SEStran-23/24-Integrated Mobility Platform

Descriptions

The existing SEStran and Tactran pilots provided journey planning tools that enabled the planning, booking and paying for a variety of transport services. These tools were ‘powered’ by a shared MaaS platform. Whilst the MIF funding for the Tactran and SEStran pilots will end in June 2023, it will likely be 2024 before Transport Scotland make any decisions on the direction of a national MaaS platform, and whether this could be publicly funded. Ending the pilot projects before a way forward has been determined for the long term could: § Seriously limit the opportunities to take forward the MaaS aspirations. If current MaaS projects stop, there will be a loss of confidence by the public, operators, and partner public sector services. Conversely, there could also be a lost opportunity to digitally promote new transport initiatives (such as DRT, Mobility Hubs, bike hire schemes and Community Transport etc) via MaaS platforms; § Represent a significant loss of investment by all partners in getting this new and exciting technology established; and § Whilst MaaS is a growth sector, there are limited MaaS suppliers in Scotland. The lack of a continuous plan for establishing and expanding MaaS will seriously affect the confidence of suppliers to invest in the programme in Scotland. It will also present a reputational risk to those public sector partners involved. IMPS aims to share the learnings from the Transport Scotland MIF projects, help public sector organisations understand how MaaS could help them to achieve their sustainable objectives, and to help MaaS services grow, learn and develop. We will do this by having open access to an IMPS website, offer advice on design and implementation of a MaaS app, offer the use of the existing apps, and also offer a new ‘grey label’ app via a financial contribution from the third party. Examples of further integrations and improvements IMPS will seek to implement are social media log ins, integration to Thistle Assistance, and have real time passenger information on all apps. Tactran and Sestran propose to maintain the platform and existing interfaces until a time when the Tactran and Sestran Partnership Boards can consider the long-term strategy for MaaS in their respective regions (likely to be late 2023), aided by the MIF evaluation reports due to be submitted to Transport Scotland. Additional results and opportunities will be based on the additional year of running the journey planning tools as well as promoting the programme to other partners (Spring 2024).