Rural MaaS: Exploring the potential for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in rural environments

‘Mobility-as-service’ (MaaS) can be broadly defined as the transition from a dominant car-ownership model of mobility, to one of paying for your mobility ‘on account’ using more sustainable modes of transport as an alternative to private car use. With MaaS, your transport needs (usually satisfied by owning a car), are met instead by a range of services that include car leasing, car clubs, carpooling, community transport, cycle and taxi services in combination with ‘traditional’ public transportation. Arguably, this could remove the need and cost of running a second car, or even remove the need for owning any car at all. Most of the existing thinking on ‘MaaS’ is being driven by both societal and technological change amongst younger members of the population. The argument is that young people today, who are largely urban based, have less desire to buy a car than previous generations, are more receptive to the idea of sharing rather than owning, and like to buy services via subscriptions managed on their mobile phones.

This project will examine the requirements for delivering MaaS in a rural setting. In the context of a suitable case study user requirements will be established alongside an audit of existing transport services. The potential for MaaS to address existing mobility gaps will be explored. Working with relevant stakeholder groups (including transport providers and authorities) a variety of use cases will be identified. Existing software platforms will be evaluated for their potential use in a rural context. Finally, the business case for “Rural MaaS” will also be explored.

The successful candidate should have, or expect to have, an Honours Degree at 2.1 or above (or equivalent) in Civil Engineering, Geography, Planning.

Knowledge of: Transport Engineering, Planning and built environment, Experience in use of Qualitative and quantitative research methods desirable