A trademark that combines “Maas” with a specific mode of mobility apperars highly counter-intuitive. In this case (= ” RailMaasS™ “), it’s no doubt intended. 

We most often associate MaaS with multimodal trip planning & ticketing in a city or greater urban arera. IoMob appears to be the first Maas Mobility supplier to launch a MaaS App focused on an intercity rail trip backbone combined with “last-mile” services in the city of departure and in the city of arrival.

So we have here a new step forward in turning the MaaS vision into a reality, bearing in mind that the goal for MaaS suppliers is to integrate all alternative modes and itineraries into a single efficient App.

      Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CEO IoMob    –    24 Nov. 2019

Iomob Launches RailMaaS™ : Mobility as a Service for Rail Operators

Since January of this year, Iomob has been hard at work developing a new Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform designed for rail operators. Before embarking on advanced development of the platform, however, we first embraced a human-centered design approach.

 

Observing rail passengers trying to navigate the ticketing machines at Barcelona Sants.

 

In our case, we hired the Dutch-based design thinking studio, Six Fingers (via their Barcelona office) to help lead the design and execution of a robust study of users of our first rail customer, Renfe. Staff from Iomob accompanied Six Fingers at and near real stations to interview and observe users with their existing Renfe apps and the ticketing machines.

We created an empathy map based on comments and insights from users regarding a range of emotions, pains and desires they have when they travel via trains throughout Spain and what they might hope for in a seamless door-to-door user experience.

Modularized Journeys
We generated a range of unique features of our RailMaaS™ solution as a result of this user-centric approach. We found that many users want to have modular journeys where they can first choose the intercity train they wish to take, followed by assembling first and last mile origin and destination options. But they also wanted flexibility to not be forced to decide everything at once and to be able to make changes in advance or dynamically throughout their journey.

 

 

Flexible Journey Planning & Booking with One-Click Payment
We found out this flexiblity extends to how people like to plan and pay for their journeys. While some want to preplan their whole journey in advance, others prefer to just book their train ticket and then dynamically route themselves to and from the stations on the day of their journey. Therefore we had to design this level of user flexibility into the design of the app, accommodating different user preferences. Some even want to assemble their whole trip in advance and pay for it too, with one click. So we built one click payment (“pago unico” en español) functionality too.

One App for Intercity and Intracity Mobility
Another insight we had, which of course is not surprising for any of us who use a lot of mobility services and also travel a lot: users want one app to solve all their mobility needs. They want a MaaS app that allows them to discover services around them, get recommended journey plans that may include more than one service (e.g. scooter to a train), they want to be able to reserve a taxi or unlock the scooter and they want to be able to pay for the services inside the app. This means of course, signficant work in UI/UX to en sure the app has a high “stickiness” factor.

And of course for rail customers they want this experience not just for the intercity rail services but also for the urban “first and last mile” journeys in the cities they live or visit. Users HATE having to discover, download and onboard new services with new apps.

Global Mobility Roaming
Furthermore, if possible users prefer one app to travel with them wherever they go inside the country or even crossing borders. This of course is one reason global mobility companies like Uber have gained so much traction with users. One app that travels with you around the world. We at Iomob have designed our achitecture to allow a user to travel outside the territory of our clients (e.g. Renfe in Spain) but continue to use the client’s app wherever Iomob has connected mobility services anywhere in the world. We call this “global mobility roaming”.

For the initial project with Renfe, we have grown the list of mobility services we will be integrating throughout the course of the pilot too. Outside of Renfe high speed rail and suburban rail services we have public transit in both cities, bikesharing, scooter sharing (Circ), taxis, ridehailing (Cabify), parking (Saba) and a carsharing service. We are only in the first week of user testing and we continue to get great feedback on how to improve the user experience. We have designed tools inside the app as well as surveys and focus groups to gather further insights from users throughout the initial three month pilot between and within Barcelona and Madrid. We will report back in the next month or two with progress reports and updates from the field. In the meantime for those interested in learning more about our RailMaaS™ platform, here you go!

 

About us:
Iomob is working to decentralize and build the Internet of Mobility, by incentivizing and facilitating the use of alternative transport. By using the blockchain, Iomob plans to minimize fees and allow mobility providers and end-users alike to connect on a peer-to-peer basis. In their own words: Iomob is “a system which produces a useful output at the lowest possible marginal cost.”

View original article at medium.com

Share This