GO-Mobility

MaaS, MaaF, AI: who governs the rules of the game?

#TalkWithGO: interview with Matteo Antoniola

Last month, we published the first part of our interview with Matteo Antoniola, in which we took an in-depth look at the state of health of MaaS and explored the synergies between this sector and generative AI. In this second part, we delve into some long-standing issues related to MaaS: what are the prospects for governance in order to maintain the balance between the public and private sectors? What are the agreements for data management and the various service recipients? And in all this: who is thinking about the user?

The role of the public and private sectors in MaaS: synergies and conflicts

In the MaaS field, a much-debated topic is the relationship between public transport operators and MaaS operators. As Antoniola points out, many public transport operators see themselves as the natural MaaS operators of tomorrow: “Some already are, some want to become, others accept to become in a competitive environment with other market operators, while others still do not accept it.” Antoniola continues: “Being a public transport concessionaire and selling third-party mobility services are two different jobs.” In his view, MaaS as a B2C service must remain the prerogative of a free market, and this is an area where private operators can probably offer better services than the public sector.

The latter, on the other hand, has other tricks up its sleeve that it can leverage: just think of less urbanized areas. “We will see this clearly with MaaS4Italy, which this year will also operate in regions that include less densely populated areas with low demand, where there are few or no alternatives to private cars. This is where what we call Rural MaaS can come into play: in these contexts, the public transport operator is the perfect MaaS operator: what economic operator would want to take on that type of market?”

To understand how to manage MaaS services between the public and private sectors, we should first ask ourselves whether there is market interest in a given area: “If so, it is the economic operator who intervenes. If not, it is precisely at that juncture that the public sector can intervene with the local transport operator, who will then have every interest in becoming a MaaS operator. Perhaps even exclusively.”

How should the players involved be governed?

In this field, governance plays a fundamental role, which Antoniola defines as “the attempt to optimize dialogue between the public and private sectors.” These are two pillars with different objectives and tools: “It is important to seek a good balance by defining clear tasks: the public sector must set rules and ensure fair competition among operators. But let the market do what it does best: commercial offerings, service packaging, discounting, and co-marketing.“ In this sense, according to Antoniola, the MaaS4Italy project has been a driving force: ”Because it has forced the public sector to develop skills and the private sector to engage in dialogue with the public sector.”

Finally, there is a big question: who owns the customer? “Once you register your personal and payment details on a MaaS app, you are a customer of a MaaS operator. But if tomorrow I can use that app to buy a local public transport pass, linked to my name so that I can show a valid ticket to the inspectors, then I will be a shared customer.” This is enough to understand that public transport operators’ fears of losing customers to MaaS services are actually mitigated, since collaboration between the parties can represent added value.

Yes, but who is thinking about the user?

“While in the private sector, from the biggest to the smallest companies, they are trying in every way to profile us, understand and guide our behavior with personalized content thanks to user-generated data, the public sector has not yet developed this awareness. The data it collects is mainly related to the vehicle: speed, fares, occupancy rates. But who cares about people?”

No one talks to the user: who is plural, thousands of people with different habits and attitudes, with whom there is currently no dialogue. The only way to try to get to know them better is through data collection, profiling, and experiments for behavior analysis, which, however, the public does not deal with or still deals with too little.

In part, this short-sightedness can be explained by the fact that the public does not manage devices. The largest accumulators of information are often devices produced and marketed by private companies, especially multinationals, which hold and manage people’s data.

The focal point, once again, is the ability to dialogue: “What is lacking is the ability of the public sector to dialogue with citizens: because there is little habit of doing so. Instead, we must force ourselves: come down from our pedestal, stop being top-down planners.”

As we have already discussed several times in this magazine, communication with citizens is the key to conscious and informed participation in public life. But that’s not all: knowing how to translate complex services and language into clear messages for all citizens means conveying the value of all the work that goes on behind the scenes. This should lead to reflection on the importance of communicating effectively and accessibly with the public, conveying the complexity and value of a different kind of mobility, one that is smarter and more sustainable, in terms that everyone can understand.