A first glimpse at the real-world
impacts of Mobility as a Service
A full launch
followed in
November 2017.
The first ever
MaaS operator
interconnected
many of the city’s
mobility options
under one subscription
and within a single app. With
the Whim app, the user is ableto
combine, plan, and pay for
public transport, taxi, car rental,
car sharing and city bike trips.
With over 70,000 users and
more than a year of fullyfunctional
operation, Ramboll
was invited by Whim’s owner,
MaaS Global, to take a first look
at any potential commonalities
or differences in travel behavior
between MaaS users and the
typical urbanite. This included
how users are spatially
distributed, what kind of trips
and trip-combinations they
take, and any potential
relationships with certain
types of land-use.
Key insights
Ramboll’s analysis has resulted
in several findings regarding the
nature and preferences of earlyadopters,
and the development
of the Whim service during its
first year of operation.
Technology Profile |
As the world continues to
| Need to know
With the Whim app,
users can combine,
plan, and pay for public
transport, taxi, car
rental, car sharing and
city bike trips
Traffic Technology International September/October 2019
www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
068
urbanize and more people
attempt to navigate within
and between cities, so too
continues the development of
more efficient modes of
transportation, new niches of
transport modes and services,
and a more intuitive integration
of modes to simplify the tripmaking
process for users. One
of these new solutions is
Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS).
With new solutions follows
questions - will MaaS lead to a
car-dependent city? Does MaaS
steal ridership from public
transport? Is MaaS only
attractive to a niche group of
urbanites? Until now, these
questions could only be
addressed in theory, using
simulations or based on limited
pilots. We ask these questions
based on real-world data from a
fully-functional MaaS platform.
Maas Global soft-launched its
MaaS application Whim in
Helsinki, Finland, in late 2016.
tend to ride city bikes more in
the center where stations are in
closer proximity to one another.
Interestingly, MaaS users
make nearly the same number
of daily trips, which seems to
suggest that while modal choices
are clearly different when using
MaaS, speculations about
excessive trip making are
unfounded. MaaS users are
gaining utility from the service
but not taking unnecessary trips.
Ramboll’s assessment reveals
that public transport is clearly
the backbone of MaaS users’
travel habits, and that MaaS use
> Compared to their Helsinki
counterparts, MaaS users
ride public transport 25%
more often, combine taxis
with public transport
three times more
often, and use taxis 2.4
times more
> Wider availability of
mobility options like
e-bicycles could reduce
daily car trips by up to 38%
For example,
compared to their
counterparts, MaaS
users ride public
transport 25% more
often, combine taxis
with public transport
three times more often,
and use taxis 2.4 times
more often. The behaviors seem
clearly correlated with the ease
of combining modes within the
Whim app. MaaS users also
make shorter city bike trips
on average, suggesting they
rely on it more for transportation
than recreation purposes and
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