Topic 2 Innovative and sustainable transport solution
Service that allows users to plan, book, and pay for multiple types of mobility services through a digital channel.
The key concept behind MaaS is to offer travelers mobility solutions based on their travel needs and implies a change from personally-owned modes of transportation towards mobility provided as a service.
Source: www.uitp.org
It refers to a range of small, lightweight vehicles operating at speeds typically below 25 km/h (15 mph) and driven by users personally. Micromobility devices include bicycles, e-bikes and electric pedal assisted, scooters, electric scooters and other vehicles of personal mobility.
Business Models for Emerging Mobility Services
New mobility service of short-term (car,moto/scooter) rental where people rent them for short periods of time, often by the hour. The company (aiming to generate profits) supplies its vehicle fleet at specific points throughout a city and the customers use their smart phones to find the nearest available vehicle. Examples of companies in Europe of car-sharing (Car2Go, Emov, Zity), moto-sharing (Acciona, Blinkee, Coup, eCooltra, Yego) and scooter-sharing (Lime, Link, Dott). Mainly the vehicles are 100% electric and operates in big cities.
Type of vehicle-pooling which arranges shared rides between travellers with a common origin and/or destination by using their private vehicles. It includes carpooling (such as Carpooling.com, Bla Bla Car, Liftshare), flexible carpooling, vanpooling (such as WSDOT), and P2P ridesharing, where Uber is the most characteristic scheme.
A mobility service which is mainly organized by local non-profit organizations or by public agencies and provides access to bicycles for short-distance trips. Bike-sharing has evolved from a simple scheme where bicycles were available to the public to borrow from and return to any location, to more intelligent schemes where the users pick up a bike at any dock by using their credit or debit cards, and/or a mobile phone. In Europe (such as Call-A-Bike, Nextbike) and worldwide (such as Mobike). This type of bike-sharing involves lighter infrastructure and is likely to lead to reduced implementation cost. In addition, it provides the flexibility to support cycle hire in more locations within a specific area, better delivering the travellers’ needs and better suited to a MaaS solution.
Innovation and Sustainable Transport
The innovation in mobility services contributes to the sustainability of transport in the measure that the number of cars are reduced, so less energy is consumed and less CO2 emissions are produced in the mobilities.
From the sustainable point of view what service would be the greener one. In the following table the advantages and disadvantages of the different systems are shown:
| MaaS | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
(Car/moto/scooter)-sharing |
|
|
Ridesharing |
|
|
Bike-sharing |
|
|
“Transport for all”
Accessibility is another aspect that has to be considered in the aspect of innovation and social sustainability in PublicTransport. This has to be a main point in order to promote a public transport addressed to all people. Thus, buses and trains are incorporating platforms to make it easier for people with reduced mobility to board. Also, mainly all the public transport offer help departments to board. New innovative, social and sustainable transport solutions have to be totally accessible in order to make it more inclusive and that people do not think that they are different.
