The paper by consultant Mott MacDonald and the University of the West of England Bristol’s centre for transport and society is titled ‘The importance of user perspective in the evolution of MaaS’.

It highlights that the prospects for MaaS are demonstrated by changes being observed in transport users’ lifestyles, attitudes and behaviours, including a reduction in the proportion of young people holding driving licences.

But it warms that “technologically deterministic rhetoric” and limited trials conducted to date can foster “hype over substance” when it comes to MaaS.

“We suggest that a strong need exists for market research to better understand prospective MaaS user attitudes, needs and choice making behaviour,” the report says. “Without this to underpin business planning and development, the enthusiastic drive to deliver MaaS may falter or face unanticipated challenges that could have been foreseen and accounted for.”

The paper also warns that a smartphone app alone does not create a viable alternative to the private car. “To provide some rebalancing of the choice set in the mobility system beyond the private car, it is important that public authorities seek to exert some influence in setting framework conditions for MaaS while working with non-car mobility service providers to invest in enhancing the availability and relative attractiveness of their modes,” it says.

Commenting on the report, Mott MacDonald professor of future mobility at UWE Bristol Glenn Lyons – the paper’s co-author – said: “To be successful, Mobility as a Service has to work for higher level policy goals, for those investing in it and for the people who use it. It is the last of these that is particularly important and yet a user-centric approach in the ‘MaaS movement’ has not been as apparent as it needs to be.”

He added: “The paper stresses the need to see MaaS as more than a smartphone app. It must be understood as the ‘mobility system beyond the private car’ which, to be successful, needs to offer users attractive alternatives to the private car. This is not new but is an evolution of the decades old endeavour to create a more integrated multi-modal transport system.

“Mobility intermediaries – such as Whim – as well as transport authorities are encouraged to give closer attention to the body of knowledge already available concerning user needs and their decision making behaviours.”

(Photograph: MaaS Global)