Transport Data as Public
Infrastructure for Smart Cities
An Exploration of the Willingness of Transport System Stakeholders
to Participate in a Transport Data Platform enabling Innovation in
Mobility and Mobility as a Service
Thomas Geier
Graduation Thesis
University of Amsterdam
Faculty for Economics and Business – Amsterdam Business School
MSc Business Administration - Digital Business
Transport Data as Public Infrastructure
for Smart Cities:
An Exploration of the Willingness of Transport System Stakeholders to
Participate in a Transport Data Platform enabling Innovation in Mobility and
Mobility as a Service.
17.08.2018
Graduation Thesis
Thomas Geier
Student-ID: 11820411
Supervisor: Prof. Peter van Baalen
University of Amsterdam
Faculty for Economics and Business – Amsterdam Business School
MSc Business Administration - Digital Business
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by student Thomas Geier who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
The transport sector appears ripe for disruption and the discussion around Intelligent Mobility currently seeks to find the guidelines for a mobility transition that is argued to show the same profound impacts on society as the mass adoption of automobiles in the last century. The Intelligent Mobility transition is currently considered mostly producer led, creating potential conflicts of interest and risking putting the potential benefits of more intelligent mobility in jeopardy. Mobility as a Service, as one of the core concepts of Intelligent Mobility is also not exempt from this risk. Due to the high uncertainty that remains around the concepts’ definition, its characters and components and its market-setup, a funded public and academic discussion remains difficult. This research approaches Mobility as a Service and its characteristics by investigating potential issues with Intelligent Mobility at large and subsequently translating the identified governance challenges into the discussion of Mobility as a Service. Through identification of core dimensions of the concept in the literature, an approach towards a focused definition is made and three market set-up scenarios are described. In relation to the Intelligent Mobility challenges, a public-private approach conceptualized as a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure is identified as desirable for transport system stakeholders and society at large, while providing vast opportunities for business innovation in mobility. The introduction of a collaborative ecosystem depicted by the concept was found to be highly dependent on stakeholders’ willingness to participate in the system. An exploratory multiple case study amongst transport system stakeholders and technology providers enabled the identification of platform and service aspects, amongst which ensured brand visibility, transparent algorithms but also authority involvement, that need to be met to achieve stakeholder willingness to participate in transport integration platforms, to enable a sustainable MaaS market setup.
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Acknowledgements
This report is the result of months of hard work and research in Amsterdam and beyond. It resembles the end of my studies at the University of Amsterdam and, for the time being, marks the end of my study career overall. It has been exciting and educational working on this research, which enabled me to personally grow into a very fascinating field of work that promises lots of exciting opportunities in the coming years of my career. I am very well aware that I would have never been able to do so without the help others and would like to use these lines to express my gratitude and appreciation.
Firstly, I would like to thank Prof. Peter van Baalen for his general support of this research but especially for accepting this somewhat exceptional topic for this masters’ graduation research project. This allowed me to connect my both fields of study and interest, the field of transport engineering/mobility and the digital business domain in this final research project. Secondly, I would like to express great gratitude to the interview partners of the various case organizations. Christian Lambert of DriveNow Belgium, Marius Macku and Joost Verdiesen of Uber’s Brussels office, Robert Jan ter Kuile of GVB and Ingrid de Bruin of Vervoerregio in Amsterdam, as well as Michael Kieslinger and Wolfgang Brückler of Fluidtime/Kapsch and Helmut Winhofer of Upstream in Vienna. Thank you very much for your participation, your valuable input to this research and the very interesting discussions. A special thanks goes to Ruud van der Ploeg, Secretary General of the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities, who provided me with valuable contacts and input but especially enabled me to engage in the overall discussion around Mobility as a Service at various meetings of the network and international conferences.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their never-ending, unconditional support that enabled me to pursue this study and go about a very good life. The same counts for my wonderful friends in the Netherlands, at home and beyond. Thank you for always having my back, for providing much appreciated advice, but most importantly, for always enjoying life with me. Special thanks in this regard goes out to Tom Veldhuis for his continuous and valuable involvement in the process of this research.
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Table of Content
Statement of Originality and Abstract ... 1
Acknowledgements ... 3
1. Introduction ... 7
1.1. PERSONAL MOTIVATION TO THIS STUDY ... 7
1.2. BACKGROUND AND RELEVANCE ... 8
2. Theoretical Orientation Part A: Developments in Mobility ...11
2.1. SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENTS AND THEIR IMPACT ON MOBILITY ... 11
2.2. THE INTELLIGENT MOBILITY TRANSITION... 15
2.3. INTELLIGENT MOBILITY GOVERNANCE ISSUES ... 17
3. Theoretical Orientation Part B: Towards Mobility as a Service ...21
3.1. DEMYSTIFYING MOBILITY AS A SERVICE (MAAS) ... 21
3.1.1. Mobility as a Service Definitions ... 22
3.1.2. Expected Impact of Mobility as a Service ... 26
3.2. THE MAASECOSYSTEM ... 31
3.3. ATRANSPORT DATA PLATFORM AS PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE ... 39
3.3.1. Relevance of a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure for Business ... 42
3.3.2. Towards a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure ... 45
4. Research Design and Methodology ...49
4.1. RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY,OBJECTIVE AND QUESTION ... 49
4.2. METHODOLOGY ... 50
5. Empirical Analysis ...55
5.1. CASE STUDIES:TRANSPORT SYSTEM STAKEHOLDERS ... 55
5.1.1. Case: Car-Sharing Organization DriveNow ... 55
5.1.2. Case: Ride-Hailing Organization Uber ... 60
5.1.3. Case: Public Transport Operator GVB ... 64
5.1.4. Case: Public Transport Authority Vervoerregio Amsterdam ... 68
5.2. CASE STUDIES:PROVIDERS OF PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY ... 72
5.2.1. Case: Platform Technology Provider Fluidtime ... 72
5.2.2. Case: Platform Technology Provider Upstream ... 78
5.3. CROSS CASE FINDINGS ... 83
6. Conclusions, Implications, Limitations & Recommendations ...95
6.1. CONCLUSIONS ... 95
6.2. IMPLICATIONS ... 99
6.2.1. Implications for the Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure Concept ... 99
6.2.2. Implications for the Mobility as a Service Literature ... 101
6.3. LIMITATIONS ... 103
6.4. RECOMMENDATIONS ... 104
6.4.1. Recommendations for Further Research ... 104
6.4.2. Recommendations for Authorities and Policy Makers ... 105
References ... 107
Appendix ... 111
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1. Introduction
After a short reflection on the personal motivation to this study, this first chapter seeks to provide a general introduction into the research topic by briefly reflecting on the phenomenon of mobility, the transport sector and the issues and challenges this vital aspect of modern society sees itself confronted with. The subsequent Chapters 2 and 3 will further contemplate on these aspects in more detail.
