The IoMob advertorial article defines some very useful distinctions in a rather complex MaaS landscape.

    by Scott Shepard    –  9 Dec. 2019

Towards an Open B2B / B2G MaaS Marketplace

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) has been be going through a tectonic industry shift over the past 12 months. New market players have entered the scene, while others have pivoted and completely readjusted their business models, product offers, and value propositions.

In light of this market shift, there are five overarching trends that help to explain this transformation in the ecosystem. These trends include

1.) An increasing emphasis on the central role of cities and PTAs in the MaaS ecosystem,

2.) Traditional B2C MaaS aggregator business models failing to yield sufficient revenues,

3.) OEM / Automakers disinvestment in MaaS platforms and the shared mobility domain as a whole,

4.) an increased emphasis on seamless, door to door mobility roaming, and

5.) open MaaS platforms that both serve citizens and cities and are not closed, walled gardens.

Therefore, as we start to think about where we’re at and as we move into 2020, we can see that the previous ways of doing business simply don’t make sense. To realize the highest aspirations of MaaS, we need to start thinking big. And that means we need to start placing cities, regions, and nations into context when it comes to understanding how people actually move, what are their personal preferences, and what are the barriers to providing them with digital options (such as MaaS) to nudge them out of their personal cars and into shared modes of mobility.

The B2B / B2G MaaS Marketplace is a highly diverse and disruptive ecosystem at the moment. There are many players trying to do many things, and the value propositions are not always clear to consumers, cities, PTAs, or other stakeholders. Therefore, we at Iomob have taken the lead to truly understand

1.) the high level MaaS market trends in 2019,

and

2.) where the leading MaaS players stack relative to the B2B / B2G market.

We have intentionally left out traditional B2C MaaS aggregators and journey planners, as they are outside of the scope of this discussion.

The analysis below is organized by the following MaaS verticals (Private MaaS, Hybrid MaaS, Public MaaS, and Web 3.0 MaaS). In addition, multiple categories have been analyzed (Full Stack in House, Intra and Inter City Combined, Enterprise Integration Support, Global Roaming, Intermodal / Multimodal Algorithms, Open API Specifications, Deep MSP and PTA Integration, and Proprietary Ticketing Systems).

Vertically Integrated Private MaaS

While Uber and Lyft typically fall into this category, their business model is not geared towards the MaaS B2G sector. Therefore, we have chosen to only focus on one industry player. Private MaaS is by definition a platform that is a walled garden, meaning that only services that are within the closed ecosystem of the MaaS provider and are pre-approved are allowed to operate and become available to consumers in the app. For example, in this case only bikes or scooters that were part of the same corporate organizational structure (as the MaaS provider) would be allowed in the platform, blocking any competitor MSPs from being able to integrate and display on the app for consumer comparision. As can be derived from this perspective, this prevents consumers from making informed decisions related to their daily (and personal) mobility choices.

Hybrid MaaS

Hybrid MaaS takes a middle path in the ecosystem, and can from the outside seem to promise anything and everything at the same time. Notable examples are MaaS platforms developed commercially for consumers, yet at the same time repackaged as frameworks for PTAs and cities. The key difference between a Hybrid MaaS and a Public MaaS is that Hybrid MaaS platforms retain a direct relationship with the consumer, which is sort of a mix between a B2C and B2G business model. These are developed to be deeply integrated with available public transport and MSPs and offered directly to consumers in subscription plans. However, PTAs and cities lose the direct consumer relationship (as in Private MaaS) because model split (e.g. who rides a taxi vs. a scooter vs. a train) are bundled together in a fashion that can conflict with the primary policy goals of public authorities, who are tasked with delivering urban public transport services in the first place.

Public MaaS

Public MaaS, as the name implies is a carefully orchestrated platform that places cities and PTAs in the central orchestrating role of delivering shared mobility services to all urban inhabitants. This form of MaaS has been gaining quite a bit of attention in the past year, as there have been multiple deployments across Europe, most notably in Berlin (with the Jelbi app developed by Trafi). While Public MaaS places cities and PTAs in the center of the MaaS ecosystem, what is lacking is a ubiquitous, roaming functionality that enables consumers to benefit from a user experience that is frictionless and will thus increase app “stickiness” (users staying within one app, and not jumping to external apps).

Web 3.0 Internet of Mobility (Open MaaS Ecosystem)

Web 3.0 Internet of Mobility is a vision that offers ubiquitous, decentralized, multi city urban mobility. What differentiates Web 3.0 from Public MaaS is not a particular implementation of MaaS sponsored by an organization. Instead, Web 3.0 provides a base infrastructure for any player to provide mobility services, or to offer those services directly to consumers via an app. Web 3.0 thus accomodates and enables all the previous approaches (private, hybrid, public) with subscription or pay-as-you-go models.

Iomob is the only B2B MaaS platform to have built the entire stack internally including our own intermodal algorithms, back end integrations with mobility services as well as with enterprise systems like Microsoft Dynamics and a customizable white label app. Iomob is also the first B2B MaaS player to develop and launch a MaaS service that simultaneously sorts intercity mobility travel coupled with intracity and micromobility services, most of which are deeply integrated. For example for the Renfe project, Iomob has integrated Renfe´s high speed and suburban rail between Madrid and Barcelona plus a range of services that are used in one or both pilot cities such as taxis and ridehailing (Cabify), micromobility (Circ plus public bikesharing), carsharing and more.

Iomob’s solution is unique in that a user of any app connected to Iomob’s back end will be able to travel to any city in the world that has connected mobility services to Iomob’s back end, and essentially “roam” as they are accustomed to with their cell phone. Upon arrival to a new city outside of their Iomob-powered apps home country (e.g. a Renfe user traveling to Germany) will soon receive a message saying welcome to Munich. Through the Renfe app you now have access to 12 local mobility services during your travels.

Finally, Iomob has also made a conscious choice to remain agnostic to mobile ticketing systems, embrace the whole ecosystem, and not try to impose our own product on the market. The reason for this is because Iomob wants to be able to integrate with whatever mobile ticketing system that our clients and PTAs prefer. Many of our clients have already spent millions of euros on existing ticketing systems, so the objective is open integration. Our laser focus is on building the world’s biggest open MaaS platform, and leaving the ticketing systems to partners already in the ecosystem.

The mobility marketplace has become increasingly fragmented and the need to enable seamless, decentralized mobility aggregation has never been greater. While there are many emerging entrants in the aggregation space, for the reasons outlined here, we at Iomob are convinced that the Internet of Mobility offers the best future for MSPs, PTAs, operators, cities, and inhabitants.

Scott Shepard is Chief Business Officer with Iomob

View original article at medium.com