MaaS: MOBILITY AS A SERVICE FOR ITALY
The maas is a global mobility concept that involves the integration of multiple public and private transport services (from public transport to car sharing, from bike sharing to taxis) thanks to a single digital channel.
The services will be managed by different platforms that will allow you to plan, book and manage a trip and also be able to make the unified payment of all services.
The progressive diffusion of maas allows to transform mobility habits and the use of transport services through the use of digital platforms.
The project aims to create a service that offers citizens simplified and inclusive access to various mobility options to meet different needs and encourage the use of more sustainable means of transport, limiting the use of individual mobility and reducing the negative impacts on car traffic.
This model for mobility has been outlined by the Italian government through the project "Mobility as a Service for Italy".
It includes 3 specific areas of intervention:
• The experimentation of maas in the territories: introduction of new business models, creation of digital platforms and interaction between different subjects offering mobility services;
• To create an open platform that is able to guarantee a functioning interaction between the various operators of the sector;
• Enhance the digital dimension of public transport in the selected territories by enabling digital payment services, user information systems and travel booking services.
The state will be both the regulator and the enabler of this project.
Milan, Rome, Naples, Bari, Florence and Turin will be the cities that will experience the innovative mobility services Mobility as a Service for Italy.
All selected cities will be testing laboratories that will use these new platforms.
The city of Milan and that of Turin were also chosen for the realization of a Living Lab, an urban laboratory where to experiment, in real conditions, innovations and emerging technologies in the field of mobility, in co-creation with users. Moreover ACI Infomobility (from now ACIIM) and CityTrips Mobility (from now CTM) are associated in order to manifest their interest to be characterized like "maas Operator" in the within of the plan "Mobility as a Service for Italy - Milan" (from now maas Milan).
ACIIM is a company wholly owned by the Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI), a non-economic public body of national importance, in respect of which it carries out activities related to the infomobility sector. Through the service "Luceverde" (free service of a public nature) ACIIM organizes, coordinates and provides, in favor of the Institution, assistance services related to local mobility, namely those concerning: the collection, processing of traffic information and public and private transport, and their dissemination through: web, app, social channels, telephone channel with the Contact Center that answers the toll free 800.18.34.34, audio/video news broadcasted by local broadcasters, podcasting services and a web radio infomobility.
Among the great challenges that the maas, and in particular the offer of an application usable by the end user, brings with it, there is to easily allow viewing, comparison, choice and use of all the offers made available. Only in this way can we actually touch - and hopefully change - all the factors that govern the choice of means of transport to use, namely:
- the rational factor (which means is really faster, or more efficient, or cheaper);
- the emotional factor (which means I perceive as best suited to my need, also in terms of status, of pleasure in use);
- responsibility social (which means it is more appropriate to use, thinking about the environment or safety, or health)
These are the factors that can lead the user to choose between private, shared and public means.
Through the maas for Italy project, ACIIM and CTM will implement the CityTrips application for Milan (now CityTrips Milan) and set the following objectives (more detailed in the chapters dedicated to the Description and Design Plan):
extend the use of the CityTrips application to the city of Milan;
expand the functionality of CityTrips on the basis of what has been identified in the maas Milano project, in particular with regard to the customization of route selection and planning criteria;
Prepare CityTrips Milan to ensure the sharing of data obtained with the City of Milan and with the national platform DS&RSF.
The CITYTRIPS APP is an application and platform for mobile mobility services, which allows users, among other things, to:
know the different mobility operators available in a given geographical area;
Know and compare the different options, conditions and prices of mobility services
choose and access all services through an application if appropriate
The great possibilities of the maas must therefore be traced back to a user experience that must be simple, effective, diversified according to its specific needs of the moment.
Planning a trip, more or less in advance; viewing the offers available for certain types of vehicles; diversified payment methods; special conditions, which the application must consider and which may affect the context (climate, strikes, traffic problems) or the person himself (luggage, number of people, difficulties of different nature).