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Daimler Moving on Mobility with MyTaxi, Moovel

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Burney Simpson

Daimler used its Moovel subsidiary in July to continue its aggressive approach to new mobility with investments in Europe and hiring in the U.S. The two actions suggest Daimler won’t stop moving on its ridesharing and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) offerings.

The auto OEM bought 60 percent of Hailo, a ridesharing firm with a checkered past that has a strong presence in the United Kingdom, TechCrunch reports.

Daimler then merged Hailo with MyTaxi, a ridesharing app owned by its subsidiary Moovel. The merged firm will be known as MyTaxi and headquartered in Hamburg.

Connected-Car2The new MyTaxi claims 100,000 registered drivers serving 70 million customers in 50 cities across nine countries in Europe, making it one of the leading ridesharing firms on the Continent.

MyTaxi will be led by Andrew Pinnington, the current CEO of Hailo. Daimler named Niclaus Mewes, the founder of MyTaxi’s parent, a managing director of Daimler Mobility Services.

Terms of the deal weren’t released though Pinnington told Reuters that under the all-share deal Daimler will own 60 percent of MyTaxi, while Hailo stakeholders will hold 40 percent.

Hailo had been strong in the U.K. and Ireland while MyTaxi has operations in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Hailo closed down its U.S. operations in 2014 while facing tough competition from Uber and Lyft.

Auto OEMs are moving on ridesharing firms this year with GM investing $500 million in Lyft and Volkswagen putting $300 million into Gett.

URBAN MOBILITY PRODUCTS

Meanwhile in the U.S., Moovel North America spirited Matt Jones away from Jaguar Land Rover and named him its chief product officer. He will work out of Moovel NA’s Portland, Ore., headquarters.

Jones will oversee Moovel NA’s “urban mobility products,” according to a press release. While it wasn’t clear from the release what that meant, it suggested that Jones will work to create an integrated transportation service that consumers can control with their smartphones.

These services may range from public and private transit to car-sharing, ride sharing, bike sharing, and other transportation offerings. Consumers will use their phones to access, research, schedule, pay for, and keep track of the services. These MaaS products may be offered on a subscription or an as-needed basis.

At Jaguar Jones oversaw global efforts to develop and implement in-dash and mobile apps for vehicle routing, information and entertainment systems.

Daimler created Moovel North America in April by combining two of its purchases — GlobeSherpa and RideScout.

C2go2GlobeSherpa is a mobile booking and ticketing service for public transit agencies, while RideScout brought the transportation app. (See “Daimler Gets Moovel-ing on Mobility as a Service”).

Moovel NA began beta-testing in Portland this spring an app that combined transit ticketing with the ability to call a Lyft vehicle or a Car2go, another Daimler subsidiary.

Car2go is a car-sharing service where consumers use an app to reserve and then drive its two-passenger vehicles. Car2go’s 1.3 million registered members can rent the vehicles by the minute, hour, or day. According to its website Car2go operates in 28 cities in nine countries.

Mobility As A Service in the US – Who’s the Bank?

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Burney Simpson

The time seems right for Mobility as a Service (MAAS). Travelers are looking to cut costs, congestion, and the bother of owning a vehicle. And autonomous technology and driverless vehicles could bring costs down so MAAS would be affordable for the masses.

A successful MAAS program will need a mix of transportation providers like public transit, privately-held firms like Uber and Lyft, shuttle and bus services, bike share programs, traditional taxi firms, car-share outfits like car2go, and others depending on the metro area.

But any MAAS project will also need three behind-the-scenes providers to grease the wheels.

Those are an app creator, a data analyzer, and a bank, said Tim Papandreou, director, Office of Innovation, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

“You need an entity that can create and maintain the app, (and an entity) to gather and analyze the data so transportation options are continually updated and improved, to meet customer needs and offer incentives,” said Papandreou. “Third, (there’s the entity) that will act as a payment facilitator. It will send money to the transportation provider.”

A single payments firm is essential, said transportation consultant Carol Schweiger.

“You pay one entity for all these services or else the concept won’t work. You can’t have users paying multiple providers,” said Schweiger, president of Schweiger Consulting.

Schweiger refers to a MAAS scheme where the traveler pays a monthly subscription fee to a service, covering her daily commute and a certain number of weekend and evening trips. That service is responsible for divvying up the funds to the transport providers.

