Community transport meets mobility as a service: On the road to a new a flexible future

The growth of ridesharing and other “new mobility services (NMS)” poses challenges for traditional public transport operators because they create an environment where consumers can demand an “integrated mobility” from different transport modes and improved accessibility (information, booking, payment systems etc). More recently the discussion about how to deliver “integrated mobility” has led to the emerging “Mobility as a Service (MaaS)” concept. MaaS is variously defined but the essential idea is to see transport or mobility not as a physical asset to purchase (e.g. a car) but as a single service available on demand and incorporating all transport services from cars to buses to rail and on-demand services.

The paper's principal consideration is on how MaaS is relevant to public transport. The idea of how MaaS might be used in the Community Transport (CT) sector provides a case-study. The CT sector is unusual in providing mobility for a user group which typically does not see mobility as a physical asset to purchase. Following a review of relevant literature, the paper describes the outcome of a study with five Australian CT operators. A semi-structured conversation followed by a discussion type meeting brought CEOs together to explore the concept of mobility as a service and the types of package that might be offered. Findings indicate a strong enthusiasm amongst CT operators for offering packages of mobility services to their current users and to investigate delivery of packages to non-users/new users.