Written evidence submitted by Fleetondemand (MAS0013)
1.1. The current definition of MaaS is incorrect and fails to recognise the impact and influence of the business sector on travel, transit, congestion and air quality
1.2. Current inquiry discussions and submissions have been predominately more focused on public sector led initiatives. The inquiry should recognise that MaaS tech in the private sector is already more advanced and under development after years of research and development
1.3. There is no other MaaS project under development as unified and true to MaaS as our current Mobilleo application – it serves both consumer and business usage
1.4. It is our belief that due to the infancy of MaaS there have been no true evidence of global adoption of MaaS on a large scale
1.5. App technology is vital to the success of MaaS but needs to be developed in a way that it is scalable for major operations, multiple users, with advancing technology and to keep in line with current data connectivity technologies
1.6. Connectivity in UK cities could slow MaaS’ rise and adoption rates
1.7. A true MaaS solution needs to leverage open API access with both publicly and privately available data. This may require successful commercial partnerships with some of the country’s leading travel providers
2.1. Fleetondemand is a multi-platform technology company based in the World Heritage site of Saltaire, West Yorkshire, UK. Our award winning technologies connect thousands of business people undertaking journeys every day to public transport providers, vehicle rental, car leasing and business travel services throughout the UK. Our platforms already integrate with hundreds of private and public service providers unifying payment and invoicing capabilities also.
Mobilleo is our leading mobility as a service (MAAS) technology provider for the business fleet, travel and vehicle rental industry. Since 2011 we have rapidly grown to become an industry trusted technology supplier to some of the best-known companies and motoring organisations integrating and working with the likes of RAC, Hitachi, Europcar, Car clubs, car share schemes, Travelport, Trainline and all major global ground transportation providers.
2.2. Our technologies power thousands of businesses and users journeys every single day and we’re ISO 27001 certified as well as members of ABTA, IATA and the Advantage Travel Partnership.
Mobilleo integrates with thousands of public and private travel providers to allow users to find, book and pay for their entire business journey (including parking, car hire, flights, trains, accommodation, restaurants, airport lounges, car clubs, buses, taxis and more) in less than 90 seconds.
2.3. Businesses can use Mobilleo to empower their employees to book their own business travel to their own specifications, whether cost, convenience or environmental factors. Businesses can track and analyse all of their employee travel data to make better decisions for their mobility strategy, which is turn can help reduce congestion, CO2 emissions, business operating costs and more.
3.1. It is our belief that the current industry discussion about Mobility-as-a-Service is too narrowly focussed on the impact and role of the public sector and integrating cities. Whilst we agree that public issues such as congestion, accessibility and reduced air pollution are hugely important, the inquiry needs to recognise that the private sector plays just as much an influential (if not larger) role concerning these challenges.
3.2. Business travel, vehicle leasing and car rental agencies represent multi-billion-pound industries that both fuels and hinders the national transport network in every UK city on a daily basis. Our research has determined that whilst options such as mass public transport are often cheaper alternatives to travel, the average business travel prioritises speed and convenience over cost – particularly where lateness could harm future commercial prospects. As such, this inquiry must recognise that a true Mobility-as-a-Service solution should work for both consumer and business.
3.3. It is for this reason that the Mobilleo app has been built with scalable technology to suit the needs of both the public and private sector. Internal application features such as ‘Total Cost of Mobility calculation’ allow for large-scale analysis of multi-user data such as cost, preference, speed and efficiency.
3.4. It is for this reason that the Mobilleo team has tirelessly integrated with travel providers via open API systems to expand the number of data sources for users to search. The inquiry should recognise that the value of private and public open APIs will allow Mobility-as-a-Service to thrive if developers can freely access more travel options.
4.1. We believe global evidence anywhere will currently be difficult to find as the concept of MAAS in consumer transit is so nascent. Technologies are just emerging around this model. Globally only a few pilot schemes are taking place which are too early in the cycle to provide any substantial or meaningful evidence
4.2. Instead we believe we should look to the private sector where actually integrated transport technologies for business travellers can be seen to reducing carbon footprints of major corporate organisations, medium corporates and SME. For example, we have been working with major car rental companies in the UK and all cities to integrate car club and car sharing business models into their corporate and consumer customers. This has meant integrating disparate systems into one customer facing solution. The evidence of success shows that car clubs and car sharing schemes across our customer base have risen 19% alone in the last 12months. This is due to a better user experience across technology and availability.
