About the session
The rapid emergence of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) into the transport sector’s lexicon has brought with it an air of expectation that suggests a future mobility revolution. This presentation focusses on the user perspective and offers a deepening of socio-technical thinking about MaaS and its prospects. An examination of what is understood to date about MaaS highlights the concept of MaaS as a ‘mobility system beyond the private car’ and the new centrality of a ‘mobility operator’ layer in that system. The contention is put forward that MaaS is neither new or revolutionary but is rather an evolutionary continuation in terms of transport integration. Emerging from an era of unimodal travel information systems becoming multimodal and then integrated multimodal information services, MaaS is about adding seamless booking, payment and ticketing to the integration offer.
A taxonomy of MaaS analogous to that for levels of vehicle automation is put forward. This taxonomy, designed around the user perspective, concerns operational integration (as well as informational and transactional integration). Drawing upon a synthesis of ‘pre-MaaS’ insights concerning choicemaking for travel and the role of information, the presentation provides a MaaS behavioural schema regarding choicemaking and the adoption of MaaS. It will conclude by highlighting a number of considerations from a user perspective that could play a significant part in determining the future effectiveness of ‘latest generation’ MaaS offerings.
