Article Highlights
MaaS industry pioneer Sampo Hietanen contends that transit agencies should notcontrol MaaS apps or platforms. Hietanen’s own MaaS app, Whim, has been locked out by some European transit agencies, and some agency backers, including Cubic Transportation Systems, suggest that the bundling model of Hietanen’s company, MaaS Global and those like it are a major reason why mobility-as-a-service rollouts have been disappointing to date.
MaaS Global has enabled more than 18 million trips to date, while expanding to 10 cities, making it one of the few providers to get a MaaS platform firmly off the ground. But the start-up also has been hit hard by the pandemic. A recent report in a Finnish newspaper said that the company has gone through €50 million (US$58.9 million) of the total €60 million it has raised from the start.
• MaaS Global
• Cubic
• BVG (Berlin)
• POLIS
Sampo Hietanen, founder and CEO of Finland-based MaaS Global agrees with most other industry experts that public transit should form the “core” of the mobility services on offer in any mobility-as-a-service app or platform. But he contends that it would be a mistake for the agency itself to run the platform, which Cubic Transportation Systems and some transit authorities have suggested.
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