Collaboratively Developing Mobility as a Service as a Digital Policy-Enabler

MaaS has been a point of discussion within the global transport sector for over decade [1]. Whilst the UK began investigating MaaS around the same time, MaaS in the UK remains in the trial phase. Almost all progress in the UK has been driven by the public sector, with funding largely coming from Transport Scotland’s MaaS Investment Fund and the UK Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) Future Transport Zone (FTZ) trials.

One such FTZ funded MaaS project is that being developed by the West of England Combined Authority (CA). The CA is a city-regional level of local government covering the urban areas of Bristol and Bath, and surrounding rural areas. The vision for the project is to ‘collaboratively deliver a regional journey planning, booking, ticketing, payment and information solution’. The scheme is being designed to promote active and sustainable modes, and will use marketing, incentives, and mobility credits to deliver public policy goals, aligned with elements of Level 4 of the MaaS typology [2].

The West of England MaaS scheme is driven by internal and external collaboration, bringing together relevant stakeholders, end customers, and the wider public. The approach to deliver a highly digitalised solution through a collaborative process has not come about by chance, but through concerted effort to develop a culture of collaboration. Researchers have argued that MaaS requires collaboration between stakeholders that have not traditionally worked together, and the success of the scheme will highly depend on how all the actors work together [3] [4]. The benefits of cross-sectoral digitalisation related collaborations include information sharing, co-creating effective solutions, and pooling capabilities – all while keeping the needs of the public at heart [5]. Collaborative environments enable creative and participatory processes to solve complex problems – which are frequent when developing a MaaS scheme [6].

While the importance of stakeholder collaboration has been well documented in literature, there is much less work that considers how MaaS stakeholder networks and style of collaboration evolve over time. Against this background, this paper explores the evolution of the collaborative stakeholder ecosystem that has been involved in the design of MaaS in the West of England. We focus specifically on the period leading up to operational launch, when most of the design and key decision making takes place. By taking a real-life case study as an example, valuable lessons can be learned about the tradeoff between knowledge gained from wide stakeholder networks and the practicality and efficiency of a small (but growing) core delivery team.

MaaS stakeholder ecosystems are complex and incorporate a large variety of actors outside of the core team [7] [8]. However, it is important to consider the feasibility of continuously engaging with so many stakeholders while also delivering a project with key milestones and deadlines. As such, at times it is important to scale up or down the involvement of certain stakeholder groups during the project lifecycle.

We define core stakeholders as strategic stakeholders that are essential for the delivery of MaaS. They are part of the decision-making process and have high levels of influence in design and delivery. Not only has the core stakeholder group expanded during the project, the way of collaborating has also evolved. Stakeholders outside the core group include the DfT, local government, customers and the general public, and wider stakeholders, such as academia and other public sector bodies not in the area.

To evaluate this evolution of stakeholder collaboration, the project has been split into stages (Table 1). These are divided by key decision points, where the aims of each stage, and thus the stakeholder collaboration, is substantially different. The nature of engagement between core and wider stakeholders is considered following Table 1, reflecting the evolving collaboration model through the staged delivery.

Although MSPs did not join the core team until Stage 4, a prioritised engagement plan was developed at Stage 2, with a ‘key account manager’ approach adopted to build direct 1–1 relationships with each MSP. This was critical to allow key MSPs to be ready to join the core team by Stage 4. Consideration was given to how MSPs could be encouraged to participate, with development of a negotiation playbook and use of role playing to prepare for discussions. Additionally, a market testing activity was undertaken to illicit input and feedback from MaaS providers. The intensity of activity was considerable and governed by stakeholder and market engagement plans.

Further effort was required to build a productive collaboration model with the appointed MaaS supply chain partners. Having a shared vision and motivations, and recognising where priorities may diverge and discussing those, has been key to identifying and overcoming potential obstacles. Regular meetings from an officer/employee level, through to CEO level, have proven fruitful for nurturing vested and shared interests.

With this expansion of the core delivery team, sub-groups emerged as project delivery was broken down into four main work areas: Customer, Scheme, Platform, and Monitoring & Evaluation. To maintain a ‘one team approach’, weekly all-hands Sprint meetings were held, to ensure team alignment around core objectives and milestones.