1.1. Personal Motivation to this Study
In recent years, a variety of sectors, from telecommunications and entertainment to banking, have experienced major disruption through advancement in technology and new, digitally enabled business models. The manner how people displace, however, was not faced with major changes since the introduction of the automobile. One most likely takes the privately-owned vehicle to get from origin to destination, from home to work, to reach friends, family and cultural happenings. Mobility, however, appears ripe for disruption and numerous concepts bundled under the common research umbrella of intelligent mobility are on the rise to make our transport system and cities smarter. The probably most trending topic in intelligent mobility currently evolves around the notion of Mobility as a Service (MaaS).
During my undergraduate study in the field of logistics, transport engineering and traffic management, I got acquainted with this concept while working on a European Horizon 2020 research project. I further investigated this concept from a pure transport perspective in my bachelor’s graduation research and continue to do so at EMTA (European Metropolitan Transport Authorities), a cooperation platform of the major European transport authorities.
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This previous research activity made me realize that, while several public organisations as well as private start-ups embrace the concept and explore viable business cases to put it to market, research is yet to investigate the variety of potential market structures of Mobility as a Service and their impact and value to both business and society.
I personally believe that the digital integration of the transportation market as promised by the MaaS concept could change mobility behaviour correspondingly to the manner other digitally enabled business models have changed the understanding of access to assets, consumption and ownership in a multitude of industries. Regarding the enabling and at the same time destructive impact of transportation on society and the environment, integration may positively contribute to a variety of urban and societal problems, making it a very relevant and exciting topic for investigation.
In this final thesis of my master’s study in Business Administration with specialization in Digital Business at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), I seek to approach this new and seemingly promising concept from a digital business perspective to enlarge my personal understanding of the concept and to contribute to the research stream around the facilitation of digitally induced business models in mobility.
1.2. Background and Relevance
The last decade has brought the introduction of technologies that either directly delivered or enabled significant disruptions across a variety of sectors (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). When considering the disruptive impact technologies like the smartphone, mobile internet and social media have had on banking, entertainment and telecommunications, it appears logical at last to expect similar impacts to a societal function as vital as mobility. Mobility, generally defined as the quality or state of being mobile or movable (Miriam Webster Dictionary), in this regard describes the opportunities to participate in movement and with that the opportunities to participate in societal activities that can be realized through a change of location (Ahrens, 2015).
Mobility, the basic enabler of modern society, however, has been relatively immune to large changes in its manner of functioning (Rooijakkers, 2016a). For most citizens in Europe and beyond, the private automobile remains the mode of choice for fulfilling their transportation needs. Transportation, describing the actual conveyance or displacement of persons and good from one place to another, has itself faced changes through technologies. So, have new propulsion systems, such as hybrid or electric engines, enabled more energy efficient transportation. Also comfort and safety of systems and vehicles increased over time (Rooijakkers, 2016a). There has furthermore been applications of digital technology, producing innovative business models such as car-sharing programs and ride-hailing services that are accessed through smartphone interfaces. However, these novelties have had minor effects on the overall understanding of the way people move around to go about their lives,
9 which has not developed much since the introduction and mass-adoption of the automobile. And as the lowing exploration will show, there is indeed a variety of factors and characteristics of the mobility market that limits the disruptive impact of such innovations significantly more than in other sectors, creating overall restraints to disruption in the industry.
Mobility as it is known today, however, does appear to be at the advent of a series of major changes that base on the devolution of silos, long standing path dependencies and borders between privately and publicly organized transportation (Flügge, 2016). Induced by recognized global phenomena and societal trends such as urbanization and changes in demography and catalysed by technological advancement, this expected diminishment of the present understanding of mobility and transportation is envisioned to make room for innovative solutions and business models that aim at serving our society’s needs for movement in a more intelligent way.
Sparked by these opportunities, a new thinking domain has evolved around the notion of Intelligent Mobility, describing innovative ideas that seek to enhance the effectiveness of the transportation system (Flügge, 2016). As the following theoretical orientation particulates, the Intelligent mobility includes a wide range of concepts from the physical integration of transport modes and inter-modal planning tools to digitalisation of infrastructure (Flügge, 2016). The most vividly discussed concept within this domain, that is argued to provide large potential for disruption is Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Mobility as a Service describes the seamless integration, combination and servitization of different public and commercial transport provisions and is argued to offer transport solutions that match with the travellers’ specific needs. The service is delivered through a digital interface that enables travellers to source and manage their transportation on demand. (Bos, Stevens, & Geier, 2018; Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016; Rooijakkers, 2016b)
Mobility as a Service is expected to enable full mobility under consideration of all available modes of transport without the need for personal transport asset ownership. The concept therefore appears to respond to a shift from ownership to access based consumption that is recognized in various other industries. An access rather than ownership-based perspective to mobility reduces long-term commitment to specific transport modes that found itself reinforced continuously through the purchase of private transport asset (e.g. an automobile). The reduction of long-term commitment is argued to address issues of habitual choice patterns that are argued to have led to negative externalities such as congestion and pollution (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). The coverage of a person’s entire mobility demand through an on-demand, digitally enabled, access-based MaaS service, promises to provide a mobility ‘freedom’ that was so far only available through the purchase of a private automobile.
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The MaaS concept is furthermore described to reduce such barriers and allow for new market entrants and more innovation and produce more relevant data on customer needs and requirements, enabling stakeholders of the system to create more efficient and effect services.
