We have big news to share: we won the Jelbi tender! Berlin’s public transport authority Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) selected us out of 10+ competitors to power and scale their platform.
With around 45,000 vehicles integrated into the platform, and being used by approximately 8% of the city’s population, Jelbi was the first and is now the largest multimodal Mobility-as-a-Service platform in the world.
Those of you who follow us online might already associate Trafi with Jelbi. (Maybe you’ve checked out our webpage or read our case study.) We built the Jelbi platform 2.5 years ago, and we’ve been developing and maintaining it in close collaboration with BVG and the Jelbi team ever since.
We were originally approached by BVG in 2019 and asked if we were interested in building a new MaaS platform that would connect the city’s growing number of private mobility services with local public transport services and a journey planner. Naturally, we said yes, and with BVG’s help, we built the platform and launched it a few months later.
Since launch day, Jelbi has expanded to include a wide variety of mobility modes, along with Jelbi “stations”, which are vehicle and service hubs located near high-foot-traffic areas throughout Berlin. (The Jelbi stations are very popular with Berliners.)
In addition to all public transit, the platform has integrated around 45,000 vehicles, including bikes, scooters and mopeds. We’re also proud to say that the App Store rating for Jelbi has never gone below 4.0, and currently has a rating of 4.7, the highest of any available MaaS platform.
Even though we were selected for the initial building of Jelbi, we knew from day one that we would be up against many other industry players when it came time to officially compete for the Jelbi tender. After going through a competitive process, we’re pleased to have been selected to continue with the project.
“We’re proud to continue our mission of decarbonizing mobility and encouraging the shift to sustainable transport. Now that we’ve been selected to scale up the Jelbi platform to a never-before-seen size and level of complexity for MaaS, it paves the way for similar initiatives in the future.”
Martynas Gudonavičius, CEO of Trafi
The selection criteria were varied, but we were chosen mostly for our user-friendly and practical app design, our previous experience with city tenders, and our uniquely deep integrations.
Our mission is to create solutions that can help the world move towards sustainable mobility and away from carbonized private transport. Now, as we look to scale the world’s largest MaaS platform in Berlin, we’ll stick to what we know best: building flexible, accessible mobility products that people love to use.
Check out the official Jelbi website or learn how we help cities build and maintain their own mobility platforms.
The final part of a commute or journey is often the trickiest for travelers. Whilst a mainline train or metro service might get them into the city, getting to that station from their homes in the first place can prove difficult enough that they simply opt to drive instead.
Even in the city, with access to more public services and shared micro-mobility options, it’s not a seamless experience. Whilst travelers may easily start a trip on a public bike or e-scooter, ending it can involve having to go out of the way to find a designated parking bay. Though some cities allow ‘free roaming’ where scooters and bikes can be parked anywhere, this risks leading to eyesores and public nuisances with sidewalks cluttered and paths blocked.
To overcome the challenge of convenience, better enable the last part of travelers’ journeys, and increase the appeal of shared mobility in the process, cities are turning to a new, innovative solution: mobility hubs, such as those that BVG has opened up in Berlin and integrated into their Jelbi app.
Placed at designated points on streets and near major transit stations, mobility hubs bring together a selection of shared mobility options in one place. Depending on the size of the hub, these can feature anything from some scooters and bikes right through to larger shared mobility options like mopeds, cars, or vans. With convenient access to this menu of mobility, travelers can more easily find what they need and quickly switch between transport options.
An added benefit of mobility hubs is their highly visible presence in public spaces. They’re usually situated close to stations or placed in strategic spots along the street. In reclaiming space from private car use, cities can present shared mobility as a new, viable alternative travel option.
But their appeal doesn’t stop there. Advanced mobility hubs have other beneficial features such as covered communal rest areas, charging points, and informational points (e.g. digital screens with real-time public transportation information).
In Berlin, BVG is leading the charge on mobility hubs having successfully deployed several hubs across the city, near to S-Bahn and subway stations. Integrated into their award-winning Jelbi App (powered by Trafi), the mobility hubs come in two varieties: Jelbi Stations are larger mobility hubs that include cars and vans, and smaller ‘Jelbi Points’ offer access to micro-mobility options.
Since mobility hubs exist to bring shared mobility services together, integrating different mobility offerings is key to success. It’s not enough to just have the options available in one place. Even with a selection of mobility options available, a mobility hub’s appeal is limited if a different app and account are needed for each mobility option. Giving travelers an option that doesn’t involve time-consuming app-hopping is a much better alternative that encourages the use of MaaS.
