Taxi and car sharing companies are ready to connect to the unified transport platform of Moscow
In Moscow scooter rental companies intend to join the MaaS platform, which combines all modes of public transport and provides the opportunity to create a multimodal route.
Taxi and car sharing aggregators Yandex.Drive, Citymobil, Delimobil, BelkaCar and others, as well as electric scooter rentals Urent, Whoosh and Samokat Sharing are ready to join the unified MaaS platform in Moscow.
The Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport Maksim Liksutov previously announced the creation of a single mobile app based on the concept of MaaS, combining all modes of public transport and providing the opportunity to create a multimodal route. The Deputy Mayor also invited all operators of taxi, car sharing, bike rental, scooters to unite in a single service.
Mr. Liksutov clarified that this application will give users the opportunity to plot a comfortable route, pay for it once, choose a suitable mode of transport and immediately receive all related information about the trip, restrictions, overlaps, tariffs of different operators.
Taxi
Citymobil taxi aggregator was the first to decide to join the app. Negotiations are already underway on the technical side of the work. «The initiative of the Moscow Department of Transport to create a platform for different modes of transport will become a comprehensive project that will attract the attention of citizens to various mobility services. We were among the first to join it among private companies, because we believe in the development of urban transport infrastructure in this direction and want to be its integral part,» — said the Executive Director of Citymobil Vitaly Bedarev.
According to him, the needs of residents of a modern megalopolis cannot be satisfied only by a private car or public transport. «Every day a citizen solves the problem of moving from point A to point B, based on preferences in terms of speed, price and convenience. We believe that the task of Citymobil as a city transport service is not to solve the problem of „ordering a taxi“, but help to efficiently and comfortably move around the city using various modes of transport», Bedarev added.
In addition, the GR-director of the taxi operator inDriver Galina Sheygas announced her readiness for cooperation. «We are ready to participate. The MaaS concept is fully consistent with inDriver's development strategy — to give freedom of choice to people,» — she told.
Yulia Varlamova, a spokeswoman for the Vezet group of companies, confirmed that the taxi service supports the initiative of the Moscow authorities to create an application based on the MaaS principle. «This is a big step in the development of digital technologies and user experience. We are ready for cooperation and will closely follow the development of the project,» — she stated.
Anton Ryazanov, the General Director of the taxi and car sharing aggregator Yandex.Drive, said that the company considers the MaaS platforms as an interesting new direction in the development of urban mobility. According to him, at present, the global experience of the functioning of such platforms is limited, in most large megacities the issue is under preliminary discussion.
«At the request of the Moscow Department of Transport, Yandex.Drive participates in discussing the prospects of this technology in the metropolitan area with organizations authorized by the city. A number of solutions, consonant with MaaS, for example, partial integration of services into the Moscow Transport application, have already been implemented by us. The samples of MaaS platforms presented today in the world, for example, in Finland, where, in fact, this technology was born, or in Singapore, where it is most developed, are developed by private, not state-owned operators, are voluntary for all participants in the transport market, compete with each other for subscribers and service providers,» — Ryazanov added.
Car sharing
«MaaS as a concept was originally embedded in the logic of car sharing. To us, as an online platform, the idea itself seems absolutely logical, and we support its implementation. Since car sharing has long become a habitual component of the lifestyle of a modern Moscow resident, it is important to understand exactly how the implementation model will look itself. To what extent it will satisfy all possible project participants», commented Elena Bekhtina, the Director of Delimobil.
She also considers combining technology of similar, but still different services into one platform, a difficult task, and therefore, according to Bekhtina, it will certainly take time and the creation of working groups. «It is necessary to conceptually understand how it is possible to carry out such integration seamlessly, without losing the quality of service, while retaining the advantages and privileges they have developed for car sharing clients», she said.
BelkaCar Managing Partner Loriana Sardar expressed an interest in cooperation with the Moscow Department of Transport in new projects aimed at increasing the mobility of Muscovites. But for more accurate forecasts about the participation of the car sharing service in the project, the company needs to better understand the business model and functionality of the MaaS app.
«MaaS applications are actively developing all over the world and are gaining more and more popularity, we ourselves are actively using the MaaS functionality in the maps of major players, which display the optimal routes for travel by public transport, taxi and bike sharing,» Sardar added.
Scooter sharing
«Moscow already has the necessary infrastructure for the development of sharing services — wide sidewalks, bike paths, as well as an urgent need for their further development: traffic jams, parking difficulties, etc. But the user now has to use several different applications, sometimes up to a dozen, which is inconvenient. The initiative of the Moscow Department of Transport to create a unified platform on which different operators will be represented will significantly simplify user experience, and thus make sharing more popular in general,» — believes Andrey Kolesnik, the Director of Urent.
He noted that scooters and bicycles, as micromobility modes, solve the «last mile», help avoid traffic jams, and promote active travelling.
Vasily Bykov, the General Director of Scooter Sharing, added that building a door-to-door route, taking into account congestion and user preferences, may include travelling by scooters.
«Everyone uses map services, where you can find the best way to travel for the current situation. I must say that maps now do not take into account scooter sharing as a way to travel 2-3 kilometers after using metro, for example. It seems that all this leads to the fact that users do not choose a faster mode of transport, but they choose what is more familiar. Combining all urban transport in one resource is a good idea, which in the future will make it more convenient to move around the city. MaaS in the form in which it is conceived seems to be a promising product, which will be used,» — shared Dmitry Chuiko, the Deputy General Director of Whoosh scooter sharing operator.