These expected advantages of Mobility as a Service explain the current hype-like the status of the concept amongst transport planners and policymakers. Despite this vast popularity, however, the current discussion of the concept appears very broad, lacks definitions and requires detail concerning the concepts’ components, characteristics and market-setup. This study seeks to shed light on these aspects by starting with an investigation of the current changes in mobility and the Intelligent Mobility domain subsequently moving into a more detailed investigation of the Mobility as a Service concept. The translation of the insights gained in the discussion of the transition towards Intelligent Mobility into the discussion of the Mobility as a Service concept enabled the identification of a market set-up scenario for MaaS that appears to yield benefits for both, transport service providers and society at large, while providing vast opportunities for the business domain and digital business approaches. This identified MaaS setup is described by the concept of a Transport Data Platform as Public. The mobility system, as system of systems (DeLaurentis, 2005) is constructed through the interplay of various stakeholders. A change to this interplay, especially the introduction of an ecosystem of collaboration, as described by the MaaS concept, must thus be considered vitally dependent on these system stakeholders and their willingness to participate. Explaining why the exploration of transport system stakeholder willingness to participate in a transport integration platform as described by the concept of a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure, is at the heart of this research.
The report is organized as follows: The subsequent chapter two provides a theoretical orientation on the impact of societal trends on transport and mobility and the resulting formation of Intelligent Mobility as both thinking domain and transition towards a more efficient mobility future. Chapter three continues the theoretical orientation and particulates on the Mobility as a Service concept, investigating the characteristics of the concept and potential set-up scenarios. Chapter three ends with a theoretical exploration of the concept of a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure, its potential impact on business and society and the aspects necessary for the establishment of such infrastructure. Chapter four provides the methodological considerations for the empirical investigation in this research and states the research objective and guiding question. The empirical analysis, that took the form of a multiple case study, and the produced findings are reported in chapter five. Chapter six concludes the research with suggesting hypotheses and elaborating on the implications and limitations of the study. Chapter six ends with a set of recommendations.
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2. Theoretical Orientation Part A:
Developments in Mobility
After the brief introduction into the phenomenon of mobility and the transport sector, this first part of the theoretical orientation seeks to investigate the particularities of the transport sector and how these are influenced by recognized societal developments. The chapter introduces the concept of Intelligent Mobility and seeks to understand issues with the development of Intelligent Mobility by considering mobility as a socio-technical-system.
2.1. Societal Developments and their Impact on Mobility
The movement of people from A to B, between different cities and from home to work, is an important component of modern society. And although digital communication possibilities enable virtual encounters, the overall mobility demand of our society is continuously increasing (Flügge 2016). Mobility as it is known today, however, is described to be at the advent of a major series of changes induced by societal megatrends and other recognized global phenomena. The following explores these trends, setting them into the context of mobility.The transport sector has traditionally focused around the provision of infrastructure for private fleets of vehicles (Datson, 2016) and the provision of relatively inflexible services (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Routes, stops and timetables of busses and trains are fixed, and customers are forced to organize their ways with such fixed service provision, often requiring separate planning of the journey to and from stops and stations. The varying manners in which transport options are available in a situation or location, in combination with the difficulty of understanding and accessing the available options, creates an overall complexity to which, for many users, the purchase of a private vehicle appears as only solution (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Long-term commitment to a transport mode in the form of purchase of
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long lasting assets (an automobile or an annual subscription to public transport for instance) reinforces this complexity and creates a lack of flexibility. People are used to the transport options they frequently employ but consider it significantly more difficult to undertake a journey with a different mode of transport, leading to habitual behaviour and constant choice patterns (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Rooijakkers, 2016b).
The resulting dependence on one mode of transport is argued to lead to the traveller’s inability to adapt to changed service pattern or changes in infrastructure (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016). Such lack of adaptability is not only to be noticed when longer-term changes are concerned but is especially significant in the case of shorter-term network disruptions like accidents. In times of disruptions, the easiest and most deployed option for travellers stuck in their habitual transport choices is to complain and wait in congestion, creating enormous negative externalities for society. If the transport system remains based on habitual behaviour, reinforced by long-term purchase commitments, encouraging citizens to travel more agile, flexibly and sustainably responsible will be most difficult (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Flügge, 2016b). Car drivers will not abandon driving and rather buy a new car instead of switching to more sustainable and efficient modes, as these systems are too complicated in use and too inflexible compared to driving. The private vehicle, thus, remains the habitual transport mode of choice for the majority of Europeans, accounting for more than 70% of the average of the passenger kilometres travelled by EU citizens (European Environment Agency, 2016).
When looking at various societal disruptions that are currently recognizable at a global scale, it appears that a number of these trends may also impact the design and provision of transport, creating a momentum for breaking habitual behaviour and long-term dependence in the way we source our transportation. Technology introduced in the last decade has directly delivered or induced disruption in a variety of sectors, with the smartphone being the probably single-most significant technology. Increased penetration of smartphones in combination with advancement in communication technology has enabled the development of new products and services, new business models, increased personalisation and extended application possibilities for data analytics (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016; Flügge, 2016b; Rooijakkers, 2016a). These new opportunities drive change in behaviour and attitudes, with citizens demanding greater flexibility in the way they work (e.g. part-time, home office days), the way they consume (e.g. streaming or overnight delivery at the doorstep), the way they have social encounters (e.g. social media enabled local collaboration) (Laprise, 2014). When extending this line of thinking to mobility, it appears only logical that citizens demand for more flexible journey choices, as well.
A variety of sectors, from telecommunications and entertainment to banking, have experienced major disruption to their decade-long prevalent industry structures. Prominent examples being Spotify with its subscription-based music access business model or the
13 video-on-demand counterpart Netflix, that use the possibility of internet streaming technology as direct distribution channel. These services have changed the way how millions of people enjoy and consume entertainment and culture and have had major impacts on the film and music industry (Swanson & Herzig, 2013). New technology-enabled business models can also be identified in the transport sector. Car-sharing services like DriveNow or car2go and ride-haling platforms like Uber or MyTaxi are widely recognised and often controversially discussed examples. The sector has, however, not yet seen far-reaching disruption to its longstanding service provisions (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016) and the overall manner how people displace must be considered to not have faced major changes since the introduction of the automobile (Rooijakkers, 2016a).
