Mobility as a feature (MaaF): rethinking the focus of the second generation of mobility as a service (MaaS)

Since its inception, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has attracted significant interest throughout the transport fraternity, with numerous initiatives designed to unite “silo transport services” through a digital platform (Hensher et al., 2020). A key focus has been on promoting the ideals of sustainable outcomes with a particular emphasis on reducing private car use and promoting sustainable transport, especially public transport and micro-mobility. Since the “birth of MaaS” almost 10 years ago, we have seen very limited evidence of meaningful changes in users’ travel behaviour resulting from the many MaaS products, whether they are true MaaS or an enhanced trip planner. Why is this? We suggest that this has a lot to do with a focus on transport modes, transport suppliers and transport regulators where the real opportunity may have been stifled and missed. There is also an absence of any real effort to find ways of bringing the private car into the mix despite its dominant role in the mobility landscape (Hensher et al., 2022). Hensher (2020, 2022) suggested that a multi-service perspective may turn the tide as well as a recognition that the convenience of the private car needs to be embedded in a MaaS solution. Working with large insurance companies led both authors to realise that this multiservice idea can blossom when we engage with significant private enterprises outside of the transport sector whose focus is on what the customer really wants in a broad sense, unconstrained by the limitations or even ideologies of agencies that primarily focus on delivering transport services. Recognising that transport and travel are derived demand constructs, mobility offers should be seen as an input into a larger activity-based paradigm of service delivery. This service-delivery-paradigm offers a wide range of non-transport mobility services that are essential to customers, and we argue that it is in this service delivery setting that transport integration might flourish. We call this Mobility as a Feature (MaaF) as a nice way of moving away from a dominating multi-modal perspective to a multi-service perspective. But there is a twist – we suggest that the future of MaaF in terms of an appealing business case, and even commercial success, should be driven by organisations who do not have a direct vested interest in transport supply ownership, but who have an extensive customer base to enable them to focus on the delivery of a broad-based fully integrated activity solution that inputs a range of appropriate transport solutions. This next generation interpretation of MaaS will require some time to be fully tested, but its appeal is the result of learning from the first 10-year (or generation 1) period.