Mobility as a Service (MaaS) stands for services that allow travelers to plan, book, and pay for trips from doorstep to destination. In order for MaaS providers to offer these services, it is necessary for public-transportation companies to provide MaaS providers with access to their public-transportation services. A market study conducted by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) shows that it has become easier for various market participants to collaborate, but it also shows that there are still bottlenecks. At the same time, ACM sees that market participants try to remove these bottlenecks by themselves, for example, by including in public-transport concessions new conditions that make access to public-transportation services possible. Whether this will produce the desired outcome remains to be seen in practice. Manon Leijten, Member of the Board of ACM, says: ‘I find it positive that market participants in the public-transportation sector took the initiative to improve access to their services. For MaaS to evolve further, it is important now that the arrangements that were made will be included in all concessions’.
Background of market study
The market for mobility services is a digital, data-driven market that is still evolving. MaaS is expected to contribute significantly to the realization of sustainability goals, and to mitigating the problem of traffic congestion. ACM finds it important that there is room for innovation in this developing market, and that various providers get the opportunity to develop new distinctive services. Access to each other’s services on a single online platform is one of the most important preconditions for the proper functioning of the digital economy. For the MaaS market to evolve further, it is important that all MaaS providers are able to integrate public-transportation services in their offerings. A market study conducted by ACM has identified what public-transportation services MaaS-providers have access to, and under what conditions.
Bottlenecks
In the market study, ACM has established that, despite the improvements in the current selection of public-transportation services, there are still bottlenecks. For example, MaaS providers are only able to purchase hourly tickets or day tickets from several public-transportation companies. The prices of these tickets are significantly higher than the regular prices when riding public transport using the OV-Chipkaart (the national contactless smart card for public transport in the Netherlands). If riding public transport through MaaS is more expensive than using the OV-Chipkaart, it will make MaaS services far less appealing to travelers. In addition, it is uncertain for MaaS providers whether the current access conditions will change in the future, because many public-transportation companies currently offer this access as part of a pilot.
See also
08-03-2021 Market study ‘Mobility as a Service’ (in Dutch)