The literature describes a particular set of circumstances endowed in the transport system as reasons for this disruption avoidance of the sector. So, is the overall cost of infrastructure and the large amount of time for the development of new transport infrastructure described to reduce the disruption potential of small technology induced changes and service models in this sector. The transport sector is further characterised by relatively large and well-established organizations, that, in connection with the complex regulatory framework, create barriers and high cost of market entry for new ventures (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Frank W. Geels, 2012). Mobility, or better the mobility system, can furthermore be considered as socio-technical system, in which the interplay of value-sets, behaviour and technology establishes a dominant regime that tends to continuously reinforce itself (Docherty et al., 2017). This reluctance to disruption and the concept of a socio-technical system are further explored in subsequent chapter 2.2. While technology has already created new amenities in transportation that millions of travellers use every day (e.g. planning and routing applications, car and cycle-sharing, app-based taxi service), it has not yet led to major change by itself. However, when looking at the full range of societal changes beyond the technological advancement alone, it appears that the consequences following these megatrends may very well provide ground for a series of major changes in mobility, with technology being the catalyst that allows the transport sector to meet these challenges heads on (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014).
Large scale urbanization, as one of these developments, is increasing the pressure on transport networks worldwide, leading to congestion and rising levels of pollution in urban centres. Urbanization changes habits and market structures, requiring investment into more effective infrastructure and more efficient use of existing networks (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Space becomes a scarce resource in agglomerations, making capacity increases to current systems often impossible (Carlow, 2016). Climate change and the trend of growing awareness for environmental protection and sustainability resulting from vast resource depletion and accompanied pollution demands for regulatory action. With carbon-based transportation being responsible for a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and being one of the largest producers of toxins (European Environment Agency, 2016), aspects
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of fuel efficiency and new energy sources but also a need for behaviour change must be seen as major challenges for the sector (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Demographic developments such as population growth and aging societies pose a risk of isolation and lack of access to social amenities for an increasing proportion of citizens (Birg, 2011). Within this trend around demographic developments, the Miliarial generation with its changed value sets such as the increased importance of access to instead of ownership of goods and services, also provides opportunities. The rise of the collaborative economy that responds to this access over ownership consumption understanding is starting to change behaviours and attitudes (Lee, Chan, Balaji, & Chong, 2018). Fewer young people own a car, drive significantly less and if they drive they use shared or rental vehicles (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014).
Cities, authorities, academia and stakeholders of the transport system are described to have realized that it is essential to try out new and radical ideas to address these trends and have started to do so (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Polis network, 2017). There is increasing acknowledgment that new ideas and utilization of new technologies “can not only mitigate these trends but actually deliver major improvements in terms of more integrated transport, more capacity, or new and greater efficiencies” (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014, p.9). The urgency and realization of the need and possibility to change has led to an active debate in the sector and a new way of thinking in transportation that is grasped by the notion Intelligent Mobility. The following chapter particulates this Intelligent Mobility concept. Figure 1: Conceptualization of aspects influencing possibilities for disruption in mobility.
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2.2. The Intelligent Mobility Transition
Intelligent mobility is a new thinking domain describing innovative ideas that seek to enhance the effectiveness of the transportation system. It covers a wide range of concepts from the physical integration of different transport modes and inter-modal travel solutions to digitalisation of infrastructure (Flügge, 2016). The following seeks to describe the particularities of this novel approach to transportation and outlines the most promising concepts pursued within this new thinking paradigm.
Burrows & Bradburn (2014) describe Intelligent Mobility as a combination of system thinking, technology and data applied across the transport system to inform decision making and induce behavioural change. The authors define the notion around two central concepts, user centrality and integration, describing that “the user and their experience and requirements must be at the centre of mobility provision” (p.3) and “the system needs to be integrated and focused on the outcome of providing complete journeys as easily and efficiently as possible” (p.3). These aspects may explain the choice for the term “Intelligent Mobility” over “Intelligent Transport” as the entire process of displacement, from the awareness of a need, decision-making, mode choice, and the actual action of displacement is considered, in contrast to a siloed understanding of transport only relating to the latter of these aspects. The understanding presented by the authors appears to remain accurate when considering the most contemporary imaginings of Intelligent Mobility that outlines a vision where citizens have access to mobility as a personalized on demand service provided in a “seamless system of clean, green, efficient and flexible transport [modes]” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.2). Several components or core-concepts of Intelligent Mobility, that are common to various streams of literature depicting the future of transportation and mobility, can be identified. These areas are described to be already emerging or being subject to great discussion and R&D efforts. Figure 2 describes these core concepts of Intelligent Mobility. The development towards the state of Intelligent Mobility as outcome of the efforts undertaken in the contemporary debate, is described as Intelligent Mobility transition and is expected to reduce the overall cost for transportation and the need for additional infrastructure, as infrastructure and vehicles are utilized more efficiently. In their exploration of this transition, Docherty et al. (2017) use the concept of the Socio-Technical System (STS) to gain understanding on the way innovations, once established, break into systems of provision, like the mobility system. The STS concept, introduced (2005) and refined (2012) by Frank W. Geels, bases on an extant and dominant regime which comprises technology (e.g. automobiles), infrastructure (e.g. roads), knowledge, markets and user practices, cultural and symbolic meaning, policy and institutions, and the industries involved in the production and operation of the system (e.g car manufacturers). This conception illustrates the difficulties connected to change in the mobility system. Even the introduction of smaller changes (the authors use the example of the introduction of a speed limit) is “not simply a
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matter of engineering know-how, road design or policy preferences, but also a matter of negotiating social norms, customs, and practices” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.2). Approaching the mobility system as socio-technical system, hence, provides explanations for the mobility sectors’ long prevailing immunity to change. It is argued that for many decades, the existence of siloed approaches to managing transport and the prime status of the private automobile have “dominated thinking about the path dependence of planning and the fixity of the regime” (Low and Astle, 2009, as cited in Docherty et al., 2017, p.2).
The tremendous ongoing societal changes, the pressing societal issues and increasing recognition for a need for change in combination with vast advancement in enabling technologies, is described to diminish such path-dependency and distorts the borders between private and public transportation and silos in planning, creating real momentum for the Intelligent Mobility transition. This development is argued to be a “transition of equivalent reach and significance” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.1) as the mass adoption of motor vehicles, the automobility transition, which is considered “one of, if not the, major socio-economic transformation of the 20th century” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.1). To grasp the
impact of the automobility transition, it becomes necessary to consider the mobility system as a socio-economic system established through a “set of connected changes which reinforce each other but take place in several different areas, such as the economy, technology, institutions, behaviour, culture, ecology and belief systems” (Rotmans et Figure 2: Core Concepts of Intelligent Mobility as described by Dochtery et at. (2017)
17 al.,2001, p.16, as cited in Docherty et al., 2017, p.2) The real impact of the transition is therefore to be found in the way in which it “altered established ways of conducting everyday activities, which then changed the kinds of activities people undertook” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.2). In the automobility transition, this concerns the entire path of the manufactured object automobile becoming an icon for individual consumption and personal freedom, leading to the belief that suburban housing and shopping malls resemble the desirable life, which induced the overall change of the structure of cities, which in turn, continues to reinforce the predominance of the automobile. A similar development is, thus, argued as result of the Intelligent Mobility transition, which, as it evolves, presents new mobility opportunities that will alter the way everyday activities are conducted. This reconfigures the systemic elements that produce mobility outcomes, such as land use patterns, employment and housing, which again reinforce the change.
