The Business Ecosystem of Mobility-as-a-Service

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a new mobility model that aims to bridge the gap between public and private transport operators on a city, intercity and national level, and envisages the integration of the currently fragmented tools and services a traveller needs to conduct a trip (planning, booking, access to real time information, payment and ticketing). As MaaS gains wider acceptance, there are several misperceptions about what this model is. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary definition for the MaaS concept, and propose the MaaS ecosystem where the role of each actor is described in details. The MaaS ecosystem is designed after personal interviews and focus groups with the involved actors. This holistic approach sets the ground for the MaaS concept and highlights the areas where research is needed in order to contribute to the materialisation of the concept

Legal Doctrinal Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Engagement

The paper offers a legal theoretical analysis of the disciplinary character of the contemporary practice of legal scholarship. It is assumed that the challenges of interdisciplinary engagement are particularly revealing about the nature of legal scholarship. The paper argues for an understanding of legal scholarship that revolves around cultivating doctrinal knowledge about law. Legal scholarship is characterised as a normative and interpretive discipline that offers an internalist and non-instrumentalist perspective on law. The paper also argues that interdisciplinary engagement is sometimes necessary for legal scholars because some concepts and ideas built into the doctrinal structures of law cannot be made fully intelligible by way of pure normative legal analysis. This point is developed with the help of an epistemological clarification of doctrinal knowledge and anchored in an account of the practice of legal scholarship. The paper explores the implications of this account by way of analysing three paradigms of interdisciplinary engagement that respond to distinctive challenges facing legal scholarship: (1) understanding better the extra-legal origins of legal ideas, (2) managing discursive encounters that can generate frictions between disciplinary perspectives, and (3) building the knowledge base to handle challenge of validating policy initiatives that aim at changing the law. In different ways, all three challenges may require legal scholars to build competence in other disciplines. The third paradigm has particular relevance for understanding the methodological profile of legal scholarship. Legal scholarship is the only discipline with specific focus on how the social environment affects the doctrinal structures of law

Investigating heterogeneity in preferences for Mobility-as-a-Service plans through a latent class choice model

The past decade has seen the introduction and widespread availability of a number of new mobility services. These have created a transport environment that is complex to navigate for passengers. The Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept aims to provide a solution, by offering a single digital interface through which users can plan journeys, pay for and access a variety of transport modes. MaaS can also provide users with various products, including pay-per-use access to transport modes as well as MaaS packages. The latter are bundled mobility services that combine a variety of transport modes and are offered to customers in a one-stop-shop manner. The objective of this paper is to examine individual preferences for MaaS packages, specifically addressing the question of preference heterogeneity. In doing so, a Latent Class Choice Model (LCCM) is developed, allowing us to reveal variations in individuals’ preferences. The LCCM is estimated using data from a MaaS-related market research carried out in Greater Manchester. The results imply significant heterogeneity with regards to preferences. Three latent classes emerged through the analysis, all with different MaaS package preferences and individual characteristics. Age, gender, income, education and current travel behaviour all play an important role in determining an individual’s propensity to purchase MaaS packages. The results can provide valuable insights into the types of people that should and should not be initially targeted with MaaS packages to maximise uptake

Exploring city propensity for the market success of micro-electric vehicles

As a subset of increasing EV growth and micro-mobility technology trends, micro-electric vehicles (micro-EVs) have the potential to address many transport system issues. Little research quantifies micro-EV potential, increasing investment risks. This paper builds an index to explore city propensity for micro-EV market success by incorporating differentiation, implementation, commercialisation, consumer and manufacturer requirements, and economic stability and viability aspects. The results highlight that micro-EV market success could most likely be influenced by the lock-in of the city’s transport system. Despite inherent difficulties due to lock-in, our index suggests that there could be windows of opportunity for micro-EVs to be successful. Although both cities show a propensity for market success, Shanghai scores higher than London, highlighting that these opportunities may exist particularly in developing countries as they experience less lock-in and have more consumer incentives. Implementing micro-EVs in cities with higher propensity could have the domino effect of motivating change in other locations

A Comprehensive Review of “Mobility as a Service” Systems

The objective of this paper is to comprehensively review the existing MaaS schemes and develop an index to evaluate the level of mobility integration for each MaaS scheme based on the assumption that higher level of integration is more appealing to travellers. The review presented in this paper allows a comparison among the existing schemes and provides the background and the key points of MaaS systems that the research community should take into account in designing surveys. It is also provides significant insights to transport operators and authorities on the components they should take into account to apply an attractive MaaS scheme that could potential shift demand away from private vehicles

