Summary

The MIF programme delivered a total of five MaaS apps, across five pilot projects, operating on three base platforms. In total, MaaS apps funded by the programme were downloaded over 26,000 times. To varying extents, a multitude of transport modes have been integrated, including planes, public buses, club car, DRT, taxi, community transport, cycling, walking, trains and ferries. There was a perceived benefit of developing and building innovation and the delivery of these in Scotland as a pioneer in this field. Some pilot projects achieved the full ‘plan-book-pay’ ambition of MaaS, to varying degrees with some modes of transport. The funding programme has unlocked a wide array of learning and collaboration opportunities between local authorities, regional transport partnerships, transport operators, public sector organisations and UK-wide network of mobility organisations. This can be considered one of the key benefits of the funding and support provided through the fund. This study has endeavoured to capture some of this learning, though the ongoing value will be in the development of the relationships now established.

The MIF has enabled MaaS to be applied as a potential solution to a wide variety of transport issues facing Scotland today. MaaS has been tested as a solution to the lack of multi-modal public transport journey planning information, the difficulty in accessing rural transport (specifically Demand Responsive Transport) and to enable introduction of new mobility solutions such as car clubs and bike hire. From this experience, the need for consistent and reliable real-time journey planning information has emerged as a prerequisite for MaaS to succeed. It is understood that Transport Scotland is now developing the DTDS project to address this need. In order to ensure the success of this project, it is likely that legislation is required in order to compel public transport operators to provide open data. The MIF work and evaluation will help inform that legislation and this should be considered as a benefit of the work. The model for this may reference the Bus Open Data requirements for services in England or could be based on a more comprehensive model enacted in Finland where service providers are required to provide access to timetable and price data and make ticketing functionality available to third parties for the purposes of MaaS development.

A critical question for the future of MaaS funding is the tension between commercial viability and social good. Commercially viable journey planning and ticketing, which caters for the mass market and dense urban transport networks exist in the form of apps such as Google Maps, Citymapper or popular apps developed by individual transport operators. The MIF pilot projects have identified the need for digital solutions to transport problems faced by marginal social groups such as NHS patients or college students. These ‘niche’ needs are unlikely to support a commercial model.

Effective and sustained marketing has been highlighted across the programme as a key requirement for a successful and targeted solution to work. The importance of communicating through a trusted and recognised brand has been identified, as well as the need to approach potential users with a solution to a clear transport problem that they face or a service they are actively seeking. This was evidenced by the overwhelmingly popular LLTNP app, which provided a convenient solution for visitors.

The MIF pilot projects also identified a specific, but separate, need for the development of bespoke digital solutions for DRT. Though some MaaS projects aimed to incorporate DRT, there was evidence of the need for reliable and user-friendly DRT services to be in place before the development of a MaaS platform, rather than developing both in tandem. Though MaaS did not present this solution, specific and tailored DRT products, supported by service improvements and strong messaging were seen to be effective.

Future funding for MaaS should be based on the achievement of specific and measurable objectives. Further development of MaaS in Scotland could be taken forward in several ways:

• one or more of the existing platforms could be funded into a second phase in order to build on current successes;
• the learning and understanding of MaaS to date could be used to define the specification for a Scotland-wide MaaS platform; or
• Transport Scotland could adopt a market-based approach, where commercial apps or operator apps are left to emerge.

In any of these scenarios, the need for a supportive legislative environment to enable MaaS is likely, however the extent to which this is implemented is dependent on what is best suited to the needs of users.

Knowledge Gaps

There remain a number of knowledge gaps in the evaluation of the MIF pilot projects and the outcomes of the programme as a whole. These have been prioritised as part of the scoping of the future of MaaS in Scotland in the following categories:

• Key Question: The issues which need to be addressed directly to enable further progress on MaaS in Scotland.
• Further Research: Additional research which may be beneficial to understand the full potential of MaaS in Scotland.

Viability

A variety of modes were accommodated across the various pilots, including bus, rail, ferry (Go-Hi), car club and bike hire. The success in integrating different operators was dependent on the capacity and willingness of those operators to engage. In Scotland, journey planning information is now provided by Transport Scotland in an open data format. This includes all modes of public transport, plus some active travel information such as bike schemes. The Bus Open Data (BOD) regulations now oblige bus operators in England to provide live information. It was suggested that this requirement could potentially fulfil a specific need identified by this pilot. The MIF project will help in shaping any similar bus open data legislation in Scotland. However this does not address the requirement for operators to provide a route for third parties to retail and book. Different proposals could include ensuring that operators future service contracts include this as an option.

Areas such as data protection and app procurements were recognised as unfamiliar territory for pilot project leads and took up more resources than anticipated. Whilst the pilot projects overcame these challenges by engaging specialist legal advice, this was costly . It is not clear what lessons were learnt, and whether the capacity for delivering MaaS could be utilised for further development of the concept in Scotland.

