出行即服务系统理论与实践：回顾与展望

交通是城市绿色低碳转型中最受关注的领域之一,也是数字化渗透及数字平台最为活跃的领域。出行即服务(Mobility as a Service, MaaS)系统是绿色交通的典型代表,是一种新型交通组织和供给方式,反映了当前出行需求的深刻变化和城市交通组织范式转变的耦合。全球范围内已出现了上百个大小规模不等和模式各异的MaaS实践创新,北京MaaS是中国持续至今、影响最大的MaaS实践。目前MaaS实践提出的理论和方法主要基于欧美发达国家,无法充分描述和分析中国实践。在文献研究的基础上,延伸纳入了中国经验,提出了具有全球普适性的一个MaaS系统分析框架,强调辨析全球范围内的MaaS异同均可以从三个维度展开,即嵌入的社会背景、发展目标和产生的社会经济环境影响;并应用此框架对国内外五个典型MaaS进行了比较研究,重点解码了北京MaaS的激励机制、商业模式和商业生态。本文旨在推动MaaS理论和研究方法的全球发展,重点提出了四个方面的关注:(1)MaaS系统的发展再次考验着城市交通如何回归其公共属性;(2)MaaS实践嵌入在城市社会背景中,具有明显的差异性。模式选择是对城市既有社会背景和交通格局的继承,但也可能就此发生转向。MaaS打开了一次城市交通转型的机会窗口;(3)MaaS系统的可持续运营依然面临挑战;(4)数字技术带来数据产权、数据隐私和安全等亟待解决的新问题。所有研究案例表明,数字技术的快速发展需要匹配治理模式创新,MaaS生态的协同进化至关重要。

Theory and practices of Mobility as a Service: review and outlook

Transportation is one of the most concerned areas in the green and low-carbon transformation of cities, and it is also the area where digital penetration and digital platforms are most active. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) system was firstly coined in 2014 with a goal to optimize urban transportation for higher efficiency and more convenience with the aid of digital technical tools. Since 2018, MaaS has been increasingly expected to boost green transportation and a new way of transportation organization and supply, reflecting the coupling of the profound change of current travel demand and the urban transportation organization paradigm shift. By now, hundreds of MaaS practices of different sizes and models have emerged globally, and Beijing MaaS is the most influential MaaS practice in China up to now. Currently, the mainstream theories and methods that were mainly based on MaaS practices in developed countries in Europe and the United States cannot adequately describe and analyze Chinese practices. As a response to this knowledge gap, this paper extended the previous literatures to incorporate the Chinese experience and proposed a more inclusive MaaS system analytical framework. This newly proposed framework emphasized that the identification of the similarities and differences of MaaS systems in the global context can be carried out in three dimensions, namely, the social context in which it is embedded, the multiple development goals, and the corresponding socio-economic and environmental impacts. The framework was applied to conduct a comparative study of five typical MaaS at home and abroad, focusing on decoding the incentive mechanism, business model and business ecology of MaaS in Beijing. The experiences and lessons from Beijing MaaS enriched the roles played by the governmental and non-governmental actors and demonstrated the importance of public products and services provision where they did not exist previously. The paper aimed to contribute to the global development of MaaS theory and research methods, focusing on four concerns: 1) the development of MaaS systems once again tests how urban transportation returns to its public attributes; 2) MaaS practices can only be understood in their embedded contexts, which differ from city to city. MaaS is meant to open a window of opportunity for urban transportation transformation; 3) the sustainable operation of MaaS systems remains a common challenge and calls for innovations; and 4) the new issues of data property rights, data privacy and security need to be addressed in future. All the cases in study show the need to innovate governance modes to match the advancement of digital technologies. It is critical to keep the feedback loop functional for the coevolution of the MaaS ecology.