The following document provides an overview of the emergence and consolidation of a novel approach to transport, called mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), and the policies underlying and influencing this development in Finland. The basic idea behind MaaS is that “travellers have easy access to the services they need, from door to door with a single payment and ticket. Different modes of transport work seamlessly together, and a plan can be changed even in the middle of the journey as information can be communicated smoothly if the mode of transport changes” (TEM, 2017: 109). MaaS aims to bring together three sources of vehicle capacity before now separated: private cars, mass transit and on-demand services. This means the emergence of an extra layer, a mobility operator, between the users of transport and various vehicle owners. Within the general MaaS model there might be variations, e.g. between pay-as-you-go or mobility package based (subscription) models.
