Europe’s Mobility as a Service turned into roadmap; account taken of rural areas’ special features

The combination of mobility services into a one-stop-service is closer to realisation

Under VTT’s coordination, the preconditions have been enhanced for user-oriented and ecological mobility services which seamlessly combine different modes of transport. The idea is to enable the user to choose between different modes of transport, combining the most suitable mobility services on a one-stop-shop basis. The resulting European Mobility as a Service Roadmap 2025, and  business models will contribute to achieving this.

The European Mobility as a Service Roadmap 2025 was created as a result of  MAASiFiE (Mobility As A Service for Linking Europe) , while the MaaseutuMaaS project (Mobility as a Service concept as a means of promoting the development of rural business and services) focused on the special features of rural MaaS services, including publicly subsidized transportation. MaaS service business models were developed and technology requirements clarified for both projects, and policy guidance and legislation supporting MaaS were discussed.

Several MaaS pilots and some services already exist in Europe, but more services need to be included into same ecosystems in order to enable national and international travel chains.

Mobility services are expected to increase the use of public transport, car sharing and ride sharing, and to rationalize  passenger and freight transport. This, in turn, would reduce traffic volumes, emissions and congestion in urban areas and increase efficiency in sparsely populated areas. The new definition of public transport also includes peer-to-peer rental and sharing services.

“Cooperation and systematic development between stakeholders will be required in order to achieve these goals. The customer must be better served, without forgetting factors such as the overall transport system and environmental goals,” says Jenni Eckhardt, the Senior Scientist from VTT who served as the Project Coordinator.

Legislation and policy guidance also play a major role in facilitating MaaS. Better preconditions should be created to enable flexible, combined transportation chains.

The MAASiFiE project was funded by the CEDR (Conference of European Directors of Roads). The other parties to the consortium were Chalmers University of Technology from Sweden and AustriaTech from Austria.

The MaaseutuMaaS project was co-funded by the development fund of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland. Lappeenranta University of Technology was VTT’s research partner.