The following chapter explores potential threats connected to this far-reaching transition in mobility and seeks to establish the current state of the debate around the active shaping of this transition and the need for public sector involvement.
2.3. Intelligent Mobility Governance Issues
The previous chapter introduced the Intelligent Mobility transition, describing its impact as potentially as significant as the mass adoption of automobiles. The following explores issues connected to the Intelligent Mobility transition as it is currently debated and describes a set of criteria that, when taken into account, are expected to steer the development in a way that is societally acceptable or even necessary to preserve public value.
Based on the consideration of the potential wide-reaching impacts and consequences of the Intelligent Mobility transition, it becomes crucial to understand the role of public commitments and necessary changes in policy necessary to fully comprehend the transition and account for its implications. There appears to be a sense of urgency observing the public domain’s historic reaction to the automobility transition in the last century. It took several decades for governments and authorities to address the “challenge of managing the car and the profound impacts of automobility on the economy, the environment and society” (Docherty et al., 2017), with the negative externalities of this transition (pollution, road safety, resource and space depletion) arguably still not being accounted for properly. Additionally, the Intelligent Mobility transition must currently be considered to be primarily led by the technology sector, which has a profound interest in selling the products that underpin this transition. It is argued, that certain players may have an interest in inducing mobility rather than reducing the number of journeys for profit generation reasons. This interest is at odds with the very optimistic visions for society proclaimed by the very same players. Docherty et al. (2017) argue that “only a naïve view would see the producer interests of a sector estimated as being worth 1.0 to 1.5 trillion US dollars by 2025 as inevitably aligned
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with the wider, more complex needs of society as a whole” (p.2). To pre-empt a repetition of the experiences made during the automobility transition and to let the Intelligent Mobility transition evolve in a way that creates more rather than less public value, the public domain needs to understand and evaluate the potential implications of certain measures. It is thereby of crucial importance to not only consider such implications at the introduction phase, when only a very small proportion of early adopters makes regular use novel measures and services, but to consider the potential impacts when the majority, rather than the minority, of users takes on these novel systems (Docherty et al., 2017).
Docherty et al. (2017) argue that the Intelligent Mobility transition need to be accompanied by a far-reaching transition in the governance of mobility. The authors describe four challenges that need to be addressed to reach effective governance of Intelligent Mobility. The authors argue that the transition as pursued today clearly echoes other transport market developments, which have tended towards conditions of monopoly. Effective regulation, thus, needs to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and maintain a level playing field that allows for the access of initiatives of any size. Additionally, clear regulation is needed concerning the allocation of streets space and the wider public realm to commercial organisations. The authors describe this issue on the example of car-sharing. Even the smallest “smart innovation such as organised car sharing requires re-negotiation of the relationship between state and various private interests, with the state allocating public space for commercial operators to run business, leaving others to deal with the externalities and opportunity costs”. These apparently minor issues can have profound consequences when considering the described uptake of these systems into mainstream application. While a relatively care-free allocation of public space to commercial organizations appears harmless in early phases of the transition, such provision could very well become irreversible given the potential power of these commercial players and the rapid establishment of new norms during the fast-paced mainstream uptake of the transition.
In the state of Intelligent Mobility, Data must be considered the most valuable commodity because it allows for the adequate matching of supply and demand and thus influences Figure 3: Four Challenges of Effective Governance of Intelligent Mobility, as described by Docherty et al. (2017).
19 potential surplus to be made by commercial organizations. It is argued that in the current industry-led pursuit of Intelligent Mobility, the role of government simply resembles the creation of conditions for technological innovation to occur with commercial parties, demanding the open availability of any sort of transport data that is in the possession of the public domain. Without effective regulation, such neo-liberal approaches create the risk of data and information symmetry at the expense of governments and authorities. The state is argued to be “already losing its position as principle source of knowledge about travel patterns on the network” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.8). The authors suggest that, especially in the longer-term with the introduction of automated vehicles, data asymmetries could jeopardize the public value led governance of mobility and suggest a clear approach to data sharing which protects the public interest.
The creation of a non-discriminatory distribution of service delivery is described as key element of public value led governance of mobility. According to authors, the public domain needs to assert effective economic regulation that outweighs the varying degree of spatial uptake of mobility services. “As intensive utilisation of vehicles is at the heart of the business model of usership rather than ownership, it is unsurprising to see these services predominantly located in central areas or in particularly dense nodes” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.8.). It is in these dense areas where public transport service can usually generate profits that are in many cases redistributed in the service network to support less occupied and unprofitable lines, which are considered necessary from a social and societal viewpoint. Economic regulation needs to assure that the Intelligent Mobility transition does not only take place in the very central cities, where variety in transport possibilities is usually high already.
When considering that the Intelligent Mobility transition will lead to a situation where people own and drive less automobiles, it becomes apparent that governance needs to address the question of how the mobility system of the future is paid for as tax revenues from energy taxes are expected to decline with the evolvement of the transition. Here, a more commercial approach to taxation and value sharing may provide opportunities. Providers of new mobility services “are likely to use time varying pricing structures anyway as well as relying on increasingly sophisticated georeferencing platforms” (Docherty et al., 2017, p.8) and with this provide both the technology and the political cover to a change in the way infrastructure usage is charged for. Most challenging in this regard might be the transition phase itself where mixed fleets of private and shared vehicles will make use of the networks. The review of the literature on Developments in Mobility has shown that technological advancement and societal mega-trends around urbanization, demography and climate change provide ground for change in the mobility sector, that was long protected from innovation due its socio-technical system character that favours the currently dominant regime, in this case the private automobile. This change is described by the notion of
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Intelligent Mobility and the literature suggest the transition towards Intelligent Mobility to have similar impacts to our society as the mass adoption of motor vehicles several decades ago. While the transition appears to be at an early stage, the trends of the currently mainly producer-led transition seems to be at odds with wider societal goals, despite the bright visions of the Intelligent Mobility future being proclaimed by the various players in the sector. Given the pace of technological innovation, Docherty et al. (2017) argue that a critical juncture for the governance of Intelligent mobility has been reached and that policy makers need to be made aware of the potentially small window for intervention before new dominant regimes of new mobility become widely established.
