In a fast moving environment, access to information about options for travel that is instant, easy to use, and attractive to customers, is very important. Therefore a one-stop-mobility shop, acting as a personal mobility assistant, is the key to offering citizens an alternative that challenges car ownership. This will not work without efficient public transport and rail networks.
Nowadays, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) schemes can be seen as disruptive initiatives with great potential that provide a tailored mobility package to travellers. However, due to challenges such as public/private mobility integration, information handling and sharing, service interoperability and scalability requirements, specific actions to ensure the successful uptake of these schemes are needed. New technologies can play a crucial role in the large scale uptake of MaaS schemes, and ensure a stable business operation of these schemes at a global level. Interoperability Framework (IF), Travel Shopping, Booking and Ticketing, Validation, Payment and Trip Tracking are technologies developed within the Shift2Rail Innovation Programme 4 (IP4). All these technologies aim to meet the engineering challenges associated with the uptake of MaaS schemes.
The Shift2MaaS project was launched in December 2018 to support the uptake of the IP4 technologies and overcome the technical and non-technical barriers for the adoption of new MaaS platforms. Shift2MaaS aims to support the introduction of Shift2Rail IP4 technology within the MaaS context by analysing the needs of the different stakeholders involved.
Shift2MaaS will demonstrate the benefits of IP4 through pilot demonstrators of shared mobility services and seamless passenger experience. In addition, Shift2Maas will support COHESIVE, another Shift2Rail project that aims to integrate the various technological innovations developed in the other IP4 projects. To this end, Shift2MaaS will co-design and test solutions developed in the COHESIVE project.
The Shift2MaaS impact is tested in three European sites (Lisbon, Malaga and Central East Corridor). The lessons learned will be made available and shared with Shift2Rail IP4. This means that Shift2MaaS builds on and adds to previous projects by making the connection to real environments.
