted the MaaS concept and initiatives through three main strands of activities and corresponding results:
1. investigating and developing a set of Scalability Unlockers, as sets of measures, organisational frameworks, operational and business models enhancing the framework conditions for MaaS development and operation;
2. designing and implementing a set of novel Software Enablers (SW Enablers) that supported current MaaS technologies enhancing interoperability and integration of MaaS schemes in the landscape of ITS and other mobility services.
3. developing a Data & Information Exchange Framework for MaaS
Outcomes of these research streams have been tested at five sites in large European cities (Turin, Greater Manchester, Berlin, Gothenburg, Madrid), all strongly engaged in the MaaS domain and implementing specific actions on existing or new MaaS schemes. Pilot sites showcased complementarity in terms of MaaS initiative leadership held by public sector entities (public transport authority, public transport operator, municipality) and private companies, aiming at investigating different roadmaps for MaaS and how heterogeneous stakeholders can work together for its uptake.