LOGICAL PROVIDERS

MAAS is evolving but generally refers to a subscription-based, phone-app accessible mix of transportation options providing door-to-door service.

moovel-transit2Schedules and fees of the transportation providers will have to be online, integrated and continuously updated. That goes for weather and road condition information. The service is operated real-time, so a subscriber can preplan a journey, or find, pay for, and jump on the best option on the fly.

For now, there appear to be firms ready to step into the first two roles that Papandreou describes.

One ride search provider is the moovel app launched by Daimler this spring in Portland, Ore. It offers smartphone searching and the ability to make payments to multiple providers. But moovel is pay-as-you-go, there’s no monthly subscription service, says a spokesperson.

Second, data gathering and analysis is becoming core to intelligent transportation systems (ITS) with multinational giants like Siemens, Microsoft, IBM and others exploring the sector.

What’s missing is three, the bank.

Ford and GM are logical providers of this service though neither has expressed interest publicly in becoming a MAAS bank.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR?

Papandreou says the auto OEMs are still getting their heads around the idea of integrated mobility, so throwing in the concept of banking may be a bridge too far.

But it isn’t far-fetched.

Each has a financial arm with deep pockets.

The Ford Motor Credit Corp. provides loans through its Lincoln Automotive Service Corp. in the U.S., Canada and China. Net income for Ford Motor Credit tallied $1.4 billion in 2015, with managed receivables of $127 billion. Put simply, receivables measure the amount customers owe on loans.

GM subsidiary General Motors Financial reported net income of $646 million and total assets of $66 billion last year.

And there’s the possibility that fewer consumers will be buying cars if MAAS-style systems take hold.

“GM has to find new ways to make money if they don’t sell as many cars,” said Schweiger.

One way to do that could be to finance the system and earn income from payment processing.

“There are billions of transactions every day, this is a tremendous opportunity,” said Papandreou.

For now, the two big American auto OEMs don’t appear to be interested. GM is focused on expanding Lyft, in part with driverless vehicles it develops with Cruise Automation.

Ford’s new FordPass seeks to connect with customers through their smartphones. Millennials can do cool stuff like reserve a parking space and start their car.

But the payment angle is a work in progress. A customer earns rewards by purchasing Ford services, and the rewards can be redeemed at a Boomer brand like McDonald’s. A Ford spokesperson says FordPass is evolving, and changes will be coming.

Mobility As A Service is evolving too, and there will be different approaches in different cities. MAAS banking is a move away from an auto OEM’s core skill set but financing such a system could be quite rewarding.

Story photo - Piggy by Pictures of Money, 2014.

Italy’s Ancient Roads Host Mobility as a Service Test

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Burney Simpson

The ancient streets of Ragusa, Sicily recently played host to a test of Mobility-As-A-Service (MAAS) by Mvmant, a provider of a smartphone app with a hybrid cab/bus service.

A posting on Mvmant’s Facebook page claimed it had 2,000 registrants during the three-week test.

Mvmant’s on-demand transportation service is designed for congested urban areas where Millennials eschew privately-owned cars. Mvmant picked Ragusa because its streets are often jammed with tourist vehicles.

Subscribers use their smartphone to book and pay for a Mvmant ride. The trip isn’t door-to-door but the traveler can use the app to find the best route for his trip, according to the Catania, Italy-based firm.

Mvmant uses data analysis to determine the most-in demand routes and the optimum number of seats per route. Monitors in the vehicle display ads and offer free trips, discounts and promotions from local merchants.

This Mvmant You Tube video explains its concept.

The Ragusa test vehicles were supplied by Mercedes Vans, one of Mvmant’s supporters. The vehicles are not autonomous or electric powered. Models in the test included the Sprinter and Vito commercial vans, the panel van-mini MPV Citan and the MPV class V.

Mvmant is a project of Edisonweb, and it has a number of influential partners in addition to Mercedes, according to its website.

Supporters include Samsung, the Italian bank Unicredit, Rome-based environmental group Legambiente, and Frontier Cities, an innovation and technology funding arm of the European Union.