4.3. We must therefore dig deeper into business MaaS to find evidence as it is simply not yet available other than small pilot schemes.
5.1. Current technology and focus regarding Mobility-as-a-Service is largely based on accessing public transport options and engaging with “smart cities”. However, for Mobility-as-a-Service to be truly implemented it is vital that there is an understanding that Mobility-as-a-Service initiatives need to think broader than ‘just transport’.
5.2. True Mobility as a Service is comprised of multiple micro-actions and transactions. Whilst transport options such as buses, taxis, flights and trains play a substantial part in terms of time, cost and impact, it is vital that other elements that concern travel aren’t forgotten by a Mobility-as-a-Service solution. Mobility encompasses parking charges, WiFi access on transport providers, airport lounge access, accommodation, meals, things-to-do. For businesses, these costs are often ignored and therefore not tracked.
5.3. Should the inquiry want to truly investigate and explore efficient Mobility-as-a-Service solutions, then it needs to adopt an approach to looking at how the population travels – from company car through to Boris Bike.
5.4. In addition, the following considerations must be considered as part of this inquiry;
5.4.1. Consumer – this is where most of the focus seems to be but we should treat business journeys and consumer journeys as separate in the functioning technology and product that power MAAS in our cities
5.4.2. Business user - Policy, payment integrations and modes of transport will be broader and require payment by card, account, and corporate account and with integrated volume related contract terms. The business user for MAAS technology has different objectives to a consumer MAAS scheme. The key to business MAAS is proving technology and integrated services as alternative to the company car
5.4.3. Accessibility and disabled - Any MAAS scheme operating in our cities needs to be fit for purpose to support disabled community and accessibility via the technology provider. The technology should also power wallet payment mechanism to allow disabled to use allowances for MAAS as an alternative to taking a leased vehicle via the Motability scheme.
5.4.4. Insurance industry - The insurance s industry replaces millions of cars on our roads every year via credit hire when drivers have been involved in accidents. This could significantly be reduced in our cities via use of MAAS technology and schemes as an alternative to credit hire rental vehicles
Foreign travellers and multi-cultural society – The technology and schemes should be easy to use and cope with multi lingual cultures and overseas visitors to our cities.
APP TECHNOLOGY TO UNLOCK MAAS
5.5. Advancement in smart phone technology, 4G and integrated transport API’s (Automatic programming interfaces has finally allowed a convenience, low cost and reliable Mobility-as-a-Service system to thrive. Businesses have effectively been using this kind of technology for years. Having spent 3 years developing our own desktop, Android and IOS application, we’ve learnt lessons in refining user experience, how to integrate new and upcoming travel providers and how to manage millions of users and revenue through one centralised system which includes flexible payment mechanisms using virtual card technologies and PCI compliant payment gateways.
5.6. A crucial lesson for this inquiry is to recognise that a technology solution such as an app needs to evolve organically with the technology of the time. The technology needs to be scalable for future developments and it needs to be flexible to integrate with thousands of systems for it to reduce potential restrictions that may have time and cost impact. Our experience has showed that designing and building technology following the latest best practices for the user rather than the business ensures a robust build and better usage by the users.
5.7. Needless to say, security, scalability, data integrity and GDPR all play a huge role in the deployment of MAAS technology.
6.1. In response to your submission guidelines we believe that there are a number of issues that pose barriers to implementation in UK cities. Firstly, connectivity is a huge issue that the government has already been focusing on to improve. However, as technology radically improves with every passing year as does the size of data and volume of data transactions being sent on a daily basis. Currently existing connectivity systems such as WiFi in public locations are not advanced enough to deal with growing packets of data being sent. The strain on these systems is likely to increase with a growing population and higher data consumption rates.
6.2. As such, it is pivotal that the inquiry explore current infrastructure for data connectivity but also explore innovative methods of reducing this data as much as possible. If a mobile application solution is to be used to help integrate MaaS into cities, then it needs to be designed accordingly with best practice and with an objective for reducing data wastage.
