Everything in the market is a matter of supply and demand.
It was almost too good to be true. Go to work, go home in the evening after the cinema or visit your family with one app. Choose a means of transport that suits you best at that time: bicycle, scooter, bus, taxi or car. With the push of a button it would become clear which transport cards, season tickets or taxis are needed. You plan, book and pay for your trip with one app: that is Mobility as a Service (MaaS).
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, after approval from Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen and State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven, and the regions invested 20 million for pilot projects in which the passenger had to be central. Together they started seven regional pilots and after four years we can now draw up the balance.
drivers
MaaS not only had to offer convenience and customization for the traveler, but also opportunities for carriers and governments. And yet that is not quite the feeling that remains in the market. Until today, it is far from their bed for many sectors. MaaS, what are you doing with it? What does it bring me? How does it work? What will it do for my business? Where do I join? Why am I not hearing about it? In short, these are all questions that many entrepreneurs have. And we're not even talking about the traveler, because for most citizens, MaaS is a 950 kilometer long river in Western Europe that rises in France and flows through Belgium and the Netherlands. Also known as the point in the south behind which Carnival enjoys fame every year.
Seven regional pilots will start in 2019: Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Limburg, Groningen/Drenthe, Twente and Utrecht/Leidsche Rijn. The pilots had to. take up to two to three years. Pilots that had to be regional, but would soon be rolled out nationally. The reality has changed because for many of the participating partners today it is a struggle for survival. The potential gain from MaaS is large, but we are still not seeing it. Those who do benefit from MaaS are companies specialized in organizing online consultations, meetings, project start-ups, conferences or trade fairs. That sector knows better than anyone how to turn market ideas into hard cash.
"MaaS allows us to better manage policy goals, such as sustainability, congestion reduction, rural accessibility, social inclusion and travel for the disabled."
The then Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment Melanie Schultz van Haegen once wrote that a new era in mobility has clearly begun. We are conducting large-scale tests with communication systems between road and vehicle. And at large events, smart traffic management is used. We must distinguish between Smart Mobility and Maas. With regard to the first, we can conclude that innovations can be successfully implemented. In order to be able to safely introduce self-driving vehicles on our public roads, legal aspects still need to be carefully considered and worked out. Much has been set in motion, many trials are still ongoing and there are still many questions to be answered in the field of legislation and regulations. We are in a transition phase where we are carefully building a new era on our roads. This is a continuous process with a lot of dynamics.
mass rental
Of course we have achieved success in recent years. All travel costs are now on one invoice and there is a jumble of mobility cards on the market. A future-proof revenue model of smart companies that unburden employers. MaaS is using mobility rather than owning it. And we see that everywhere. You literally stumble over MaaS on every street corner or sidewalks that are way too narrow. Everywhere there are green, blue and red MaaS objects waiting for the consumer who can unlock the shared bicycle or scooter with his app.
If the consumer does not come to the entrepreneur, we still bring our services almost to the door of the consumer. We also call that MaaS, so no annoyance about the pollution in the street, the inconvenience or the requisition of public space for mass rental, which we will now call MaaS. Mobility service providers have a commercial interest in having their mobility centered on busy, popular and thus profitable places. Because the more trips a shared car or shared scooter makes, the more often the cash register rings.
MaaS can be public transport, the shared car, shared bicycle, shared scooter, taxi or a mix of means of transport. Everything in the market is a matter of supply and demand. There is therefore a real chance that during busy periods the service will be more expensive than during off-peak hours. That is not a MaaS principle, but rather the controversial Uber method that no consumer is interested in because it is not transparent.
Nevertheless, we must consider the MaaS initiatives that are now conquering the market. Not one app to choose what suits you best in terms of mobility at a given moment, but a wide range of apps. They all have the same goal and they all know the associated money-consuming marketing budgets. Would you like to try a shared car, e-bike, e-scooter, public transport or a combination of all of these? Gaiyo particularly suitable. Shared cars, shared scooters, shared bicycles, public transport and parking plan, book and pay with this app.
All forms of transport together in one clear place. That's the purpose of MaaS apps and there are plenty like GOAN! en Amazon Mobility. The latter focuses mainly on making commuting more sustainable and started in the Zuidas, while GOAN! is aimed at traffic in Twente.
taxi
Notably absent from MaaS providers are the taxi companies. Couple of exceptions aside, there is still no room within the sector to embrace MaaS innovation. Despite the branch association Royal Dutch Transport (KNV) being the basis of the MaaS Lab, taxi companies, so especially freelancers specialized in street taxi, are no match. However, the combined forces of carriers are available. the app dextr connects local carriers in a number of regions in the Netherlands with consumers and the app goes internationally Pitane Arrive. This links consumers across borders in the Netherlands and Belgium. The main reason that MaaS is not successful within the taxi sector is probably due to the communication and enthusiasm. Business ignorance. Perhaps there is a task here for the MaaS Lab, which has its financing from the same sector.
Maas Global
The most compelling MaaS example is whim. This is a Finnish initiative of Maas.global that actually started offering travel bundles in Finland. With such a bundle, travelers can travel freely locally by public transport, supplemented with other travel options. MaaS Global is the world's first true MaaS operator and went on to make the biggest change in transportation history since cars became universally affordable. Whim, the first comprehensive MaaS solution commercially available on the market, offers its users all city transportation services in one step, allowing them to travel wherever and whenever they want using public transportation, taxis, bicycles, cars and other options, all under one subscription.
conclusion
The problem has only increased for consumers with the advent of MaaS. Which app should he download and why has no national MaaS application been made with the 20 million from the pilot projects? On top of that comes perhaps the biggest problem at the moment. The unreliability of public transport and the national staff shortage at transport companies, which have made work rosters unreliable, are downsides. What good is a well-functioning MaaS application in which links fail or are unreliable? Fortunately, there are scooters and bicycles on every corner of the street. But for that you have to download a series of other apps such as Felix, Go Sharing of Check. MaaS is still no push of a button.
