It’s talked about as the future of travel, yet Mobility as a Solution (MaaS) is available now and growing fast.
At the Grosvenor Group, it’s also something we see becoming increasingly important to our customers as they seek to manage their mobile workforce more efficiently.
But what is MaaS and why is now a good time to be considering it?
A company that The Grosvenor Group has been building a partnership with is Mobilleo – now one of the world’s fastest growing Mobility as a Service platforms offering employees one application for all forms of travel.
Lucie Nash, Mobilleo’s senior business mobility manager explains how it works.
“The Mobilleo MaaS platform effectively enables you to plan, book and pay for multi-modal journeys by bringing together thousands of car hire firms, car clubs, taxis, buses, on-demand shuttles, trains, trams, flights, ferries and bike sharing into a single application.
“By simply entering your starting location and where you are travelling to, it provides the most efficient means of getting there in terms of time and cost.”
“You can then book your journey with ease, buying e-tickets through the platform plus booking accommodation too if you’re staying over. This all forms one joined up travel plan, giving you the ease and simplicity of having all of your journey planning, purchasing and tickets delivered via a single app on your smartphone.
“Rather than being something separate to the company car, it also integrates each driver’s company vehicle within the application, which means ‘driving’ is one of the forms of transport the platform can recommend.
“It means when travelling from A to B, you can see the optimum means of travel whether that’s by car, train, tube, tram, car share or any other form of transport bringing a new dimension to operating a mobile workforce.
“Furtherstill, it calculates the CO2 impact of your choice of travel and provides a complete audit trail of every employee’s journey and the cost, showing a carbon emission and financial comparison of the different travel options, including the one the employee opted for.
“As a result, you can see through the dashboard reports whether they are making the right choices of getting from A to B and the cost differentials.”
In 2019 the Mobilleo platform made 511,000 bookings and reservations in the UK alone, with the figures set to grow exponentially as demand for MaaS solutions rises.
The flexibility of Mobilleo means corporate customers and fleets can bring their incumbent suppliers onto the platform, where they can feature alongside other links in the transport chain.
Offering absolute transparency to the door-to-door cost of business travel it provides the type of flexibility, ease of use, transparency and granular detail that will be vital as employers seek to monitor and control expenditure as we emerge from lockdown.
“We work with clients to identify the ideal MaaS model within their fleet or business,” continued Lucie.
“This could be as simple as offering car hire, a car club and taxis, which is very different from calculating a total mobility budget.
“You also have to identify the right solution for each community – from staff based in smaller towns and rural areas through to those in major cities.”
Mary Dopson-Taylor of Grosvenor Leasing adds, “Many companies are reviewing their business travel at the moment in light of the increase in remote working and Teams/Zoom meetings.
“As such, it brings into question how best to operate a mobile workforce and what role the company vehicle plays in that.
“The reality is that employees are already making their own choices about the best forms of travel, by sometimes driving or opting to take taxis, trains or flights. Yet without the MaaS platform there is no control over this.
“Through Mobilleo’s solution you can manage and monitor those travel choices, not only making it far easier for the employee but giving far greater financial and operational control for the business too.”
For more information about Mobilleo’s MaaS platform please contact a member of our team on 01536 536 536.