Mvmant says its service reduces congestion because trip takers will use its shared vehicles instead of driving their own car. Reducing congestion can cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Frontier Cities reports that Edisonweb has been approached by the Berlin Agency for Electromobility eMO to support a second Mvmant pilot in Berlin, and from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai. Mvmant plans to test its program in the Italian cities of Messina and Modena.

Many Challenges to MAAS in the U.S.

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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.

top-slides-maas4A 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.

Daimler Gets Moovel-ing on Mobility As A Service

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Burney Simpson

Daimler launched a Mobility as a Service (MAAS) firm in North America called moovel, with promises to offer a choice of transportation options at the push of a smartphone app button.

Moovel is designed to link riders with providers of public transportation, car-sharing, ridesharing, bike sharing, and other forms of transportation.  

Moovel was launched as a pay-as-you-go service, with consumers having the ability to use their smartphone as a payment device for trips.

The concept of MAAS is evolving. In general it refers to a subscription-based, phone app-accessible mix of transportation options for users. The mix can include public transit, privately-held firms like Uber and Lyft, bike share programs, traditional taxi firms, and car-share firms like car2go.

Major auto OEMs are investing in MAAS-style services following the growth of non-traditional transportation offerings, especially among younger consumers.

Daimler operates car2go in about 30 cities in Europe and North America. Rival BMW announced this month it had begun operating its ReachNow car-sharing service in Seattle, and would possibly expand it to nine more cities (See “Siren of Mobility Entices BMW, Jaguar, Peugeot”).

MOBILE TICKETS AND PAYMENTS

Daimler said its launch of moovel is in response to the growth of urban populations worldwide, and to the rise in rides on public transportation. In 2014 there were nearly 11 billion public transportation rides, the highest ever, says Daimler.

For riders, moovel will offer mobile ticketing and payments for public transit agencies. For transit agencies, moovel helps them integrate with ”last mile/first mile options like bike share and on-demand car services,” according to Daimler.

The creation of moovel comes from Daimler’s 2014 purchase of transportation app provider RideScout. Last June, RideScout bought GlobeSherpa, a mobile book and ticketing service for public transit.

Moovel inherits from its two parents a number of agreements with public transit agencies in major metropolitan areas.

For example, in the Chicago area moovel has a relationships with the Chicago Transit Authority, the suburban PACE bus service and the metro-wide Metra train service.

In California, moovel has deals with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System and the North County Transit District.

Plans call for moovel to eventually offer Ridetap, a software development kit or SDK, that app developers can build on to assist users get to their final destination.

RideTap is currently operating only in a private beta mode in Portland, Ore. A program there allows users to request a Lyft ride, or reserve a car2go. Moovel says RideTap will be launched more widely later this year.

In Germany the moovel app offers access to car2go, the car-sharing firm Flinkster, the taxi booking and payments app mytaxi, the German railway company Deutsche Bahn, and public transportation, says Daimler.

Nat Parker, co-founder and former CEO of GlobeSherpa, is now CEO of moovel NA. Joseph Kopser, co-founder and former CEO of RideScout, is now president of moovel Group GmbH.

Zoox Recruits from Tesla with Live Tests Coming

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Burney Simpson

Driverless car creator Zoox is bringing in staff from Tesla as it celebrates being approved for live testing of its driverless car on California roads by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Zoox is the 12th firm approved by the regulator.

Zoox seeks to revolutionize the transportation service industry, not invent a new type of automobile, according to an April 2014 interview with co-founder Tim Kentley-Klay by Driverless Transportation (See “Catching Up with Zoox”).

That fits with a current company description posted on a LinkedIn site of new board member Laurie Yoler. She has an extensive history with Tesla and joined the Zoox board in December.

According to Yoler’s write up, Zoox is:

“a robotics company pioneering autonomous mobility. We are developing our own fully autonomous electric vehicle and the supporting ecosystem required to bring the technology to market at scale. … Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. The company is venture backed and presently in stealth mode.”

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is growing in the autonomous vehicle space as car-sharing, ride-sharing firms like Uber, Lyft, and Car2Go expand. MaaS could become a combination of publicly- and privately-owned transportation services provided on a subscription basis. Some say MaaS could replace private vehicle ownership for many consumers.

According to press reports Zoox was founded by Kentley-Klay, an Australian film director and designer, and Jesse Levinson, a Stanford University engineer who worked with Sebastian Thrun, the first director of Google’s self-driving car program.