After the theoretical orientation on the wider notion of Intelligent Mobility in this section, the following section continues this theoretical exploration in a more target manner, investigating the Mobility as a Service concept that is described as core-concept of the Intelligent Mobility transition.
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3. Theoretical Orientation Part B:
Towards Mobility as a Service
After having introduced the concept of Intelligent Mobility in broad terms, this chapter seeks to further contemplate one of the core dimensions of Intelligent Mobility, the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept. In the following, the difficulties connected to a definition of this concept, its potential impacts and the characteristics of its ecosystem are investigated. The concept of a Transport Data Platform as Public Infrastructure is introduced and its relevance to business research elaborated on.
3.1. Demystifying Mobility as a Service (MaaS)
Mobility as a Service, or MaaS, as core concept of Intelligent Mobility, is described to have the potential to address the transport and mobility sector’s current and future challenges and vastly gains popularity amongst researchers and practitioners. MaaS is described as a novel approach to mobility that can change the overall understanding of access to transportation and reduce the necessity of ownership in mobility. Mobility is expected to become more flexible and break with habitual behaviour, which may in turn falter the predominant role of the private automobile. (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016; Rooijakkers, 2016a)
Despite an ever-increasing amount of initiatives and pilots engaging with MaaS, the notion Mobility as a Service appears to not yet have a commonly accepted definition, neither is it unambiguous what aspects form the MaaS service. It is even argued that the novel, promising character and increasing popularity of the term leads to situations where the term Mobility as a Service is misinterpreted, equalized with any sort of servitization fitting the mobility domain and misused for the branding of new transport products (Flügge, 2016a). Such misinterpretation can also be found in the academic domain. So use Belletti & Bayen
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(2017) in their recent study on privacy preserving fleet management systems the companies Uber and Lyft as examples of Mobility as a Service companies. These organizations are, at least in their current development, arguably ‘simply’ ride-hailing facilitators, who use servitization to disrupt the taxi business model by providing taxi-like services through a digital interface.
In the recent years, Mobility as a Service appears to slowly evolve from such a container term for service enhanced transport offerings into a tangible concept describing a potential way for the organization of the interplay of the various stakeholders of the transport system at large. A commonly accepted definition of the notion or an agreement on the aspects that shape the concept, however, is still lacking. It is even argued that the lack of a clear definition may even be necessary at this point where the level of innovation around the notion of MaaS is high, with aspects, actors and roles of the concept changing frequently (Holmberg, Collado, Sarasini, & Williander, 2015).
This observation is in line with a discussion paper on Mobility as a Service published by Polis, the European Cities and Regions Network. The paper is aimed at providing clarity on what MaaS is and what roles local authorities should have concerning the development of the concept. In this paper, it is argued that no one definition of MaaS could be identified (Polis network, 2017). According to the Polis, some use the term to denote a wider vision for shared mobility, others use it more liberally to describe any sort of new transport product (e.g. car-sharing) or transport related service (e.g. route-planning app), while again others seek to define the term on the basis of the more advanced approaches to MaaS, which use the term for their systems that enable planning, booking and payment of transport services (Polis network, 2017). In their attempt to answer the question if and why MaaS is different to what is available today, Polis joins in with the last-mentioned interpretation of MaaS, seeing it as a form of integration service enabled by means of digital technology and offered through smartphone applications.
3.1.1. Mobility as a Service Definitions
Following the way of thinking about Mobility as a Service of Polis allows for the identification of several, aligning approaches towards a definition of the notion in the literature. Also, the discussion around the concept’s main dimensions or features became a lot clearer through recent publications. The following paragraphs seek to provide an overall understanding of the MaaS concept by juxtaposing those aligning definitions and summarizing the state of the discussion on the concept’s components and service features.
Already in 2014, advisory firm ATKINS created a comprehensive paper describing the effects of societal trends on mobility, in which Mobility as a Service is described as a win-win for society and users (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). According to their description, it is the ability of every user to choose the way to undertake a journey in connection with the flexibility to alter the chosen mode and route while travelling, that is at the heart of MaaS. To enable
23 these possibilities, the various modes of transport and all data connected to transportation will need to be unified and presented to the user in an integrated tool, which also needs to unify the payment dimension (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). These considerations are the basis for the following definition presented by ATKINS.
UK-based technology and innovation centre Transport Systems Catapult, introduces Mobility as a Service in 2016 as “a new concept that offers consumers access to a range of vehicle types and journey experiences” (Datson, 2016, p.9) and further argues that the customer is central to the concept, which will provide services matching the individual customer preferences and needs. MaaS is described to offer any type of travel option, using any form or combination of private or public modes of transport. To reach a definition of Mobility as a Service, Datson (2016) decomposes the term into its two components ‘Mobility’ and ‘as a Service’. The ‘as a Service’ business model is particularly known from the IT sector, where companies started using enhanced internet and communication technology to provide service enhanced products. A well-known example being Software as a Service offerings. The term mobility, in contrast to transport, is argued to implicate that not only the actual way of carrying out a movement but also the person behind these demands for movement is considered. The technology component in connection with overall user-centricity, thus, provide the grounds for the following definition proposed by the Transport Systems Catapult.
The definition provided by Transport Systems Catapult aligns broadly with the definition of Mobility as a Service provided by MaaS.global, which is one of the currently most elaborate initiatives towards MaaS. For MaaS.global, the use of a digital interface offered by a service provider to provide mobility services meeting customer’s total mobility needs are at the heart of their proposed definition, which is considered the first comprehensive approach towards a MaaS definition (Jittrapirom et al., 2017).
“The provision of transport as a flexible, on-demand service that integrates all types of mobility opportunities and presents them to the user in a completely integrated manner to them to get from A to B as easily as possible.”
MaaS Definition of Atkins (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014)
“Using a digital interface to source and manage the provision of transport related service which meet the mobility requirements of a customer.”
