A changing mobility market
These last years, the mobility market has been shaken up by the arrival of numerous players offering new alternatives to users: ride-hailing, free-floating (cars, bicycles and other scooters), car-sharing & carpooling.
Unprecedented alliances have been initiated between former competitors who now have the opportunity to join forces to grow faster. As a witness and a major player in these dazzling rapprochements, we see in MaaS (Mobility as a Service) the best solution for erasing the boundaries between the different services.
MaaS offers are designed to optimize travel in the city, including replacing the owned car and proposing new modes of transport. These topics are now a priority because they enable more efficient use of transport modes, both to reduce congestion problems in the city, to save money for users and to improve the environment.
This service mobility simplifies the transition from one mode of transport to another and allows smooth transitions by bringing together access to information, reservation and payment on a single platform.
Invest in MaaS to smooth mobility
With this in mind, Via ID has decided to take a majority stake in one of the world’s MaaS pioneers: the Swedish UbiGo.
Created by Hans Arby in 2013, this mobility subscription platform seduced us for several reasons:
This new equity participation is obvious for Via ID because UbiGo is a pioneer in this market and offers a complete MaaS offer (itinerary, ticketing, payment, reservation) with a very operational approach through partnerships with public and private actors. – Alexis Hue, Head of the Berlin Via ID office covering the Scandinavian area
The Swedish startup brings together all the ingredients to succeed: a bottom-up approach, concrete experiments and a cooperative project.
UbiGo achieves MaaS
Customers subscribe via the UbiGo application by defining days or hours of use according to their needs and according to the mode of transport: public transportation, car rental, car-sharing, bike-sharing or other taxis. The price is progressive with simple price models to understand. In addition, prepaid levels can be updated each month. What is not used during the month can be saved for the next one. An operation that significantly reduces barriers to membership and encourages the judicious use of resources. Each family has a shared account accessible to all members via the app, which also includes scheduling, booking and ticketing functions.
This is the ultimate brick that will link all the offers of the sector between them. This continuous aggregation process must in the end avoid having to switch between different applications. – Jean-François Dhinaux, Director of Strategic Marketing and Synergies of Via ID
After a successful first experiment in Gothenburg, Sweden, the UbiGo service was launched during the summer 2018 in Stockholm with the support of the City Council and the public transport authority SL. In this city with more than 2 million inhabitants, the potential is estimated at 30% of the total number of households, ie 250,000 families.
There is great potential at the international level in cities with a population of one million or more. Europe alone has about 50 such urban areas. Thanks to its expertise, international network and synergies, Via ID is the best partner to roll out our solution and convince the various stakeholders. – Hans Arby, CEO of UbiGo
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