The Trafi MaaS Suite powers mobility within major cities around the world. Boasting the largest network of deep integrations with mobility service providers, we make it effortless for users to switch between mobility options with just one app.
Our users can find, book, travel with and pay for all the services in their city with just one app. At the tap of a smartphone screen, they can view real-time transit information, unlock vehicles, buy tickets and customize their travel experience. Fully white-labeled, our solution can be tailored with your company’s brand details like logos and colors, making it truly a part of your existing transit network for users.
Book a demo or reach out to sales@trafi.com
By BVG Jelbi and mobility institute berlin
At the peak of the coronavirus crisis, the mib published the study Beyond the lockdown. This study analyzed the pandemic’s impact on urban mobility and public transport (PT) in the medium and long terms.
Since then, Europe has entered into the second predicted phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the calibration phase, a lot has happened. One notable trend has been a relaxation of restrictions established during the crisis phase. However, in many regions, the number of cases is rising rapidly again. As predicted in the previous study, this is accompanied by renewed, stricter containment measures in the affected regions.
Given the renewed increase in infection numbers and the uncertainty it causes, it is crucial to take a closer look at how the pandemic has impacted mobility over the first few months of the crisis. This paper focuses on multimodal mobility offers and its changes during the early months of the pandemic.
Multimodal offers can help keep customers connected to the network of PT operators. This is particularly important during the pandemic, as risk perceptions can sometimes change quickly, leading to general volatility in transportation choices.
Mib, together with Jelbi, dove into the data to explore this hypothesis. To do so, booking behavior was analyzed in the multimodal app Jelbi and compared to booking behavior in the purely PT apps of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) (FahrInfo and Ticket app).
▪ During the lockdown, booking patterns of PT and shared mobility offers on Jelbi reversed. In pre-pandemic times, around 80% of bookings were for PT services, and during the peak of the crisis, it dropped to 20%. Meanwhile, four out of five bookings were for shared mobility services.
▪ Customers switched to short-term PT tickets. After the lockdown, the purchase of short-term tickets recovered much faster than longer-term tickets.
▪ Customers returned faster to short-term PT products using multimodal platforms. Compared to other BVG apps (FahrInfo and Ticket app), bookings for short- and medium-term tickets in Jelbi recovered significantly quicker.
Jelbi, the BVG MaaS project, integrates Public Transport (PT) and shared mobility options, including the BVG ridesharing service BerlKönig into a single solution for Berliners to find, plan, book, and pay for all their trips with one account.
In April, the purchase of PT tickets in the Jelbi app fell by 88% compared to January. At the same time, bookings of shared mobility services increased by 6%.* The latter have increased significantly compared to PT bookings during the crisis period (see Figure 1).
In the pre-pandemic period, PT tickets accounted for about 80% of all bookings within the Jelbi app. During the peak of the crisis, this figure dropped to 20%. At that time, four out of five bookings were for shared mobility (calendar week 16 from April 13th to 19th).
By the beginning of July, as the effects of the pandemic had eased up, the share of PT bookings recovered However, shared mobility services remained at 40% of all bookings.
After the peak of the crisis passed, PT ticket sales recovered. However, an evident change in the type of tickets sold was observed. The sale of single and 4-trip tickets recovered significantly faster than medium- and long-term products such as daily, weekly, and monthly tickets (see Figures 2, 3 and 4).**
Looking across the different BVG apps – FahrInfo, the BVG Ticket app and Jelbi – sales of short-term tickets recovered by 62% by calendar week 26. Medium- and long-term ticket sales recovered significantly slower during the same period (39% and 37% respectively by calendar week 26***). These findings suggest that customers choose to buy more flexible products as the situation develops.
The comparison between the multimodal Jelbi app and purely PT apps provided by the BVG is striking. In the mib study Beyond the immediate crisis, it was argued that multimodal solutions like Jelbi could strengthen customer loyalty by keeping users in their PT-centric app environment, even through volatile periods. If the number of infections was to increase, users could quickly and easily switch from bus to shared mobility services within one mobility ecosystem. More importantly, when the number of infections drops, users can return to buses and trains just as quickly.
The comparison of booking figures across the BVG apps supports this hypothesis: After lockdown restrictions were relaxed, booking figures for short-term products through Jelbi recovered faster than through the purely PT apps (especially from week 20-26, see Figure 2). Bookings of day tickets, tourist products, and 7-day tickets also recovered faster on Jelbi from May to June (week 19-23, see Figure 3). Only the bookings of monthly tickets recovered slower in Jelbi than the other apps (see Figure 4).
