Many Challenges to MAAS in the U.S.
Burney Simpson
The developers behind the Babcock Ranch in Florida face challenges as they position it as the first planned community for driverless transportation. It is to feature electric-powered self-driving vehicles and public transit on-demand with an Uber-type app. (“America’s First ‘Truly Sustainable’ Town Will Run on Driverless Transit”).
Transportation in Babcock is a step towards Mobility As A Service (MAAS) where consumers give up their own vehicle and rely instead on a combination of public transit, rideshare (i.e. Uber), biking and walking.
A user will pay a monthly subscription fee to access with their smartphones the MAAS door-to-door transportation service.
Once onboard, the subscriber researches, books, and pays for their best transportation option among a slew of transportation providers, which may also include car share (i.e. zipcar), van pool, cabs, bikeshare, and possibly a limo service.
The real-time service means the subscriber can preplan a journey, or find, pay for, and jump on the best option on the fly.
A MAAS subscription may prove cheaper than the money spent buying or leasing a vehicle, along with gas, insurance, maintenance, parking, various state licensing fees, tickets, ad nauseam.
Savings alone makes MAAS intriguing but it comes with large challenges. Selling the concept in the U.S. may be especially difficult as car ownership is ingrained with 80 percent of all trips taken in personally-owned-vehicles.
In Europe, MAAS Finland plans to offer a monthly subscription and a single journey payment system, though it hasn’t launched yet. This video from the Finish Ministry of Transport and Communication neatly describes MAAS in animated form.
Information is vital to a MAAS system.
For example, schedules and fees of the transportation providers will have to be online, integrated and continuously updated. That goes for weather and road condition information.
The subscriber’s payment account and any special transport needs must be on hand.
That presents a hurdle for any MAAS operator in the U.S., according to transportation consultant Carol Schweiger’s presentation “Bringing Mobility as a Service to the U.S.: Opportunities and Challenges” where she outlines issues.
- In practice, some public transit providers don’t share information with other providers, whether internally or externally. That is, the bus division doesn’t communicate well with the subway system, and neither talks to the bus system operated by the county next door.
- Can a transit system with this kind of institutional mindset share its performance data with an Uber or a Velib bikeshare program?
- Public transit organizations will also have to find the funds to build and maintain this 21st Century communications system, and to accept electronic payments.
- Should there be a single regulator for an entire MAAS system, or do you keep separate offices such as one for transit and another for cabs?
- Publicly-owned transportation providers must determine how to include travelers that don’t have smartphones and a payment card.
- And then there’s such technical issues as cybersecurity, and providing service in the event of a system failure.
There are efforts to address some of these issues.
The transit app Moovit announced this month it would be integrated into Uber’s app in 131 cities in 22 countries.
MAAS COLLABORATION
Moovit users plan local travel options by checking their transit provider’s route data. Adding Uber is designed to help Moovit-ites better navigate the first mile/last mile of their journey.
A number of transit systems are considering using Uber to provide some part of their service for riders with disabilities.
The largest MAAS project in the U.S. now may be the one conducted by Joint Venture Silicon Valley that focuses on commuting in the San Francisco Bay area.
Joint Venture’s MAAS is collaborating with Palo Alto, San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA).
It seeks to integrate mobility apps with work transportation programs provided by employers like Enterprise Commute Trip Reduction (ECTR). It claims six important stakeholders in its commuting ‘ecosystem’: cities, transit agencies, mobility service providers, large employers, small employers, and ECTR software providers.
It plans this year to launch a Mobility Aggregation smartphone app that might support public and private transit, Carma ridesharing; Motivate bike share; Lyft Line and Flywheel; Car2Go, DriveNow, and Zipcar car sharing; and smartphone e-ticketing.
A second app might support public and private transit; Motivate bike share; UberPool; Car2Go and DriveNow; and smartphone e-ticketing.
Graphic is by Sampo Hietanen, CEO of MAAS Finland; One Seamless App by Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
