25 January 2018 | Blue tower, Avenue Louise 326, Brussels

Last week a focus-on event about MaaS, organized by Ertico, took place in Brussels. The question on how MaaS could be taken on to the next level was the main focus point. The opportunities but also the obstacles of the deployment of MaaS were thoroughly discussed. A panel discussion took place with various people from the industry, followed by insightful thematic work sessions with the participants.

The event was opened with a warm welcome from the CEO of Ertico, Jacob Bangsgaard.

The panel discussion moderated by Krista Huhtala-Jenks , ministry adviser, Digital Services and Mobility as a Service, Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications, started with an inspiring view on Mobility as a service:

MaaS for me is like MacGyver and I am a huge fan of MacGyver. You take what you have, collect the pieces, stick some tape to it and you create something new and amazing.

With this in mind, the rest of the panel discussed their view on Maas and the role they want to fulfil.

Fillipo Logi, Director Mobility solutions Siemens, described MaaS as a pizza. MaaS builds on consisting components, such as the ingredients on a pizza. Doesn’t matter which modes, but they have to be well orchestrated in order to fit. Filipo discussed several projects they were currently developing in MaaS. The critical issues they encountered were in the integrated mobility offerings. The data has to be reliable. Johanna Tzadanidaki from Ertico-ITS Europe stated that she sees MaaS as one traffic management platform, where interactive traffic management takes place. It is about creating a platform in order to take advantage of the digitalization. However the question is: Who are the MaaS providers, public and private parties that have to work together? First, complete trust between the providers is needed, in order to share data. It was also listed that the access to the service is of great importance.

Interactive sessions
The interactive sessions revolved about the opportunities and the challenges that can be seen in MaaS deployment and the role the companies and Ertico fulfill in MaaS.

The conclusion was that MaaS offers endlessness amounts of opportunities, such as supporting the sharing economy, however the main challenge of the deployment of MaaS is how to put the regulation into practice and adapt to the framework. One other big obstacle for MaaS is trust. Private and public companies have to trust each other, in order to share data and to create one seamless platform. The question whether open APIs and fair treatment of data can be ensured, cannot yet be answered. There is more work needed on standards and trust building. The difficulty is enabling 3rd parties to buy and sell tickets through the API of the service providers.

The conclusion about the roleERTICO has to fulfil in MaaS , pointed in a direction of a reliable and trustworthy 3rd party role with the MaaS alliance getting more integrated.

After the Panel discussions and the interactive sessions, Pia Karjalainen, MaaS alliance coordinator from Ertico, closed the day with a summary of the topics and questions discussed and invited everybody to a network lunch.