Due to the lack of sign up/account creation, features such as carbon dashboards, targeted nudge incentives and tailored journey planning to users’ preferences/requirements could not be fully realised or determined if needed.

The overall effectiveness of marketing and understanding of MaaS as a concept in reaching a wide audience is potentially limited. Pilots which conducted non-user surveys found that the majority of non-users had not heard of the apps. Further work may be required to understand whether MaaS can be successfully marketed, the concept understood and adopted by a wider audience.

Some of the pilots reported that having a workable MaaS platform could act as a catalyst for investment in new modes and allow for better awareness around initiatives such as Mobility Hubs and Park and Ride sites. The pilot projects which involved developing a new mode/service to feature on the app were generally unsuccessful given the time constraints and budget limitation of the MIF, so this remains a knowledge gap for a more widespread implementation of MaaS.

Impacts

Pilots chose their objectives based on the MIF guidelines document and were evaluated by the MIF panel before an award was made. As described previously, these were, by necessity, multifaceted and enabled experimentation with the MaaS concept and learning to take place. However the objectives of some operators and beneficiaries sometimes differed to those of the MaaS provider and therefore were not always reflected in the pilot specific objectives. Future pilot(s) would benefit from a  unified evaluation framework containing alignment of objectives between Transport Scotland, MaaS leads, operators and beneficiaries reviewed in light of the learning gathered throughout this pilot process, would now help to build a stronger evidence base to measure the ongoing impact of MaaS in Scotland.

The pilot projects reviewed have produced evidence that the application of MaaS has the potential to address social issues, such as lack of access to transport among rural populations or addressing the travel needs of marginalised groups. However, the evidence available was not collected in such a way as to allow a clear statement to be made on the value for money of the investment. This would support a more compelling case for future government funding towards MaaS and enable comparisons across spending priorities.

Due to the difficulties with monitoring the impacts of a MaaS app, the impact on modal shift is still largely unknown. Most obtained data comes from a small sample of users who tended to plan public transport journey on the app, but it is not known whether these are trips which would have otherwise taken place by car.

There was limited evidence reported against the Urban Environments theme, with a key knowledge gap remaining on how MaaS can interact with existing urban transportation policies such as Low Emission Zones, smart city schemes, localism or multi-modal smart and integrated ticketing zones.

Sustainability and Scalability

Establishing a sustainable commercial model for MaaS is a knowledge gap as pilots either operated as ‘not for profit’ or took commission from booking payments which was not significant enough to cover costs. Establishing a viable commercial model for MaaS is difficult given the number of competing apps available free of charge for the user, and the cheapest tickets always being available directly from the operators.

The cost of not promoting multi-modal trips for either modal shift or reducing inequalities was a key concern raised in the Tactran ENABLE report. However all of the pilot projects faced challenges quantifying the economic or social cost of not proceeding with a further roll out of MaaS.

Next Steps

This evaluation has identified value of the MIF programme in terms of knowledge gained, upskilling of the sector and partnerships developed. However, there remains clear knowledge gaps and insufficient evidence to reach conclusions relating to the value for money of MaaS or the mode shift and social return on investment that might be achieved by its wider roll-out.

A scoping phase is now required in order to establish the required outcomes of any further investment into MaaS. The following actions are recommended:

It is recommended that the findings from these pilots are used to inform a shared set of objectives for future investment in MaaS be established to direct investment and act as the basis of an evaluation framework which can be used to monitor progress over time. These objectives could be reviewed as part of a workshop with MaaS developers, transport operators, users and beneficiaries. This will ensure the buy-in of all groups from the onset by taking account of the views of all parties required to make MaaS successful. The objectives should be based on SMART principles (Specific, Measurable Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound) and upon a shared vision and definition of MaaS in Scotland.

The pilot projects were delivered in partnership between Transport Scotland and a mix of local authorities, RTPs, public institutions (NHS, Colleges, National Park) and commercial transport operators. The MaaS working group consisted of transport, MaaS and industry experts and was established in 2018 to agree and assure the delivery of the project deliverables for the MaaS Investment Fund, be decision makers, provide direction, and be global ambassadors for MaaS. The structure within which further investment of MaaS is delivered should be therefore developed in partnership with delivery partners from the existing pilots to ensure future investment builds upon the learning points from investment to date.

Once the direction of MaaS is established, the requirement for legislation to enable better integration of transport operators with MaaS platforms can be examined. This could reference the provisions of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, which enable greater control of bus services by local authorities.

Within this context, there may still be a need for a legislative instrument requiring public transport operators to provide integration of planning, booking and payment functions with MaaS platforms. In-turn, this may also require a reasonable level of grant funding for smaller operators to comply with any new legislation.

Informed by the previous steps, there may be merit in agreeing a specification for the procurement of a suitable MaaS platform which gathers learning points from the MIF pilots and ensure that the functionality and outputs of any developed MaaS solution meets the expectations of transport operators, users and beneficiaries.