Mobility as a Service: sharing rides in time of pandemics

This paper discusses how pandemics might shape future transport practices and affectconsumer trust in shared mobility offerings such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS). MaaS is apersonalized one-stop transport management platform, digitally unifying trip creation, purchase anddelivery across all transport modes. The discussion draws on research into a case study featuring anelectric car club.Results of the research show that consumers are more or less likely to use MaaS depending on theirage and lifestyle. Relationships between users, strict protection measures and a sense of belonging toa geographically situated or a brand community could engender trust in the MaaS provider and in otherusers within selected pools of users. MaaS providers could therefore encourage users to aggregatearound communities coalescing around sharing cities or brands. Important areas of future research arein the utility of health and safety measures and of social and symbolic cues in reassuring consumers ofMaaS’ safety and in the consumer identities that are more likely to aggregate around either types ofcommunities