MaaS for the suburban market: Incorporating carpooling in the mix

Steve Wright* (Corresponding Author), John D. Nelson, Caitlin D. Cottrill

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)
11 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is often cited as providing an alternative solution to car ownership and car dominated lifestyles. However, MaaS as it currently exists appears to cater mainly for a specific segment of society – those who live close enough to walk to good quality public transport for daily journeys and close enough to access car share/car rental for other trips which public transport cannot serve. By default, this is limited to large, dense urban areas. This paper considers the evolution of intermodal journey planning that incorporates carpooling with public transport in the transition towards MaaS for suburban areas. It introduces a new journey planning App (known as RideMyRoute) that allows users to discover and make connected journeys involving carpooling and public transport, presenting key aspects of its design, development and testing.

Results from a trial of the RideMyRoute App in four European test sites (Canton Ticino, Brussels, Zagreb and Ljubljana) revealed that the App was able to suggest trip planning solutions which included carpool options for one in five journey planning solutions and that the majority (85%) of these were solutions that involved connection from carpool to public transport. This is a significant advance on what is currently available through existing carpool provider systems or journey planning apps/services and could potentially increase the attractiveness of MaaS options in suburban markets. However, quality of data feeding the App from external sources remained an issue, as it is with all MaaS systems, and recommendations for future practice are presented. In conclusion, the new intermodal trip planning algorithm and data structure supporting it provide a fundamental stepping stone towards incorporating carpool services within MaaS-type offerings in the future.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)206-218
Number of pages13
JournalTransportation Research. Part A, Policy and Practice
Volume131
Early online date27 Sept 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2020

Bibliographical note

This research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 636427.

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