Sampo Hietanen, CEO of MaaS Global, recently argued that MaaS is not only about getting from a single point “A to B”, but rather including all the “As and Bs” a given user would like to reach, covering all the potential travel options and available means of transport.
The complexity required to match all issues related to urban planning, payment, tickets and the collection of travel information is the challenge that the Whim app is trying to solve in Helsinki.
The Whim app was initially launched without a multimodal route planning, however including different subscription models, such as pay as you go, Urban and Unlimited. All the subscriptions have the possibility to be extended to other regions of Helsinki (always included in the pay as you go offer) depending on the coverage required. The app learns the commuting routes and creates a one button option to shorten the purchase process of tickets on the most frequent routes travelled. By tracking user behaviours, the company plans to reward those taking only public transport means, walking or cycling.
The use of MaaS applications had a very promising start, registering a 30 percent increase in public transport use after its launch.
For more detailed info, please refer to the full story published on ITS International reviiew of July/August 2018 (pp 14-16).