The central aim of this project is to demonstrate the viability of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) as a sustainable transport solution including first and last mile transport in rural areas in the NSR. MaaS stimulates the use of more sustainable transport modes, reduces car use and GHG-emissions caused by transport. Furthermore MaaS is cost efficient and demand driven and will prevent social inclusion of specific groups strongly depending on decreasing public transport services.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a new paradigm for mobility of people and goods and has the potential to increase the efficiency of transport and reduce transport GHG-emissions by at least 20%. The concept of MaaS is to deliver a single integrated mobility service based on dynamic data and consumer-defined travel preferences whereby the combination of physical transport modes such as the buses, trains, taxis, bikes and cars is brought to the user in one single product. This enables users to travel from A to B via an integrated service and to choose more rationally about how to get from A to B. MaaS stands for a transition in mobility as users will pay for mobility services instead of investing in own vehicles.

Due to decreasing public transport services in rural areas people living in these areas are becoming more dependent on private transport modes (mainly fossil fueled) to remain mobile. Furthermore the decrease in public transport services might result in social exclusion of specific groups e.g. elderly, younger people and disabled people. MaaS offers a solution for this issue as MaaS is demand driven and delivers time and cost efficient seamless transport solutions. Thus MaaS can contribute to the affordability of mobility and to decrease of use of private transport modes.

However, there is only limited experience with MaaS in real-life as the concept is largely untested and planning and deployment is only now starting in a few regions. The main goal of this project to stimulate the roll-out of MaaS in rural areas in the NSR by gaining experience with MaaS and learn about user needs, legal aspects, business viability and environmental impact to improve mobility and reduce car use. This will be done by carrying out well-documented MaaS pilots in multiple NSR rural areas. It is of importance that MaaS services enable the bundling and sharing of transport modes.

The benefit of the project will be threefold:

1. Business cases for MaaS in rural areas will be validated by MaaS providers leading to the uptake of these services in rural areas;
2. People in rural areas will be less dependent on private (mainly fossil fueled) transport modes resulting in less car use and reduced GHG-emissions caused by transport;
3. Specific groups will not be isolated as MaaS will offer tailor-made and cost efficient transport solutions by enabling shared transport.

1. Study the demand for MaaS services, on Maas user groups and on tailor-made MaaS offer

2. Develop and validate business models per user group;

3. Carry out well-documented MaaS pilots in rural areas involving;

• Car users to reduce car use;
• Specific groups to prevent social exclusion.
• As MaaS aims to increase car sharing and reduce car ownership this might result in more use of zero emission vehicles;

4. Develop a handbook for the roll-out of MaaS in rural areas in the NSR, based on the gained knowledge during the MaaS pilots;

5. Set-up a collaborative platform for authorities of rural areas in the NSR to share gained knowledge of the functioning, benefits and roll-out of MaaS in rural areas.

In many rural areas in the NSR, regional and local authorities had to take cost-efficient decisions with regard to public transport services. At the same time, with exception of the urban nodes, commercial transport services such as taxi services have disappeared in the sparsely populated areas as these services were not economically viable. This resulted in a decline in availability of public and commercial transport services in rural areas and causes:

• Increased dependency on private mainly fossil fueled transport modes producing GHG-emissions;
• Social exclusion of specific groups of people e.g. elderly, younger people and disabled people strongly depending on specific public or commercial transport services.

To overcome both issues actions are needed to improve transport services in rural areas at a reasonable cost. This project will demonstrate a viable solution to tackle the these issues by making the public and commercial transport in rural areas more demand driven and more time and cost efficient by implementing Mobility as a Service (MaaS).

Dutch involved cities represented by the Lead Partner 

Cities, (public) transport providers, Mobility as a Service providers