Years passed, but nothing seemed to change. The rapid influx of people into urban areas created traffic growth. It results in air pollution, congestion, and emissions. Situations have even gone worse as industrialisation takes its course in fast pacing.
Poor working and living conditions, low wages, and forced child labour became widespread predicaments. Solving these concerning issues will need uprooting or fixing the cause – urbanisation. Is mobility as a service (MaaS) a solution?
MaaS and Its Impact On the future
Enforcing mobility will give a decent chance to start the reformation. Both individuals and organisations will benefit because the freedom to move paves the way for more output and creativity.
Mobility as a service (MaaS) is a revolutionary transportation-enabled platform that is user-centric. It integrates a number of transport-related services, public and private-owned, into one digital channel. All transactions are processed digitally using their smartphones. The main objective is to give the users a seamless travel flow from booking to arriving at their destinations.
The main provider of this unified services platform comes from the public transport sector. But it will be participated by the private owners. The effect will be a decent decrease in the appearance of private cars on the streets. They only travel when a user books a trip that they can serve.
If this creative network of transport services on demand is well-supported, daily routines will be pushed to the next level.
The Development of MaaS: Quick Overview
The concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) started to gain widespread interest only in recent years. Its development, however, was already switched on years back as early as 1996.
MaaS received acceptance in Sweden, and a trial started for six months. About 83 subscriptions from 195 people were made from November 2013 to April 2014. When the trial was discontinued, many people wanted it to continue for real.
The rebirth of its development was influenced by a proposal discussed by the congress in Helsinki, Finland. The emphasis on making the city a MaaS-oriented sector was heavily tackled and eventually implemented. The platform consists of public transport, taxis, bike-share, car-share, and car rental modes. Users can pay either by subscription plan or pay-as-you-do transaction.
Finland was the first country that catered open market for MaaS. The implementation of this concept decently gained more focused attention in the year 2018. This platform continues to operate in different parts of the world’s cities. It is held with a much positive and flair expectation that it will resolve the multifold effects of congestion.
Based on the road safety report by WHO, out of the 316,000 global road traffic death tolls, roughly 20% befall South and Southeast Asia. A huge portion of deaths come from the group of motorcyclists. In low-middle-income countries, heavy traffic turns motorcycles into the most dominant type of transportation.
How does MaaS work?
MaaS stages computerisation and an enhanced transportation arrangement. It includes methods that are involved with finding, booking, paying, and door-to-door multimodal modes of transportation.
Its operation is not only meant for individuals. For example, organisations can take advantage of it, such as fleet managers.
- Reduce insurance expenses for the organisation’s fleet of vehicles.
- Lower the cases of road accidents.
- Minimise the likelihood of committing infringements
- Recover the costs for maintaining the fleet’s vehicles by placing them for public use on holidays and weekends.
The Three Vital Concepts of MaaS
- Service offering to the users/travellers/businessmen/customer.
- Mobility, free movement for the users.
- Service integration, seamless payment, and information accessibility
The Three Factors
- Alternative Power Transport:- bicycles, public transport, hybrid vehicle travel, and carpools are a few examples on the list.
- On-Demand Services – services that use apps(Uber, Lyft, Curb, Mytaxi, Gett, Flywheel, and Easy Taxi).
- Electric Vehicles
– Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)
– Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV)-uses chemical energy such as hydrogen FCEV.
– Hybrid Electric Vehicle:
- Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV- mobilised by internal combustion (usual petrol) engine and the battery-powered motor powertrain.
- Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV)- can be powered by internal combustion and electricity.
The Extent of Benefits and Effects
Service Providers (TSP)
This paradigm shift in mobility is a steep learning curve for the Transport Service Providers (TPS), particularly the private owners. Pricing plans are beyond their control. They must negotiate with MaaS operators, people who handle service packages and consumer-friendly payment plans and options.
However, legislative standards will oversee this trending transport market to ensure a fair share of benefits for the users and providers.
The Commuters
The striking benefit of this platform is its door-to-door multimodal system. The commuters will engage through one-click/call modelled transactions. They can book, pre-pay, or choose a subscription plan that suits their travelling needs.
The payment option is highly integrated. They can select different modes of transportation in a single trip with one straight payment on their smartphones or pay as they go.
In The Environment
MaaS optimises the use of transport infrastructures. The air pollution, emissions, and heavy traffic are reduced. The appearance of private-owned cars on the streets is lessened because they’re reserved as alternative transportation options.
On Economy
MaaS helps to increase revenue growth and productivity. The ease of moving goods from one place to another can boost sales and customer retention. Furthermore, workers’ productivity levels shall be enhanced because of seamless travel from home to their workplace.
Workers’ output will not be as productive as expected. Low production may result, which can harm the economy on a larger scale. Being stuck in the middle of the road diminishes energy levels. It creates the path for inflation as less supply in the market will make the demand go high. With mobility, results can have a decent turnaround, saving time, energy, and costs.
The Ugly Truths About MaaS
The mobility as a service( MaaS) may spur in a direction that is not favourable to people in rural areas. Its heavy focus on urban areas can drive disadvantages. It will potentially diminish production in these places. Depopulation will be one of them.
If no alternative solutions are rendered, it can lead to a huge imbalance between jobs and human resources. Worse, because of the illiteracy of many people, mobility offers may become limited.
Conclusion
Considering the heavy traffic, road accidents, greenhouse effect issues, and unstable economic trends, MaaS is the first solution.
Mobility has a lot of advantages to our daily lives. If this is not supported, it will be likened to a human body with constricted lungs-fatal. We must be relieved from the threats of global warming, congestion, and other related disruptions. They cause a heavy toll on our health, physically and mentally. MaaS can provide in-depth relief in many ways.