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Several organizations and authorities approaching the MaaS concept have organized themselves in the MaaS-Alliance, an international federation that describes itself as a public-private partnership for the creation of a common approach to Mobility as a Service (MaaS Alliance, 2017). In their 2017 white paper, the MaaS-Alliance provides the following definition of the concept.
While these definitions describe the wider character and the claim of the MaaS concept, it remains rather unclear which aspects or dimensions constitute the MaaS concept, still leaving room for high ambiguity. In their research approach addressing this exact question Jittrapirom et al. (2017) attempt to define MaaS on the basis of the concepts’ core characteristics. Their research based on an intensive literature study and produced a list that suggest nine such core aspects to Mobility as a Service, which are depicted in figure 4.
“MaaS is a mobility distribution model that deliver users’ transport needs through a single interface of a service provider. It combines different transport modes to offer a tailored mobility package, like a monthly mobile phone contract.”
MaaS Definition of MaaS.Global (Hietanen, 2014)
“Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is the integration of various forms of transport services into a single mobility service accessible on demand.”
MaaS Definition of the MaaS Alliance (MaaS Alliance, 2017)
25 Jittrapirom et al. (2017) describe certain aspects of this extensive list with relative detail. For example, when tariff options are concerned, MaaS provisions will need to enable unified payment for the various transport modes integrated in the system. According to the authors, “pay-as-you-go” schemes, charging the user according to the effective use of the system, and “mobility packages” that bundle certain amounts of usage per mode on a monthly payment basis, analogue to the bundling nature of mobile phone contracts, can be considered as tariff options. What concerns demand orientation, the authors describe MaaS as a user-centric paradigm that provides transport options based on a user’s journey specific needs. Next to generic mode characteristics defined by price, speed and comfort, MaaS could incorporate other preferences such as sustainable travel or mobility impairments, may these be due to a physical handicap or luggage to be carried on the journey (Jittrapirom et al., 2017).
The digital tool described by the authors, which may be a mobile app or web interface, delivers the service and needs to enable integrated intermodal travelling. Five overall service aspects could be identified that are necessary for such integrated intermodal trips, namely planning, booking, travel support, plan alteration and payment (Bos et al., 2018). Figure 5 further particulates these necessary service aspects. The digital interface may furthermore provide additional services, such as feedback, travel history reporting, weather forecasting, and calendar integration (Jittrapirom et al., 2017).
The definitions of Mobility as a Service presented above and the aspects of the concept identified by Jittrapirom et al. (2017) have a great degree of synergy and further enrich one another along the lines of several major dimensions that define the concept. These dimensions are the on-demand nature of the service, its basis on the direct and journey specific customer needs and preferences, the existence of a service provider, the use of a digital interface, the seamless integration of different transport modes, and the integrated sourcing and management of intermodal transportation. Through juxtaposing these commonly described concept dimensions, the MaaS concept can be made apparent in two Figure 5: Service aspects of an intermodal travel service.
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sentences. This two-sentence definition shall provide as working definition in this research and is furthermore suggested for the continuing academic discussion.
In Mobility as a Service, service providers offer mobility solutions through seamless integration of different public and commercial transport provisions according to the general preferences and journey specific needs of the user. The service is delivered through a digital interface that permits trip planning, reservation, on-route support, payment and trip alteration, which enables customers to source and manage their total mobility needs on demand.
The concept of Mobility as a Service shows great alignment with other conceptual approaches of Intelligent mobility, particularly with the combined mobility concept, which becomes apparent from the definition of combined mobility provided by UITP, the International Union of Public Transport. Combined mobility, however, has a clear public transport focus, describing the integration of transport services to compliment public transport offerings. MaaS, in contrast, bases on a global integration of services without a directly apparent hierarchy.
“Combined mobility – meaning offering integrated mobility services with public transport as a backbone complemented by other modes such as car-sharing, bike-sharing, taxis, cycling and on demand services – is the only mobility solution able to compete with the private car in terms of flexibility, convenience and cost-structure” (UITP, 2016).
3.1.2. Expected Impact of Mobility as a Service
As identified in chapter one, transport mode choice is based on habitual choices which induce long-term commitment to certain behaviour through the purchase of transport assets, such as private automobiles. This leads to a lack of flexibility and a lack of the ability to adjust to change and unexpected disruptions. This furthermore creates barriers for the uptake of more sustainable mobility. Mobility as a Service is argued to address these issues while providing benefits for transport system stakeholders and society. The following seeks to discuss these overall benefits but also negative impacts the concept may render.
A major characteristic of Mobility as a Service, as mentioned in the previous chapter, is the integration of all different modes of transport. This seamless integration of all existing transport services may succeed in getting the customers to their destination using a much more adaptive and flexible, multimodal manner (Dutson, 2017). Customer demand is defined based on general travel preferences of the customers, such as speed, convenience, comfort and cost and can be further refined with journey specific needs (e.g. in case of travelling with luggage or children buggies). This specific customer demand is then matched with network capacity and real-life system performance to calculate optimized travel options through mixing and matching the available modes of transport, meeting the customers’ demand and considering the real life traffic situations (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson,
27 2016). The flexibility that is to be gained through this more data driven sourcing of transportation is argued to yield benefits for all stakeholders of the transport sector and society at large.
On a micro level, Customers will come to enjoy a flexible transport system that increasingly supports their lifestyle requirements. The seamless integration and combination of all different modes of transport is expected to serve mobility needs in a way that no single mean, other than the privately-owned automobile with all its negative externalities, was able to serve. MaaS as a true substitute has therefore the potential to break the transport sourcing process based on habitual behaviour and purchase of transport assets, that led to long-term commitment, lock-in and inflexibility (Jittrapirom et al., 2017). The decoupling of mobility from the necessity of transport assets ownership will make the actual cost for mobility more transparent, may reduce sunk cost and provide for cost saving for travellers (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Additionally, customers may profit from an overall increased level of service in transportation, as MaaS allows for competition between transport products at the journey level (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014). Customers are offered the opportunity to choose from a set of modes and mode combinations the one option that best matches their requirements for the journey in question.
