archived
Estimated reading time 3 min
This post has been archived and may include outdated content

Mobility without the hassle of car ownership

Consumers spend a lot of money buying cars, which then end up being used relatively little. Cars congest cities and account for over 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in Finland. The Whim service by MaaS Global offers an alternative way: consumers can use this one-stop service to access different forms of transport for a monthly charge. The service helps to make the transport system more efficient, and the potential global market is worth hundreds of billions of euros.

Published

Problem

People need to be able to get around, but cars clog up the streets and road traffic produces high amounts of emissions. In Finland, traffic emissions account for around one fifth of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Half of this originates from private cars, the equivalent of approximately 5.7 million tons of CO2. Car manufacturing consumes vast amounts of energy and materials, which is unjustifiable considering that private cars are only used for around 5% of the time. Furthermore, private cars take up a lot of space in cities in the form of parking spaces. Despite low usage rates, many consumers invest significantly in private cars.

Solution: mobility without the hassle of car ownership

MaaS Global combines public transport, taxis and the use of private cars in a single service based on a monthly charge. MaaS buys services from various transport service providers and packages them into a service that allows customers to choose the most suitable form of transport as they go. The service is based on the Whim mobile app, which shows the journey times to the destination using different forms of transport. In practice, MaaS is helping to eliminate the need for car ownership, reduce road congestion and improve air quality.

Revenue logic and benefits to MaaS Global

MaaS Global buys the services for the monthly package from a combination of public transport providers, taxi and car rental companies. The company retains the difference between the monthly charge paid by the customer and the payments made by MaaS Global to service providers. The model is viable as long as there are enough users. This market is predicted to be worth hundreds of billions by 2030.

Benefits to customers and end users

Customers have access to the easy-to-use Whim mobility application, where they can select for each journey the option that best suits their needs from several mobility options: public transport, taxis, city bikes, rental cars or shared-use cars. The customers may choose from among several product packages the one that best suits their needs, be kept up to date on the monthly charge without any surprises and cancel the subscription when they so wish. When everything is available in a single application, it makes mobility easier and more diversified.

What's this about?