Mobility as a Service
Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) describes a shift away from personally-owned modes of transportation and towards mobility solutions that are consumed as a service. MaaS provides an on-demand transportation solution that allows an individual to plan and purchase a trip from an origin to a destination in a manner that allows selection of the most efficient journey and enables secure and easy payment for the transaction.
MaaS implementations provide individuals with an application that bundles different transportation modes and services (such as, transit, cars, buses, trains, scooters, and bikes) into a new mobility paradigm focusing on on-demand services. To support an end-to-end journey, services such as parking and toll payment also need to be considered for MaaS implementations; for example, access to a train station may require an individual to use a toll road and park a car before riding the train.
The movement to MaaS is being driven by marketplace demands for more seamless transportation experiences and enabled by advances in mobile and cloud computing technologies. For example, account-based payment systems for transportation services are increasingly being used. Account-based systems enable an individual to pay for multiple types of mobility (i.e., transportation) services from different providers with a single account, instead of being forced to use a different payment account or medium for each service.
MaaS implementations are being designed to combine the various, traditionally disparate, mobility services (such as public transit, transportation network companies [TNCs], car, scooter, and bike share, parking, and tolling) and present a series of journey options from which individuals can decide the best fit with their needs. The journey options are based on a set of criteria – such as time of day, traffic, cost, and/or other user-defined selection – to generate the most efficient trip from origin to destination.
Secure Technology Alliance MaaS Initiative
The Secure Technology Alliance Transportation Council engages in projects to help accelerate the deployment of open, standards-based, secure payment in the transportation industry. In the past ten years, Council activities have provided foundational resources supporting the implementation of open payments in the U.S. transit industry. More recently, the Council has focused on payments convergence across multiple transportation modes and payments integration in MaaS implementations.
Building on its success in the transit industry, Alliance is expanding its efforts on MaaS to bring together industry stakeholders to facilitate adoption of open payments solutions for MaaS implementations. Areas of focus for the MaaS initiative include:
- Developing educational resources on the opportunities and challenges with payments integration in MaaS implementations
- Facilitating the discussion and resolution of cross-industry challenges
- Developing best practices
- Developing a planning framework for MaaS implementations
Participation in the Secure Technology Alliance MaaS initiative is open to Alliance members.
Transportation Resources
- Secure Technology Alliance Transportation Council
- Multimodal Payments Convergence – Part One: Emerging Models and Use Cases white paper
- Multimodal Payments Convergence – Part Two: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementation white paper