The numbers show that multimodal solutions like Jelbi provide customers with flexibility in times of crisis and make it easier for them to return to PT. In the long term, the trend toward higher flexibility could become even more critical for any PT company, especially in the next few months, after passengers have gotten used to more flexible modes of transport.
Therefore, it is crucial that multimodality is consistently considered by authorities and PT companies when planning their mobility services. As the example of Jelbi shows, the model of multimodal integration into one single platform is particularly attractive. Customers are kept in the PT ecosystem and tend to return to their services faster.
However, a fully integrated multimodal platform solution is not always required. For example, ridesharing providers like BerlKönig**** and MOIA***** offered night-time traffic in German cities during the crisis. In another example, the owners of longer-term PT tickets had the opportunity to use kick-scooters at a discount. Even on this smaller scale, multimodal offers can help ensure mobility in times of increased risk of infection.
mib | www.mobilityinstitute.com
Dr. Jörn Richert | Head of Consulting & Policy | jri@mobilityinstitute.com
Samuel Schrader | Business Development Manager | sas@mobilityinstitute.com
Jelbi | info@jelbi.de | www.jelbi.de
© mib and BVG Jelbi, 2020
* mib (2020). Beyond the immediate crisis- The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and public transport strategy. Available at: https://mobilityinstitute.com/en/blog-en/new-sars-cov-2-strategy-paper
** The zero mark represents the sale at the crisis low point (CW 13, 2020) and 100% the sale at pre-crisis level (CW 8, 2020). The calculation formula for the recovery factor is as follows: (time of consideration – crisis low point) / (pre-crisis level – crisis low point)
*** The figures represent the average recovery across the three considered BVG apps.
**** MOViNC (2020). Corona: BerlKönig fährt Gesundheitspersonal – und das kostenlos. Available at: https://movinc.de/carsharing/corona-berlkoenig-faehrt-gesundheitspersonal-und-das-kostenlos/
***** MOIA (2020). MOIA verstärkt Nachtverkehr im Auftrag der Stadt Hamburg. Available at: https://www.moia.io/de-DE/presse/moia-verstaerkt-nachtverkehr-im-auftrag-der-stadt-hamburg
Celebrating the first year of world’s largest Mobility as a Service in Berlin, Jakob Michael Heider, Head of Jelbi, and Sebastian Wolf, Product Owner at BVG, share their insights and recommendations for cities looking to launch an alternative to private cars.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
Starting today, we’re introducing universal micromobility scanners in all of our global rollouts. The first of its kind, the universal scanner function unlocks every micromobility vehicle connected to the Trafi platform. It’s accessible right from the homescreen and lets users access any vehicle they choose, irrespective of provider.
Additionally, we’ve launched the two-tap trip experience and improved vehicle discoverability on the map.
In this day and age, users expect nothing less than perfectly convenient digital experiences, and at Trafi, we pride ourselves on our ability to meet these rapidly evolving demands. The global apps powered by our technology have an average rating of 4.5 stars, similar only to Uber and other leading mobility apps.
The introduction of the universal scanner is the result of our determination to match the full experience of native micromobility apps and to continue our mission of pushing the mobility-tech envelope.
The universal scanner unlocks any integrated vehicle that supports QR codes.
It works like this: users open their Trafi-powered MaaS app – yumuv or Jelbi, for example – when standing in front of a vehicle they’d like to ride. (It doesn’t matter what sharing company the vehicle belongs to.) The user opens the homescreen of the app and then taps the “scanner” button. The scanner appears on the screen and the user points their smartphone at the QR code located on the top of the vehicle. The QR code is then automatically scanned and unlocked, and the user can hop on the vehicle and get moving.
It sounds as easy as it is. After scanning their vehicle of choice, users only have to tap their screens twice more: once to start their ride, and once to end their journey. We call that the “two-tap trip” experience.
This deceptively simple update is helpful to riders for obvious reasons. Not only does it match the riding experience provided by native apps, but it also opens access to multiple providers’ services.
It has an added bonus for micromobility service providers as well. Trafi’s universal scanner lets them expand and deploy new additions to their fleets quickly and easily – no need for complicated unlocking mechanisms.
One of the benefits of MaaS networks is the wide variety of mobility options they make available to users. More options let users weigh the benefits and compare the mobility modes available to them before deciding which one suits them best.
We take the desire to compare options into account at Trafi. Upon opening the homescreen map, all micromobility options in the user’s vicinity are clearly shown. (That also includes new icons that indicate the battery levels of each vehicle.)
