Transatlantic Cooperation for Leveling Up MaaS

Purpose and goal:

In 2016, a service innovation in the form of a MaaS topology was developed, which became widely adopted in the mobility community. However, there is a need to ‘evolve’ the topology given the many developments in combined/integrated mobility, and the call for a more comprehensive and accessible depiction of what MaaS is and could be, with additional perspectives such as governance.

This project aims to gather researchers from the United States (UC Davis) and Sweden (LU, CTH, RISE) to both improve the topology and investigate its adaptability to the US and other markets. Expected results and effects:

The project will generate and disseminate an updated MaaS topology incorporating the latest developments in the field, which could very well become the new standard for the mobility community. It will also report on the potential for MaaS in California (and beyond). Given this, the project will contribute to service innovation and knowledge development and exchange, as well as the promotion of partnership and collaboration between the countries and between research and practice.

Approach and implementation:

The project takes a collaborative and iterative approach. The Swedish team is primarily responsible for the evolution of the MaaS topology and the California team for the investigation into MaaS’ potential in the US, with joint knowledge-building and -exchange activities to inform the overall work and anchor it both theoretically and empirically. Such activities include site visits to Sweden and California; workshops organized in conjunction with each site visit and involving key stakeholders outside the project consortium, and an exchange of PhD students/postdocs.