TESLA CONNECTION

Zoox offers a virtually empty website. Its street address is the same as that of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that sits on the Stanford University campus. Stanford operates SLAC for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

zoox4Yoler is a venture capital investor and a founding board member of Tesla, serving in various roles with the electric vehicle OEM from 2003 to 2013.

Zoox appears to be recruiting others from Tesla which last year launched ‘Autopilot’, an over-the-air software update that gave many of its vehicles semi-autonomous capabilities.

Current Zoox staff with a Tesla background include its Head of Talent, the Director of Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and a talent and marketing staffer, according to LinkedIn postings.

Zoox may also have connections with the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Yoler was with DFJ when it backed Tesla.

By some reports Zoox is backed by DFJ though the VC firm’s website doesn’t list it in its current portfolio of companies.

NO WINDSHIELD, WHEEL, PEDALS

Zoox’s first public model was a futuristic roadster-style vehicle that predated the driverless car that Mercedes rolled out to massive attention at CES 2015. That Zoox model had no front or back, no windshield, no steering wheel, no brake pedal.

In a 2013 video from Drive the Nation, Kentley-Klay discusses his design concept that offered four independent control systems centered on the wheels, and four seats that faced each other.

At one point, the vehicle was called the L4, a nod to the Level 4 fully autonomous vehicle as defined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The goal was a 2020 launch.

Kentley-Klay’s thingsivemade.com website provides insight on his view towards autonomous vehicles, along with photos of his visiting the Google campus to meet Anthony Levandowski, at one time the leader of Google’s autonomous efforts.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Growing in the EU

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Burney Simpson

The Mobility as a Service concept is gaining adherents in Europe.

The start-up MaaS Finland garnered 2.2 million Euros ($2.4 million) in an early funding round last month with hopes of going back to investors for more this fall, according to release from the firm.

French transportation giant Transdev and Turkey’s commercial auto manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv Sanayii and Ticaret AS, each own 20 percent of MaaS Finland.

MaaS Finland officially opened its doors in February. It plans to deliver its services in Finland and two other countries this year, then expand in 2017.

Proponents believe MaaS will bring greater efficiency to transportation services, lower public reliance on autos, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Mobility as a Service Alliance says that MaaS offers travelers “tailor made mobility solutions based on their individual needs. … for the first time, easy access to the most appropriate transport mode or service will be included in a bundle of flexible travel service options for end users.”

HOW IT WORKS

Consumers access their MaaS provider through a smartphone app. The provider creates and manages a trip for the user by finding the right solution with a combination of public transport, car-sharing, ride-sharing, taxi, and bicycle-sharing.

In one business model the gateway firm purchases the rides/transport on a volume basis from the individual providers. The gateway firm also conducts data analysis on the subscriber’s preferences, and uses the information to develop more efficient trips for the customer.

The consumer receives either a single bill for the trip, or becomes a monthly subscriber to the service.

The MaaS concept takes advantage of the move away from car ownership by millennial consumers, and the corresponding growth in transportation sharing services like Uber and BikeShare.

“(A)sk yourself: ‘What would happen if I gave up my car?’” MaaS Finland CEO Sampo Hietanen, who holds a 10 percent stake in the company, said in a release.

“For one hundred euros [per month], you could have unlimited access to public transport services plus limited access to taxi rides and a rented car for a given number of kilometers.”

Other MaaS Finland shareholders include InMob Holdings of Cyprus; Neocard; Korsisaari; GoSwift; MaaS Australia; Goodsign; IQ Payments; and Delta Capital Force, according to a company release.

The European Mobility as a Service Alliance was launched at the 2015 ITS World Congress in Bordeaux, France. The Alliance was founded by 20 organizations, including AustriaTech, Ericsson, Helsinki Business Hub, Connekt, MOBiNET, Xerox, and ITS Finland and ITS Sweden.

The early provider UbiGo tested its MaaS service in Gothenburg, Sweden. It reported 70 subscribers made 12,000 transactions in six months. No customers cancelled the service after the test. Volvo was one of the partners in the test.

UbiGo says consumers pay only for what they use, without the hassle of owning a car.

Last May UbiGo was awarded the Promising Innovation award by the International Transport Forum of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.

Photo: (Untitled) by Caitlin H, 2011.