6.3. A second barrier to implementation in UK cities is accessibility to API systems. In order to offer users a wide variety of travel options, a MaaS solution needs to access as many data sources as possible. This can be achieved by incentivising and encouraging open API access for MaaS developers in both the public and private sector. In the private sector, this is likely to be an arduous task as such data holds huge commercial value and could raise questions about data usage and privacy. The inquiry should explore how private and public APIs can be opened up and how the private sector can be incentivised (as our app Mobilleo has already achieved by providing a competitive marketplace via a mobile app for users to compare costs of travel).
6.4. A third barrier is that the inquiry need to approach the challenge by recognising that MaaS is travel, not just transport. This means that the inquiry should explore how travel elements such as parking, food, WiFi, lounge access etc. can all be integrated into a solution. Failure to do so would mean that we’re restricting the scope of the inquiry and potentially reducing the uptake of MaaS to users by not offering them a complete solution.
7.1. We agree that congestion, air quality and accessibility are huge challenges to overcome. However, too much emphasis on finding a public sector solution that restricts itself to public mass transit or only small private travel providers will mean that these challenges are never overcome.
7.2. The inquiry needs to explore existing technology – like Mobilleo – and learn from its development or even use as a true MaaS solution that can be delivered to both consumer and business user.
7.3. The inquiry needs to ensure that the definition of MaaS is properly debated. Recent round-table discussions on the definition failed to indicate any discussion about the role MaaS could play in businesses at all, which suggests a lack of scope and a narrow selection of the participants present.
7.4. For raising awareness of MaaS, it is important that the inquiry looks at the other benefits (in partnership with the current benefits) that may be more attractive:
7.4.1. A true MaaS solution like Mobilleo removes all the stress associated with booking and entire journey for consumer and business
7.4.2. All data is captured and securely stored allowing data scientists to data-mine this for insights and recommendations on we can cut out inefficient journeys (both in cost and environmental factors)
7.4.3. Consumers and businesses can have their perceptions changed by having access to data on demand e.g. taking a bus for short journeys rather than a taxi can reduce costs, help protect the environment, reduce congestion
7.5. The government needs to deliver a true and full MaaS solution to both the private and public sector with a full list of benefits tailored to each audience. If it launches technology that is “half-finished” or only has “some functionality” then it risks low adoption rates and consigning “Mobility-as-a-Service” to buzzword status rather than a real actionable change.
8.1. In conclusion, we believe the technology exists already today to power a MaaS scheme that delivers all the single unified environment for both public and private transportation providers. Pilot schemes will be essential with focus groups in our societies as outlined in our broadening the definition paragraph. We would like to be invited to share our findings and demonstrate our technology.
8.2. The difficulties will come in ensuring all needs across consumer and business will be met via the technology that powers the MAAS solution. Without doubt at its core MAAS is transactional technology but a multi layered front end user experience is required to ensuring its successful adoption.
8.3. A solution needs to be practical, cost effective and easy to use. It needs to be able to access and handle millions of data transactions effortlessly. It needs to be readily customisable to work for a single user but also a multi-national organisation. Most importantly, it needs to be complete without teething problems or missing elements of travel.
9.1. Justin Whitston is CEO of Fleetondemand and is a Yorkshire and UK entrepreneur who specializes in cloud software start-ups for the automotive industry. With over 20 years of automotive technology experience, Justin is an experienced and well established industry leader for developing state-of-art technology solutions.
9.2. Justin started his career at Leasedrive Velo Group in 1996 working on the countrywide vehicle rental side of the business. Whilst picking up skills in graphic design and early web technology, Justin developed a keen interest in how this could be applied to the corporate vehicle hire broker model.
9.3. At the age of 26, and driven by an entrepreneurial drive to bring a disruptive and innovative change to the automotive industry, Justin founded Nexus Vehicle Rental. From here he successfully built it into the UK’s largest Independent broker of vehicle rental and leasing to businesses
9.4. Justin’s first foray into devising his own technology came when he successfully built and delivered a class leading proprietary Software-as-a- Service system – IRIS (Intelligent Rental Information System) – into the marketplace underpinning future growth for the business prior to exiting to private equity investors, Living Bridge in a multi-million pound BIMBO. Justin is now regarded as the go to technology innovator across the business transportation industry.
December 2017