Maas implementation pathwaysa multi-stakeholder approach

Resumen

Cities play a key role in our lives as the principal centres of human activity. These urban ecosystems present multiple opportunities for their inhabitants; but, at the same time, they prompt great challenges that threaten their social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Ongoing megatrends in society (such as population growth, ageing, urbanisation, economic development, digitalization, connectivity, and servitization) are bringing disruptive changes to regions around the globe and, thus, are shaping our futures. In other words, they are re-writing the rules for multiple urban sectors, including mobility. To date, multiple types of mobility strategies have been already deployed for encouraging people to travel more sustainable. As a result, the current multimodal scenario provides end-users with an extensive range of transport options. Particularly, in recent years, a variety of app-based mobility services (such as shared mobility, micro mobility, and ride hailing services) have arrived in our cities to complement the “traditional” network, driven by a change in travellers’ motivations. Previous studies have detected that individuals are seen to be ever more attracted by the move from an “owner-ship” to a “user-ship” regime. Within this rapidly changing scene, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) emerges as a promising model to improve personal mobility and align it with urban sustainability goals, following a holistic approach across all the dimensions of the city. Despite recent efforts to address this concept, current literature reveals a lack of understanding on the definition, acceptance, and implications of the new scheme, mainly due to its (relatively) novel nature and the scarcity of evidence from real-world initiatives. This thesis is framed in the context of the popularization of MaaS. Based on the above considerations, its main aim is to gain knowledge – from a multi-stakeholder perspective – on the challenges that MaaS could bring to our cities. This constitutes an essential step to outline the strategic pathways that could supervise the design of MaaS, guide its implementation, facilitate its operation, and encourage its adoption and use, towards sustainability. Specifically, in order to meet this general objective, the following three analyses are conducted: firstly, a focus groups methodology is applied to identify which services should be integrated by MaaS to effectively respond to end-users’ (real) needs, preferences, and expectations. This analysis also contributes to a better understanding of the notion of MaaS. Secondly, an online survey is developed to evaluate end-users’ willingness to adopt MaaS, exploring the motivational drivers (demographic, socioeconomic, travel-related, attitudinal, and personality factors) that affect individuals’ behavioural intention. And finally, a series of semi-structured interviews are carried out to address the potential challenges that the adoption of MaaS could bring to our urban environments from the stakeholders’ perspective. In particular, to six urban dimensions: governance, economy, mobility, environment, living, and people. Even if today it is still difficult to predict the real power of the new mobility model, this thesis yields some interesting conclusions in the field of MaaS, which could trigger its potential for promoting more sustainable cities and societies.