On a meso level from the sector perspective, MaaS provides an unprecedented possibility to access new passenger markets that would otherwise not be interested in the services of transport service providers, due to habitual mode choice behaviour. The tapping of previously unreachable customer markets secures passenger growth and allows for additional revenue growth opportunities (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016). The journey-to-journey bidding for customers will lead to healthy competitive pressure that will be approached with innovation and increasing levels of service by engaged transport operators. Operators and service providers, as well as policymakers and public authorities will be able to make such improvements to products, services, infrastructure and other aspects of the transport system more targeted and effectively as a result of improved insights in transport demand and customer needs (Datson, 2016). These insights spring from the increasing availability of integrated transport data at the journey level. Through this journey based approach, MaaS may also provide possibilities for incentivisation of sustainable travel or the targeted subsidization of user-groups in need and preferable mode choices on a certain route (Burrows & Bradburn, 2014; Datson, 2016; Holmberg et al., 2015; Jittrapirom et al., 2017).
In a macro perspective, the increase of flexibility and reduction of long-term commitment and habitual transport sourcing contribute to a variety of wider social, economic and environmental policy goals. This potential contribution is based on the recognition of transport and mobility as vital function of society, providing the means for everybody to go about their daily lives (Rooijakkers, 2016b). With mobility as such means to an end, Burrows
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& Bradburn (2014) argue that if MaaS succeeds to bring behavioural change in mobility, it can also deliver greater benefits to society rather than individuals and the sector alone. These wider societal benefits of MaaS are depicted in Figure 6. According to the authors, MaaS can improve the access to amenities such as health and education, employment, culture and other social institutions for everybody, as mobility, necessary to reach such opportunities, becomes less dependent on asset ownership. This reduces economic isolation, improves inclusion and provides everybody with the possibility to reach services and markets. MaaS furthermore allows for more efficient use of existing infrastructure and capacity through more intelligent matching of demand and supply, while reducing negative externalities of transport connected to predominant and inefficient private-care use, such as occupancy of the urban street scape, congestion and vehicle emissions.
It is important to note, that Mobility as a Service by itself does not create transport capacity but rather integrates existent transport modes and mobility provisions. In places where there is no capacity or very limited capacity of various modes of transport, MaaS may not render these expected impacts and may likely not be implementable at all. This understanding interferes with a perception that describes MaaS as a solution to rural mobility deprivation and resulting exclusion. MaaS alone does not appear to have the potential to bring change to such often very automobile dependent and otherwise hardly accessible areas.
29 Apart from this common misconception, the potential benefits of Mobility as a Service appear realistic and widely accepted, judging by common acceptance of these potential benefits during conferences and in the body of literature on the topic. The introduction of the concept, may, however also have negative consequences regarding societal goals. The flexibility created through MaaS may lead to traffic induction, meaning the overall amount of journeys may increase (Datson, 2016), which could even offset potential efficiency gains. Other consequences could be a mode-shift away from public transportation. (Datson, 2016). The early adopters of MaaS are likely to be citizens that use public transport as their main mode of transport, as these travellers already make use of intermodal trips due to the very nature of public transport being a consolidated transport system that does not stop at everyone’s doorstep. A MaaS offering would reduce habitual lock-in into public transport for these users, who may find themselves making use of taxis and shared services more frequently. If MaaS fails to newly attract citizens, that are not currently using public transport in their mobility to offset this potential dilution of public transport patronage, overall efficiency of the transport system could be reduced and a reduction of negative externalities of transport would be marginal at best.
This dis-incentivization of sustainable trips is one of the potential risks the Polis network describes in their MaaS discussion papers. The induction of a potential shift from active modes (walking and cycling) to individual motorized modes is mentioned additionally in this regard (Polis network, 2017). Polis furthermore describes a risk that private sector bodies may deliver functions that are traditionally concentrated at public authorities, which could lead to a potential disconnect between users, transport operators and authorities (Polis network, 2017). These public or contracted bodies, however, need to have contact with users or at least gain insights into customer demand in order to adjust and develop services and infrastructure accordingly.
Polis argues that MaaS is particularly prone to these risks and consequences in the case of a purely commercial pursuit of the concept. The network, therefore, argues that public sector involvement, or oversight at last, is of vital importance to define a MaaS environment that allows the concept to deliver on its potential benefits (Polis network, 2017).
Empirical Evidence on the Impact of MaaS
Due to the concept’s novelty and the fact that first attempts to large scale implementation have not or only very recently taken place, empirical evidence around the effects of Mobility as a Service are limited. Nevertheless, the literature provides for some empirical data from a pilot project in Vienna, Austria, and field trials in Gothenburg, Sweden, that generally support the expected impacts discussed previously.
In a field operational test carried out in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the winter and spring of 2013/2014, 70 households were provided access to a private sector platform that integrated the general public transport provisions in the city, as well as bike-sharing, car-sharing, car
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rental and taxis. The platform, referred to as UbiGo, describes itself as “a charter company for everyday travel” and reaches to households, providing mobility through bundle subscriptions, where users could select the necessary volumes per transport mode on a monthly basis.
During the field operational trial, the 70 households were subscribed to the UbiGo service as paying household customers, however, after the field trial, purchased but not utilized transport volumes were reimbursed, which must be considered as a derogation from a real-life situation. Furthermore, have several, car-owning households been selected to not use their car during the trial period. These households received a compensation to offset the cost of insurance and parking of this automobile. Before, during and after the trial, motivations, expectations and evaluations concerning the services were investigated.
The Viennese smile project, that brought together public organizations, transport operators, technology providers and government agencies, developed a prototype of a multimodal mobility platform for Vienna and essentially the whole of Austria. In a one-year piloting period which started with several phases of internal testing within the consortium, over 1.000 external individual users intensively utilized the smile application that integrated urban and regional public transportation, car-sharing, bike sharing and taxi services into one platform. At several multimodal interchanges in the city and wider region of Vienna, designated parking for car-sharing with charging infrastructure and the respective vehicles were installed to reflect the digital integration at important physical locations. The mobility services offered were displayed according to their normal brand images and the general terms and prices for the usage of the numerous services was not changed.
In the Gothenburg trial, 97% of the users stated to want to continue the service. 93% stated to recommend the service to friends and family. Trial participants were found to make considerably more use of car-sharing services, which showed the highest increase of about 200%. Also, public transport use increased substantially. Amongst participants who had a private automobile at their disposal during the trial, private car use decreased with 50%. Overall, 97% of the users who had experienced travel behaviour change stated that they were satisfied with these changes.
