Bringing Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to the US with the focus on accessibility
For the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NATC) Carol Schweiger has written an interesting white paper in which she focuses on the accessibility aspects of Mobility as a Service (MaaS). It is particularly interesting as the US is lagging behind in the development of MaaS (sometimes called Mobility on Demand – MOD – over there).
The development and deployment of MaaS systems in Europe has been increasing at a rapid rate over the past few years. However, in the U.S. during the same time frame, MaaS implementation has been limited. While there are no MaaS systems in the U.S., several systems are under development. A few of these are described later in the paper. The definition of, and unique opportunities and challenges associated with MaaS in the U.S. are explored in Scheiger’s paper.
The accessibility aspect of MaaS has been discussed in a limited way. While this paper directly addresses the current thinking regarding MaaS accessibility in a later section, accessibility is also mentioned briefly in the background, opportunities and challenges sections.
- Compared to Europe MaaS is lagging in the US, says NATC white paper.
