The future of mobility, driven by connected, automated, shared and electrified (CASE) technologies is approaching at an unprecedented rate. And, integral to, or possibly even the essence of the future of transit, particularly in the urban environment, is mobility-as-a-service (MaaS).

The MaaS concept being discussed by transportation planners and operators is in many ways a natural answer to the evolution of two key trends. First, as gridlock plagues a growing number of cities around the world, transportation planners are embracing new ways of tackling the old problem of congestion.

At the same time, with about 1.4 million traffic fatalities recorded globally every year, regulators, civil society and the auto industry are pinning their hopes on fully self-driving, autonomous vehicles (Level 5) to drastically reduce the hazards of everyday travel.

While both of these trends have widespread backing - for instance, Mary Barra, CEO of GM, has often spoken about GM’s vision of providing mobility solutions capable of zero emissions, zero road fatalities, and zero congestion – implementation faces several hurdles.

Urban congestion turns to MaaS

It is widely accepted that to alleviate traffic congestion, planners will need to do more than increase the capacity of the road network. In fact, expanding roadways can actually lead to increased traffic and even more congestion, a phenomenon known as induced demand. In addition, expanding roads are expensive and in urban areas might not be feasible.

What is needed is to shift the focus from traffic flow management to the management of individual movement, to develop a user-driven mobility system – the foundation underpinning the MaaS concept. Important to the functionality of such a system is the availability of real-time information on the best available options to accomplish a journey from point A to point B. This includes information on itineraries as well as the different modes and means of transport available to complete the trip.

Moreover, user-aware mobility management should allow for different needs and preferences, while optimizing the mobility system. To achieve this, the mobility management system should collect, use and present the information in a friendly and catching way to convince its users to act efficiently.

A good example of one such MaaS system, available to residents in Helsinki since 2016, is underpinned by an app called Whim which allows commuters to plan and pay for all modes of public and private transportation within the city - be it by train, taxi, bus, carshare or bikeshare.

Anyone with the app can enter a destination, select his or her preferred mode of getting there - or, in cases where no single mode covers the door-to-door journey, a combination thereof - and go. Users can either pre-pay for the service as part of a monthly mobility subscription or pay as they go using a payment account linked to the service.

The goal is to make it so convenient for users to get around that they opt to give up their personal vehicles for city commuting, not because they are forced to, but because the alternative is more appealing.

Can MaaS make it safer?

Another factor driving MaaS is the urgent need to reduce the number of road fatalities by accelerating the rollout of fully autonomous self-driving vehicles. With human error accounting for over 94% of all accidents, the road transport industry’s consensus view is that by replacing the flawed human driver behind the wheel with a faultless automated vehicle (AV), fatalities will be reduced significantly.

While autonomous self-driving technology has been languishing in the “trough of disillusionment” for quite a while, real-world trials have continued. Although limited in their coverage, programs by companies such as Alphabet and Cruise have proven that AVs, even though speed-restricted and geo-fenced, can safely move people in an urban environment.

These “robo-taxis” rely heavily on sensor suites, including lidar sensors for their spatial positioning. With Velodyne’s ubiquitous HDL-64E rotating lidar originally costing $75,000, the price of this vital piece of equipment precludes the inclusion of the technology in most private passenger cars. Even with solid-state flash lidar promising to become more affordable, the number required, together with other sensing and connectivity systems, required to provide true redundant and low-latency safety is still likely to limit their fitment rate.

Obviously, with only a few private vehicles on the road AVs thus equipped are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on the accident rate. However, commercialized shared mobility models using ‘pods’, such as Cruise’s Origin, could rationalize the cost of the technology by spreading it over the number of rides such a shared service is likely to draw.

Thus, driven by cost, a convenient shared urban service underpinned by an accurate real-time information and booking system could become an important element in urban MaaS planning.

In so doing AVs will likely shift a substantial share of the mobility market value away from products (that is, buying vehicles) and toward services (that is, paying for transportation per mile). This transformation suggests dramatic changes ahead for vehicle sales volumes, business models, and the capabilities companies will need to thrive in this new environment.

Summary

Nevertheless, solving for urban mobility is a pressing challenge, and a highly complex one, as it involves multiple transport modes - including road infrastructure and public transport networks - and a diverse set of stakeholders such as governments, municipalities, city councils and service providers.

However, this challenge can be resolved by existing technologies today. This year, Berlin was named Europe's smartest city, in part due to is implementation of a proprietary app that permits commuters transparency into both public and private transportation systems.

As urban density continues to grow, MaaS provides a promising alternative transport management system to move more people and goods in a way that is more convenient, safer and less expensive than current options. At the same time, by adding more variability to the supply side of transportation, MaaS could also transform a relatively inflexible transportation system into one that is significantly more pliable.