In the latest podcast from the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Alliance, Ben Foulser of KPMG, Scott Shepard from IoMob and Vasco Mora of the City of Lisbon discuss how commercial MaaS models can thrive, as well as picking up on issues caused by the current crisis and lockdown.

As a solution for the current crisis, IoMob has put forward a proposal to leverage their core technology – the building blocks of our MaaS platform – to include social distancing and crowd sourcing in a new CORE MaaS solution. Shepard told the podcast that he believes that once the crisis is over people will rethink their travel habits and begin to peel away unnecessary trips while Mora adds, “We can use this to plan for the next phase of mobility. How we can project a better mobility for the future, that contributes to the environment but also to the social approximation of people and also to the wellbeing of society as a whole.”

Foulser, though, thinks that this is both a challenge and an opportunity for MaaS. He says that the correlation between the worst-affected areas for Coronavirus and poor air quality in those places is a stark lesson in why it is essential cities offer more efficient and environmentally-friendly mobility such as that delivered by MaaS. But he warns that, “There is a counterpoint which is social distancing will be here for quite a while. Mass transport, which we’re all obviously very keen on from an efficiency and air quality perspective, may actually be hit because of it. There may be more of a demand for personal mobility, so we need think about how we deal with that practically in the next 12-24 months.”

Listen to the Future MaaS podcast here.

Production team: Paul Hutton (Phinitiatives) moderation and editing, James Datson (Connected Places Catapult) content