External collaboration increased with users, bodies delivering MaaS (for knowledge sharing) and business groups and trip generators (as potential partners). However, the closest external collaborators were MSPs, as we worked to integrate them. To support their involvement and extend the collaborative model further, a MaaS MSP Forum was established as a space for collaboration, and open and constructive dialogue. This forum has given opportunities for MSPs to collaborate directly together, enabling opportunities to enhance services for customers.

To provide a visual representation of the levels of collaboration between stakeholders, the project team rated the level of involvement on a scale of 1–10 of each stakeholder at each project stage. This is presented in Fig. 1.

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This paper has evidenced that the scale of the stakeholder landscape associated with delivering MaaS is significant, as is the intensity of engagement associated. This reflects that MaaS is more than just a transport scheme, and more than just a digitisation programme. It is an inter-organisational, cross-functional, transformational service, which necessitates close collaboration; this is more so true when led by the public sector, where collaboration extends to include other governmental bodies, and multiple internal functions. As such, MaaS must not be seen as a singular, standalone digital transition; but rather a sectoral and organisational transition, where success is reliant on collaborative digitalisation. That MaaS is so relationship based must be understood when considering the emergence of MaaS within a UK transport market context.

This need for collaborative digitalisation across stakeholders necessitates widespread and intensive engagement. This has positives, such as capitalising on opportunities that emerge from collaboration, but the extent of effort and time required should be recognised, as this impacts delivery timescales, team capacity, and budget. As collaboration across stakeholders varies by project stage (Fig. 1), an agile, organic approach to engagement is as valuable in MaaS as having a well considered engagement plan.

For several stakeholders, their motivations and goals for involvement in MaaS may not align, or may be in competition. Competing motivations reflect the complexity of delivering MaaS as a system of digital and commercial relationships, and this should be recognised when collaborating through open dialogue. Whilst motivations may vary, with the right behaviours and frameworks, all parties can align towards a common goal.

In procuring a MaaS solution, the Authority spent significant time engaging upwards of 60 potential suppliers through market engagement. It was notable that when MaaS suppliers reference collaboration, this was seen through a technological lens. Collaboration was seen as an output (an API integration, a shared project plan, a shared risk register) rather than a behaviour for many MaaS suppliers, who struggled with understanding collaboration from a more relationship perspective, where shared goals, a common language and vision, and the right behaviours are essential.

A final reflection has been the challenge of bringing in the customer voice. At the earliest stages of delivery the customer voice was difficult to capture, given restrictions on movement during COVID-19, and natural diversion of priorities. Since then work has been undertaken to make the customer voice in the project louder, through a SuperUser group, which is involved with testing the emerging MaaS solution. However, the Authority perceives a strong risk in giving the public too much access to the testing versions of the MaaS solution, for fear of backlash on social media, and from the general media. In hindsight, an alternative approach would be to have a ‘voice of the customer’ represented at all key product decision and design stages.

The opportunities that emerge from the collaborative approach to digitalisation taken in delivering MaaS in the West of England are multi-faceted. MaaS itself, as a digital tool, is expected to enable more informed strategic and operational decisions, as a result of data generated; it also offers a new channel to directly engage and consult customers and the public. Realising this opportunity will require necessary systems, processes and ways of working within the CA to be updated – and often digitised for the first time. In terms of behaviours and ways of working, delivery of the MaaS collaboration can be held as an internal case study from which new ways of working, processes and systems can evolve. In this way, MaaS is a platform for business and organisational transformation, potentially improving how service delivery reaches and impacts on the general public. Finally, a considerable opportunity has emerged for the transport market within the West of England to work together more closely. With the de-regulated nature of the UK transport market outside London, MSPs typically compete, even across modes, but with MaaS the West of England offers a digital collaboration platform, a commercial environment to collaborate, and a ‘safe’ space via the MaaS MSP Forum for collaboration to take route. This extends as well to the Authority’s own relationships with MSPs, which have grown more mature – particularly with non-bus service providers with whom local transport authorities in the UK typically have limited engagement.