Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has progressively developed over recent years to revolutionise the travel industry and is essentially rebranding the idea of efficient business travel. As a means of providing a more organised and energy efficient travel industry, many companies are beginning to see the immediate effects of supporting the development of MaaS, but what benefits could we see from a MaaS influenced future?

Smart Cities

We could very well see the idea of Smart Cities rising from where our previous outdated model of modern cities once stood in the very near future. This new Smart City concept will revolve around using open data to improve the quality of life and set the foundations for a more sustainable lifestyle within densely populated cities. Mobility as a Service is a crucial aspect when considering the development of this concept. Due to MaaS using the open data to personalise and optimise business travel by providing the possibility of car hire or sharing rather than the typical personal or company-owned cars, it brings into fruition a significantly more organised city infrastructure with a significantly more optimised travel system that also is predicted to heavily reduce CO2 emissions.

Self-driving Vehicles

Continuing from the idea of Smart Cities, smarter travel will begin to appear in cities with the development of self-driving cars. Multiple companies are capitalising on the almost guaranteed success and profit predictions of autonomous cars. High profile companies such as Uber and Volvo are just some of the big names involved in this new movement. In a future where MaaS is flourishing we can expect to see many travel methods relying on autonomous, self-driving vehicles to take commuters from destination to destination. Alternatively, companies like Uber are also expanding into other forms of travel, even going so far as to offer an UberCHOPPER service which lets travellers reach destinations by hiring a helicopter to take them there. The development of new, more unorthodox methods of travel is beginning to quickly see the practicality in a world assisted by MaaS.

Facial Recognition Payments

In a future assisted by MaaS we can expect to also see the introduction on different quality of life improvements once believed to only be possible in works of fiction, such as activating travel documents or even paying for services using facial recognition. With the introduction of such a new concept of payment, we would see much quicker queue times within all kinds of frequently visited areas such as airports all the way to supermarkets. This isn’t the only way that MaaS can prove to benefit businesses not just in the travel industry, places like bars and restaurants could use a self-service like a system on a kiosk that would allow them to book travel from the venue and arrive home quickly and safely.

What’s Holding MaaS Back?

After reading up on all the future benefits of MaaS it should come as no shock that it is predicted to be a very wealthy and critical industry, PWC estimate that Mobility as a Service will be worth around $156 billion by 2022. But what is holding MaaS back right now? It’s clear that there is still a long journey to be made before all these future features come into place however the progress is being made towards this future as of this very moment. Statistics show that car ownership is falling, and it is expected that MaaS will be the service to develop in its place. To get there we need private companies to be willing to engage in open data sharing, however, due to fears of cyber attacks some companies are holding back from working alongside the development of MaaS. Although, it would be difficult to stay far removed from this growing industry as the benefits of it continue to prove themselves again and again.

PWC estimate reference – https://mobility.here.com/blog/what-does-future-mobility-look