A group of local authorities around the Solent on the south coast of England are laying plans for a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) platform.
Solent Transport – a partnership comprising of Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council and Isle of Wight Council – has begun to look for support in software programming and consultancy to develop the platform, which would enable users to get real time information on a range of public and private transport services.
This follows the provision of a £2.4 million grant from the Department for Transport as its of the area’s successful bid for funding as a Future Transport Zone.
The organisation is aiming to award the contract by March of next year and launch the service in July, with the longer term aim of making it financially self-sustaining.
The procurement notice identifies key elements of the platform as integration with public transport operators and micro-mobility services as they become available, a function for multi-modal journey planning, integration with options to use cars, the ability to make comparisons on cost, travelling time and sustainability, and to book tickets and make payments.
It says Solent Transport wants to develop the MaaS platform in an iterative process that will feed into continuous improvements and provide learnings for similar projects elsewhere in the UK.
Local universities are providing supporting research and Portsmouth City Council is running the procurement process.
Image from iStock, RRice1981
