The next big thing will revolutionize how we move 

Jonna Pöllänen is working as a Collaboration Manager at MaaS Global. She has been part of creating the global Mobility-as-a-Service ecosystem for the past 5 years and she talks to TaaS Magazine about Whim and how the app wants to revolutionize how we move.

Imagine yourself traveling to a new country. When entering to airport, the first thing you need to solve is how to get there. Which transport mode to use, how to buy a ticket, which currency to use, which taxis and routes to trust. This is the way it has been for ages.

Mobility as a Service, in short MaaS, is a concept that aim to change how people travel for good. The basic idea of the concept is to connect taxis, public transport, cars, bikes, long-distance trains and buses, and whatever innovation enters the market and tailor those to individual's needs as monthly packages. Simple and easy customer experience is in the core of service development and combination of design and technology can create something that we've never seen before in transport sector.

This disruption can be compared to telecom sector. Just like people are used to have mobile phone subscriptions provided by different telecom operators such as Vodafone or Telia, in the future, they'll get their mobility in a similar way. Different mobility operators will take care about all the hassle in the background and give you the service promise, and you can just focus on to actual destination.

This will lead to a huge change where former freedom of mobility used to be a private car ownership and all the inconvenience that comes along with it, but tomorrow's freedom of mobility will be an open world, wherever you go.

Reinventing the wheel

In ownership model, we receive one key to one car. The issue is that in the future, urban mobility demand will explode and nowadays people don't want to travel only locally, they are traveling globally. We will be forced to reinvent the wheel.

To be able to do this, it will need a global ecosystem where both traditional and new transport modes are willing to cooperate. That way we can provide a key that opens all the doors, globally. But that doesn't make it successful yet. What has been the success of a private car has been the freedom to choose a model that will match with your personal needs. Choice between mobility operators and their subscription models will guarantee the user choice and fair competition in the markets.



Markets can evolve in two ways. If we think of two of the most traditional transport modes: public transport and private car, the big question is that do we want all the innovation in between to plug with sustainable modes or with private cars. It is certain that the one that opens first will be the winner.

The challenge of public transport centric vision is that it can only work if people "“ meaning individuals "“ will buy the concept rather than a car. People buy something that inspires them individually and allows them to be lazy. Car has been dominant because it provides aspiration and it is personal. Mobility as a Service will have to be more convenient and personal then car ownership. It means that there must be variation in MaaS packages that do not have the scent of traffic management in them. In other words, it means open competition in MaaS even though using mostly the same parts of transport to provide the service.

The world's first "all-inclusive" mobility packages introduced by Whim

Finnish growth company MaaS Global is operating as a mobility operator and introduced its smart phone application Whim to public in 2016. Last summer, MaaS Global raised €14.2M investment including Japanese giants such as Toyota, DENSO and Aioi Nissay Dowa. Also, original investors Transdev, Karsan and Veho continued with further investments. Evolution is interesting as MaaS Global has claimed that Mobility as a Service will be the end of car ownership.



The company is globally seen as a forerunner in the MaaS movement as its founder Sampo Hietanen introduced the concept for the first time already back in 2006. Back then, he was asked to give a presentation to traffic engineers on how technology and internet will change infrastructure and markets and his mind wandered off to the mobile phone business in the 1990s. What if we're now in the same situation regarding traffic? Now, in 2017, Whim was the world's first MaaS-service to introduce fully unlimited monthly mobility subscriptions to public. Offering includes free public transportation, free taxis and free cars with the cost of a private car ownership. How this all is being done is with the use of open APIs that include payments.

Next step for Whim is to enter to new markets. App is already live in Finland and a limited pilot has already started in West Midlands, in Great Britain. Company has already published their expansion plans for Netherlands and Belgium latest early 2018. This will be the first-time that individual person can use a mix of transport modes including public transport within the same app and with monthly fee in several different countries.

Billion cake getting reshaped

The opportunity is huge and there will be cake to eat for all. The global market size is over €9 000 000 000 000 and it is starting slowly to get reshaped while new transport innovations are entering to traditional markets. We can continue saying it will not happen but we've seen it happening also in other sectors such as in music and clothing. Autonomous world is also in headlines weekly. But as the market size is so big, nobody can do it alone. There will be no ecosystem of any OEM, ride hailing, public transit operator, MaaS operator nor anyone else. Again, good time to look to telecom sector; according to GSM Association there are over 800 telecom operators worldwide. Now if the change in telecom has been driving world economic growth for the past decades just imagine when the same happens in a field that is ten times bigger. Why would you want to compare options every single time you make a trip if you can have someone just fix it. It is time to remember again to whom we are making these services. Different individuals are the ones we need to serve.

At Whim, we believe owning a car doesn't make much sense anymore for most people. Watch the videos to learn more.

Company

MaaS Global Ltd is bringing into reality the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) by building the world's first roaming mobility ecosystem. MaaS Global aspires to upgrade the service level of transportation by joining together public and private transportation providers. Collaboration and integration of services will create a seamless and compelling travel experience for everyone, locally and globally.

Whim is revolutionary mobile app developed by MaaS Global. Whim frees you to travel on a whim as mobility isn't any one transportation solution, it's a continuum. From walking, biking, riding, driving, pooling, hailing, sharing and renting to subways, trains and planes, we're already highly mobile, but we often experience gaps in our access to these verticals. Whim app is a single point of contact, payment and access for multiple modes of transportation like Netflix or Spotify.