Potential User Groups of Mobility as a Service in Finland

Introduction

In the developed countries, automobiles have grown to be the dominant mode of transport since their launch in late 1800s. During the 20th century, the number of passenger cars as well as passenger car mileage grew to support the lifestyles of the modern society. Together with increasing number of cars and kilometres travelled, problems associated with cars have increased to a state where options for this mode are asked for more and more. Could we own and use cars less, yet still fulfil our daily mobility needs? As one suggested model, Mobility as a Service, MaaS, offers an option by aiming to make travelling with different modes easy and fluent. This way MaaS could compete with the current car-based system. As Heikkilä (2014) in one of the first studies on MaaS described, Mobility as a Service can be seen as a system, where mobility operators provide a comprehensive range of mobility services to customers. MaaS can also be considered as a solution for more sustainable mobility, especially as it could replace car-based mobility. König et al. (2016) defined MaaS as “multimodal and sustainable mobility services addressing customers' transport needs by integrating planning and payment on a one-stop-shop principle”.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse people’s interest towards MaaS, and which user groups find MaaS offerings tempting and are the most potential MaaS customers. The potential is analysed based on a survey with a representative sample of 6,000 Finns. By combining the findings from this survey with previous studies and Finnish data on demographics and mobility patterns, the potential is further analysed. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: what is the interest towards MaaS among ordinary people, which are the most potential user groups of MaaS, and how do current trends in demographics and mobility affect the potential of MaaS. This paper strives to contribute to recognising current attitudes of ordinary people towards MaaS and the potential user groups of MaaS. Current attitudes towards MaaS and the potential user groups are in the interests of different stakeholders working on mobility services and MaaS related issues from companies to scientific community as well as authorities from local level to national level.

Since Mobility as a Service is a new concept, the number of studies on MaaS and its potential is still low. Kamargianni et al. (2015) analysed the potential of MaaS in the context of a large city as they identified supply and demand of transport services London, UK, and presented a MaaS-London concept for the future. Additionally, related to MaaS-London concept, Matyas & Kamargianni (2017) carried out stated preference study to understand people’s mobility choices under MaaS, and Kamargianni et al. (2018) studied Londoners’ attitudes towards car ownership and MaaS. Li & Voege (2017) studied the challenges of MaaS from the point of view of conditions in the city (availability of different modes, e-tickets, open data, and e-payment options).

Reflecting different aspects of MaaS potential, Giesecke et al. (2016) presented four key conceptual issues of MaaS, namely 1) nature of travel (e.g. trip purpose, trip length, mode, and means), 2) interoperability, 3) end-user behaviour related to e.g. different user groups, gender issues, and aging, and 4) sustainability. In this chapter, we will mostly focus on the end-users, but also discuss the nature of travel and sustainability related to MaaS. Giesecke et al. (2016) emphasised a strong focus on the end-user perspective, in which user group segments as well as user acceptance criteria, based on user attitudes and behaviour, are particularly important.