Digitalization is an unstoppable trend, exponentially accelerated by the pandemic. This shift to the online world, especially through mobile applications, is not only happening in purely technological sectors but also in more traditional ones. In this latter category, a paradigmatic example is mobility.
Companies have realized that their users also wanted to incorporate virtuality into actions such as paying for parking or renting a car. In this way, the phone screen has been filled with multiple apps with which to perform all these functions that were previously done by calling or in person. This has also led companies like Saba, Seat, and Sixt to bet on grouping different products into a single application, preventing them from being dispersed across more than one.
Precisely, the so-called Mobility as a Service (MaaS) seeks the integration and access to various mobility services, both public and private, through a single application that allows access to multiple means of transport, with the convenience of an initial registration and a single payment instead of various operations with each operator. According to the report La MaaS a Catalunya, coordinated by Factual, it can serve to solve many of the problems currently affecting mobility, with the reduction of pollution, better access to the existing offer, and more efficient use of public space.
The so-called MaaS can serve to solve many of the problems currently affecting mobility, with the reduction of pollution or better access to the existing offerAs experts point out, this new paradigm of mobility management is at a very initial stage of development in Catalonia: "Although there is a non-negligible number of mobility platforms, the level of integration of all of them is still low." Catalan apps have also not achieved sufficient scalability to be profitable and, furthermore, they only cover the city of Barcelona and partially its metropolitan area, with an almost zero offer in the rest of the territory, where dependence on private cars is very strong.
However, the report, in which Abertis, the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), Carnet, Racc, Saba, Banco Sabadell and Seat have also participated, points out that Catalonia and especially the Barcelona metropolitan area have as advantages a high population density, which can favor the scalability that MaaS needs to develop sustainably, and there is a robust public transport system and public administrations with leadership capacity and to generate enough traction to facilitate its implementation. The appearance of a multitude of new mobility operators in recent years, such as motosharing, micromobility solutions or ride-hailing, an indispensable element to facilitate the role of aggregator and combination of transport modes, also plays in its favor.
Saba: physical and virtual mobility services hub
"We started thinking a long time ago that digital contact with the client was necessary," explains Saba's Mobility Director, Joan Viaplana. This first translated into the creation of a website to communicate with users and offer them information about their services, but it was not the most suitable medium for when they were in the car. From there, the car park manager created its first application at the end of 2019. "It was a natural step," Viaplana remarks.
"We started thinking a long time ago that digital contact with the client was necessary," explains Saba's Mobility Director, Joan ViaplanaSaba's first application served to provide information about available car parks or the different products the company sells. The growing need to digitize more services offered, as well as the evolution of its business model, led the company to want to evolve the app.The new application, recently launched, integrates new functionalities, such as access to parking lots and payment by license plate. This allows users to access, exit, and pay for their stay through the license plate, simply by linking it in theapp with a payment method.
In the future, it will also include payment not only in car parks but also in the green and blue zones. For the regulated zone service, until now, another application had to be downloaded to be able to pay for it. "We will integrate other services," Viaplana emphasizes, especially considering the evolution Saba is undergoing to become a hub for sustainable mobility services, with charging points for cars, sharing, or proximity nodes and lockers for last-mile distribution. "If we are a point of access to many services in the physical world, we also have to be in the virtual world," he adds.
More examples: Seat and Sixt
Another mobility company that is expanding its horizons is Seat. The Martorell manufacturer has launched into urban mobility, with the Seat Mó brand, which includes electric motorcycles and scooters. Through Seat Mó, the automotive company has entered the motosharing market. The Seat MÓtosharing application allows you to reserve an electric motorcycle in Barcelona, including information such as the location of the vehicles, available charge, and price per minute.
Recently, the Seat app has integrated other urban transport services, such as taxis through Taxi Ecològic. The company has also made its urban mobility service available to companies, closing agreements with Merlin Properties, the Mandarin Oriental Barcelona Hotel, or the ME Sitges Terramar Hotel. Workers and clients of these companies will be able to access Seat Mó vehicles through the app, which integrates this new service.
Finally, the digitalization of mobility also reaches traditional car rental companies like Sixt. Its application allows you to reserve a car or a van at the nearest branches, carrying out the procedures through the phone and with in-person presence only being necessary to pick up the vehicle. It also offers the possibility of booking a trip with Cabify or accessing a car by subscription. Outside of Spain, it includes sharing of scooters, motorcycles, or cars.