We start 2021 with a lot of hope after an difficult year; even if still in lockdown and forced at home in many parts of the world, we hope that 2020 left us with some learnings and opened our eyes on the vulnerability of our functional sectors, including the transport. 2021 is the year of actions, but before we do act, we briefly look back at some of our accomplishments of last year.
Despite the COVID crisis, the MaaS Alliance has continued its work towards seamless multimodal mobility services, together with its members, and we have a lot to be proud of. We have continued our discussion on smart and sustainable mobility with EU representatives including Commissioner for Transport and Mobility Adina Vălean and by hosting the MaaS Summit in September. The Summit in particular focused on the policy schemes linked to the Green Deal creating benefits for people, societies and planet and improving the resilience of the transport and mobility system. In the context of the recovery plans, we have provided suggestions for legislative and financial measures to support the twin digital and green transition of our economies during and after the pandemic. Our ideas were reflected also by the brand new EU Strategy for Sustainable and Smart Mobility that was published in December.
In October 2020, the MaaS Alliance turned five. Starting with the MaaS Declaration, signed in 2014 at the ITS European Congress in Helsinki, to the establishment of the MaaS Alliance in 2015 in Bordeaux, during the ITS World Congress; growing from 7 to 30 to now 100 Members; setting the framework for MaaS with the publication of our White Paper in 2017; and then later on co-creating the important real-life building blocks for MaaS. These are milestones we achieved thanks to a fantastic cooperation between our members from the public and public sectors. To mark this milestone, we have launched a series of interviews with some of our Members to highlight important steps that led as to where we are now.
Last year we have grown to 100 members and we are really glad to welcome already 3 new members in 2021; Toyota Financial Services Corporation, City of Buenos Aires and Vix Technology. We are pleased to see global organisations continuing joining, showing the MaaS Alliance relevance in the mobility sector. If you would like to find out more about the latest organisations that joined our community, visit our dedicated section on the website.
In 2020 we have also continued with our new production of podcasts titled “Future MaaS”, to explore the different dimensions of the MaaS panacea from various aspects. We had some fantastic speakers from the industry talking about the role of public authorities, the commercial potential of MaaS and insurance innovations. You can listen them all here. We have already started the production of new episodes, so make sure to subscribe to our SoundCloud channel.
This year we are committed to continue engaging in different ways and forms with the mobility community to facilitate a functional open market and full deployment of MaaS services.
Our work is organised under three working groups on Governance & Business Models; Technology & Standards; and Users & Rules. In 2021, the Governance & Business Model Working Group (led by Marko Javornik, Voyego) will continue with focused and enhanced efforts to help the members with business model considerations; it will also continue to support the achievement of a comprehensive approach and roadmap for MaaS-enabling ticketing. Within the Users & Rules Working Group (chaired by Laura Lassila, Traficom), a new activity will start focusing on MaaS and Urban Planning. The Technology & Standards Working Group (coordinated by Ferdinand Burgersdijk) will continue with its agenda towards interoperable MaaS services and data exchange environment.
We are always welcoming new members from different continents, to learn more the benefits of being part of the MaaS Alliance, don’t hesitate to contact us.
