In the Spotlight: MaaS in Stockholm
The city of Stockholm is known for the excellence of its air quality, its easy access to waterways and greens spaces. For these reasons and much more, Stockholm is offering its citizens, and millions of visitors annually, a high quality of life recognised everywhere in the world.
The extent and efficiency of the local public transport network is often cited as being a key enabler to ensure that sustainable mobility is an active part of this much appraised urban environment. The Swedish capital is opening up on innovation to further develop mobility options, with UbiGo being the first of its kind in the city to offer Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS).
UbiGo is the first service in Sweden to offer the whole multimodality package under a MaaS mobile application. Concretely, it means that citizens will have the opportunity to have access to public transport, car rental and car sharing, taxi and bikes, depending on their needs and only with one single monthly subscription.
First tested in Gothenburg, this service is soon to be available for Stockholmers in the weeks to come, thanks to the involvement of Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL), the regional public transport operator and host of UITP’s Global Public Transport Summit.
SL is one of the main partners of this new project, with more than 800,000 daily passengers. Its operations are following the objectives of increasing collective travel, improving public transport systems and increasing equality and gender equality by providing accessibility to work, service and leisure activities in the Stockholm region. The launch was made possible by SL opening up to digital reselling and bundling of services to UbiGo, with support by the EU H2020 project CiViTAS Eccentric with the city of Stockholm as site owner.
There is then no surprise that SL sees this opportunity to offer more to their customers, without affecting its cost structure. The operator also requested that this opening of the MaaS service to be done following stages, with an assessment after six months. The project will begin by allowing 200 households to use the service.
MaaS is meant to be widely discussed during the next Global Public Transport Summit, with the programme being elaborated around seven topics, including this one. Visitors will also have the opportunity to discover more UbiGo, as they will participate to the summit, and experience alternative mobility solutions on the Cycling Circuit on the Exhibition floor.
As one of the lead trainers for UITP MaaS Trainings, UbiGo’s plan is to encourage individuals to get rid of their cars and to use multimodality for their mobility needs.
