If you live in a city, you're probably aware of how overcrowded metropolitan areas are these days. If you've had trouble parking your car, finding a convenient bus line for your route, or have found it difficult to find a well-connected metro stop for your commute, keep reading!

As rural areas have gradually become more and more empty, cities are more and more crowded, making it a real challenge to get around. Traditional transport is no longer able to meet the new needs of citizens, so it has become necessary to develop and implement more flexible options.

This is where Mobility as a Service (MaaS) comes in, offering mobility solutions that are much more accessible and more sustainable for all.In addition to providing solutions to other issues, MaaS helps us to achieve equitable mobility for different social groups.

Mobility as a Service is the future of cities, so if you want to know how it works and the latest trends in urban mobility, read on!

What is Mobility as a Service? Learn more about MaaS

The concept of mobility as a service is closely linked to the new trends in ridesharing over the recent years. Nowadays, many people do not have the financial capacity to buy their own car and MaaS has emerged to solve this problem.

The idea of mobility as a service is to eliminate the dependency of citizens in private vehicles by offering other transport services that combine public and shared forms of mobility.

In this way, mobility as a service helps to decongest cities, reduce emissions and offers more accessible transport alternatives.

A MaaS operator, such as the Meep app, offers various options such as: public transport, car or bike sharing, taxi or car rental. Through this app, the user can select and combine the different options and make the payment all in one platform.

This not only has advantages for the users of the app, but also for transport operators who obtain more accurate information about users and the transport demand.

Mobility as a service: 6 basic principles

MaaS is based on 6 basic principles with the main objective of improving urban life and mobility.

1. Be the best option for consumers

MaaS must be a service accessible to all people and that adapts to the diverse lifestyles of citizens. The needs and interests of the users must be the main concern for MaaS solutions.

2. Benefit the world as a whole

MaaS should also contribute to improving the environment. Policies should always promote the sustainability of the planet. The cooperation of all parts of the transport system that are involved is necessary, as it aims to function as a whole.

3. Focus on mobile technology and ICT (information and communications technologies)

MaaS must be based on the use of new technologies and intelligent mobility. Mobile technology is very important when developing MaaS. The use of smartphones has expanded, which is why MaaS offers an innovative service that can be accessed from any device and place.

4. An opportunity to improve traditional mobility

MaaS has not come to displace traditional transport providers, but as an opportunity for them to adapt to new market demands and to improve technologically.

5. Accessing new markets

By offering new channels, the transport market expands, offering the opportunity for new players to enter the mobility business. New providers can join, which enriches the service offered for users.

6. A safer and more optimal option

Thanks to the synchronization of data from different mobility services and user demands, MaaS is a much safer and optimized way of transport. The data is monitored in real time so that the information is up-to-date and much more reliable.

How Mobility as a Service can improve life in your city

Due to the congestion in cities, most people who own a private vehicle end up keeping it in a garage most of the time, or worse, being forced to spend hours looking for parking space because they don't have access to private parking.

Having to move your car every time you leave the house can be a real headache when you don't know where you're going to leave it at your destination point or when you get back home.

For many people, the expense and hassle of owning their own car or motorbike is bigger than if they were using shared mobility services. With MaaS, citizens can move around freely and the experience of a city is much more pleasant both for citizens and tourists.

The example of Seville (Spain)

The Andalusian city has joined the change in mobility in an effort to update transport using new technologies, with the help of Meep, the Seville City Council and Globalvia.

Thanks to MaaS technology, the people of Seville can plan their journeys around the city using different forms of transport, as well as being able to book and make payments through the same app. Public operators such as Metro de Sevilla, Tussam or Consorcio de Transporte de Andalucia are integrated at an information level and users can do the entire route planning, booking and payment process from the app itself with Bolt, Taxi Sevilla and Voi.

In addition, Meep Sevilla has also developed a gamification project together with Ciclogreen in La Cartuja Technology Park: the 'MaaS eCitySevilla Challenge'. The aim was to encourage workers at the Isla de la Cartuja to travel in a sustainable way using Meep, which integrates all forms of transport, and Ciclogreen, which helps companies to calculate and reduce their emissions. For each journey made, they gained points that could then be exchanged for attractive prizes. The project was a great success. More than 10,000 km were travelled in a more sustainable way by 118 employees, avoiding the emission of 2.5 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

At Meep we are working to make mobility as a service the future of transport, a more equitable, accessible and sustainable future - help us build it! Become a Meeper!

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*Main image: By Mike Kotsch  | Unsplash