MaaS for the suburban market: Incorporating carpooling in the mix

Abstract

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is often cited as providing an alternative solution to car ownership and car dominated lifestyles. However, MaaS as it currently exists appears to cater mainly for a specific segment of society-those who live close enough to walk to good quality public transport for daily journeys and close enough to access car share/car rental for other trips which public transport cannot serve. By default, this is limited to large, dense urban areas. This paper considers the evolution of intermodal journey planning that incorporates carpooling with public transport in the transition towards MaaS for suburban areas. It introduces a new journey planning App (known as RideMyRoute) that allows users to discover and make connected journeys involving carpooling and public transport, presenting key aspects of its design, development and testing. Results from a trial of the RideMyRoute App in four European test sites (Canton Ticino, Brussels, Zagreb and Ljubljana) revealed that the App was able to suggest trip planning solutions which included carpool options for one in five journey planning solutions and that the majority (85%) of these were solutions that involved connection from carpool to public transport. This is a significant advance on what is currently available through existing carpool provider systems or journey planning apps/services and could potentially increase the attractiveness of MaaS options in suburban markets. However, quality of data feeding the App from external sources remained an issue, as it is with all MaaS systems, and recommendations for future practice are presented. In conclusion, the new intermodal trip planning algorithm and data structure supporting it provide a fundamental stepping stone towards incorporating carpool services within MaaS-type offerings in the future.

Impact Assessments of New Mobility Services: A Critical Review

“…In combining all modes of travel, MaaS offers a "big bang" approach to enabling a digital system that can be easily implemented and priced based on the time of day (to the minute), geography (by location and type of road), and modal efficiency (both spatial and temporal) [19]. Therefore, MaaS has the potential for positive social impacts [55] through both media and scholars. MaaS has also the potential to reduce environmental damage resulted from urban traffic as well as the creation of new business opportunities for the transportation industry [7,11].…”

“…In addition, it gives the opportunity for a larger number of citizens to meet their mobility needs without having to own a car. The concept behind MaaS is that, until and unless we provide them with a service that provides the benefits of convenience, reliability, and low costs, citizens will not give up private cars as their preferred mode of transportation [55], while applying intermediary MaaS integrators (IMIs) into one seamless service [6]. Part of the challenge is that setting up such an innovative integrated mobility platform means moving beyond traditional company exclusive control [4,49].…”

“…The car-sharing concept has been launched in various cities as a service that eliminates the need to purchase a private car and provides a versatile alternative to traditional car rental services [54]. -Developments in MaaS and Mobihubs contribute to a significant reduction in the use of private cars for single occupancy and an increase in the use of public transportation, leading to a significant reduction in congestion, urban air pollution, and CO 2 emissions [1,55].…”

A Literature Review on Interactions Between Stakeholders Through Accessibility Indicators Under Mobility as a Service Context

“…The platform side focused on matching both users and vehicles, route planning [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], and the impact of MPO on users [50][51][52]. The modeling part focused on modeling the demand-supply interactions [48,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67].…”

Mobility as a Service: A Review on Recent Development and Future Envision

“…Despite common goals, risk control and trust building are still important for alliance formation.The results show that the information and knowledge interaction between suppliers is particularly important. MaaS is often discussed in the urban scene Wright, Nelson, and Cottrill (2020). discussed the transformation of MaaS in the rural area and regarded MaaS as the combination of the two modes of car-pooling and public transit.…”