Power to the passenger: the IP4MaaS project advanced Mobility as a Service in Europe

Creating a more sustainable, seamless and inclusive mobility system with digital tools: over the last two and a half years, this has been the mission of the IP4MaaS project.

On 6 June 2023, IP4MaaS held its Final Event at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Barcelona, showcasing the results of years of collaboration between 26 European partners. The event was organised jointly with other two Shift2Rail projects, very much linked to IP4MaaS: ExtenSive and CONNECTIVE, demonstrating once again that outstanding results are achieved only through intense sector collaboration.

Under the helm of UITP, the IP4MaaS project sought to advance the uptake of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) schemes in Europe, by analysing and testing already existing technologies and assess them in terms of effectiveness, market acceptance, and user satisfaction.

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Instead of developing new technologies, the IP4MaaS project tested solutions developed under the Innovation Programme 4 (IP4) of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking, an initiative seeking to build a digital ecosystem for door-to door travel with railways as its backbone.

IP4 technologies were demonstrated in six European sites (Padua, Liberec, Barcelona, Athens, Warsaw, Osijek) involving different transport operators. For each demo site, the main mobility pain points were identified and it was assessed how IP4 solutions could help to solve them.

The tested technologies, like journey planning, trip tracking, trip sharing, are all brought together in the so-called TravelCompanion app, which was the application passengers got to test.

Not by coincidence, the demo in Barcelona launched during the UITP Summit, and a presentation was held for attendees exploring how the demo wants to optimise multimodal travel. Led by TMB (Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona), the demo pairs up passengers travelling in the same direction, aiming to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road.

From enhancing multimodality in Athens by offering passengers easy ‘MaaS packages’ to testing tools that can be used on long international distances between Warsaw and Liberec: IP4MaaS made movement, mobility and lives easier.

Results from the demos are currently being assessed, and after analysis of user feedback, IP4MaaS will evaluate the impact of the developed IP4 solutions. All these results will be summarised in a Project Brief, so stay tuned!