The Reliability of Selected Techniques in Clinical Arthrometrics

A number of studies which have examined reliability of spinal assessment procedures in manual therapy are reviewed. The tests examined were Passive Accessory Intervertebral Movements, Passive Physiological Intervertebral Movements, Straight Leg Raise and Forward Flexion. In general, tests of pain were found to be much more reproducible than tests of compliance. Straight Leg Raise and Forward Flexion tests were consistently more reliable than the Passive Intervertebral Movement tests. Possible explanations for these findings are advanced. The role of tests of compliance based on passive intervertebral movements in clinical decision-making may need to be re-examined. An appendix on reliability theory is included for the uninitiated reader

A Critical Review of New Mobility Services for Urban Transport

The growing pressure on urban passenger transport systems has increased the demand for new and innovative solutions to increase its efficiency. One approach to tackle this challenge has been the slow but steady shift towards shared mobility services (car-, bike-sharing etc.). Building on these new modes and the developments in information and communication technologies, the concept of “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS) has recently come to light and offers convenient door-to-door transport without the need to own a private vehicle. The term Mobility as a Service (MaaS) stands for buying mobility services based on consumer needs instead of buying the means of mobility. In recent years, various MaaS schemes have been arisen around the world. The objective of this paper is to review these newly existing mobility services and develop an index to evaluate the level of mobility integration for each based on the assumption that higher level of integration is more appealing to travellers. The review presented in this paper allows a comparison among the schemes and provides the background and the key points of MaaS systems that the research community could use for designing surveys. It also provides significant insights to transport operators and authorities on the elements they should take into account to apply an attractive MaaS scheme that could effectively shift demand away from private vehicles

Feasibility Study for “Mobility as a Service” concept in London

Novel mobility services that heavily rely on technological advances could contribute to seamless mobility. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is such a concept. The objective of the FS-MaaS project is to propose the design of a MaaS concept for London, the MaaS-London, and examine its feasibility. To work towards the concept of MaaS-London, first, the supply and the demand sides of the London transport market are analysed. There are a variety of mobility services supplied in London such as car clubs (car sharing), ride sharing, bike sharing, public transport, rail and taxi which altogether make London an ideal ground to exploit MaaS-London. The MaaS-London is an integrated platform that includes registration and package selection, intermodal journey planning, booking, smart ticketing and payment functions so that the entire chain of transport can be managed in this centralised platform. The most outstanding feature of MaaS-London is the provision of mobility packages, which consist of tailored bundles of mobility services customised to individual needs. The feasibility study indicates that the introduction of MaaS-London will benefit both the supply and the demand side. Transport operators will benefit by creating a larger market via the integrated platform. Travellers will also welcome the concept due to travel expense and time reduction, and better service experience. MaaS-London is a feasible product that can well serve London transport market and contribute to London’s 2020 vision

Tropospheric ozone concentrations - Seasonal and daily analysis and its association with NO and NO2 as a function of NOx in Ciuc depression – Romania

This paper summarizes the results of a yearlong continuous measurements of gaseous pollutants, NO, NO2, NOxand O3 in the ambient air of Ciuc Depression. Measured concentration of the pollutants in study area is a function of time. NO, NO2 and O3 peak occurred in succession in presence of sunlight. At the time of maximum O3 concentration most of the NOx are utilized. The diurnal cycle of ground level ozone concentrations, revealed mid-day peak with lower nocturnal concentrations and inverse relationship exists between O3 and NOx, which are evidences of photochemical O3 formation. Particular emphasis is placed on establishing how the level of 'oxidant', OX (taken to be the sum of O3 and NO2) varies with the level of NOx, and therefore to gain some insight into the atmospheric sources of OX. The analyses indicate that the level of OX at a given location is made up of NOx- independent and NOx- dependent contributions. The former is effectively a regional contribution which equates to the regional background O3 level, whereas the latter is effectively a local contribution which correlates with the level of primary pollution. Increased values can be also observed for more periods of the year; this fact for the depressional case of Ciuc are due to the particular case represent by stable boundary layer conditions (high static stability conditions in term of Brunt - Vaisala frequency) which are long known for causing increasing concentration of pollutant concentrations

The MaaS Dictionary

This dictionary provides the definition of the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept, as well as the definitions of the actors involved in MaaS