When the user taps the “nearby” screen, they’re shown vehicles that have enough battery power to cover the average trip. (That’s roughly 3 kilometers for scooters, and up to 6 kilometers for e-bikes.) An ideal walking path and distance needed to reach that vehicle are immediately pre-selected and presented to the user as well. All guesswork is eliminated for ease of convenience.
By introducing universal scanners and improving discoverability in our apps, users gain back valuable time and the usability and flexibility of the app increases in the process. At Trafi, we strive to improve and develop our tech with these parameters in mind. It’s our goal to make MaaS so easy to use, it becomes the first choice of every urban mobility user of the future.
As public life starts to move into the post-COVID-19 phase, the question remains how urban mobility will adapt to this “new normal.” From today’s perspective on the weeks and months behind us, the trajectory for the future becomes clearer.
The urban mobility ecosystem adapted quickly and flexibly to changing customer demands. This ability to match the overall supply of mobility modes with individual preferences on the demand side will be a key success factor for cities from now on. The modal split will look different in a post-COVID-19 world and will be even more fast-moving.
In this paper, we use the example of Berlin to compare the direct implications of the pandemic on urban mobility behavior, especially the relative use of different modes of transportation before and during the lockdown phase). Moreover, we will analyze the indirect consequences of a changed mobility behavior such as changes in air quality and in the parking situation. We present four different scenarios analyzing in which direction future mobility might shift.
Our findings are backed by data from the public transportation provider in Berlin (BVG), Mobility as a Service platform provider Trafi, as well as mobility analytics companies MotionTag and Bliq.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
When we launched Jelbi in Berlin last year we were faced with a challenge to handle radically different mobility services within a single European city. Now we can say with certainty that it was a huge achievement not only for all of us at Trafi but for the mobility industry as a whole. Nevertheless, the only way for us to top it was to take on an even more complex, multi-city mobility network and make it even better. This week we are presenting you with yumuv – world’s first regional Mobility as a Service with subscriptions. Owned by Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS), public transport operators (PTOs) in Zurich (VBZ), Basel (BVB), and Bern (BERNMOBIL), and powered by Trafi.
Of all countries embracing public transportation as the backbone of urban mobility, Switzerland stands second to none. From their synchronized scheduling of all forms of public transportation to their unified ticketing system, this mountain nation is an example where even the most affluent people rely on public transportation every single day. Thus, when we took the task of launching yumuv, we didn’t flinch in basing the whole product experience in public transportation. It only makes sense when you have such a firm ground to stand on.
However, using public transportation to move between Zurich, Basel, and Bern is not the same as relying on shared mobility inside the cities. Our lives are too chaotic to expect public transportation to cover all our use cases. Nevertheless, instead of falling back to owning private cars, the younger generation is getting their driver’s licenses later, if at all. According to one study done in Geneva, the home to the world-famous auto show, driver’s licenses issued to people under 25 years went from 75% 18 years ago to 65% in 2017. It shows a trend that younger Swiss citizens want to incorporate shared mobility services into their daily lives. For us, this was a clear confirmation that we had to completely integrate well-known micromobility brands like Tier, Voi, and BOND into a single, holistic multimodal service.
So, the takeaway here: no single provider, operator, or solution could have made all of this happen. Moreover, it would be impossible to have a successful Mobility as a Service without taking the already excellent public transportation backbone and enhancing it with trusted mobility service providers (MSPs). And for a project like yumuv to work at all, you have to have a single joint regional entity to orchestrate Mobility as a Service for and between three Swiss cities.
A multi-city approach
For a country the size of Switzerland, where you usually commute to work, school or university from another city or village, can reach your downtown in mere minutes and have immediate access to the Alps, we chose a different focal point: a completely regional, multi-city experience is more important than integrating complete intracity mobility of just one city.
Micromobility supplements public transportation
We still hear hypotheticals how micromobility should complement public transportation. Meanwhile, yumuv is pushing the envelope from day one and connects these modes seamlessly: there can be no first and last-mile solutions, if electric bikes and kick scooters are not readily available in the same place you plan your public transportation trips, and vice versa.
Mobility subscriptions
Most Swiss citizens have public transportation passes, and this suggested that extending them with mobility subscriptions for micromobility was the natural way to go. With yumuv, people can pay a flat rate for rides with electric bikes and kick scooters. This mechanism ensures that they can have a cheaper and smoother exploration of new mobility options.
Taking data privacy seriously
With yumuv, we also follow our own principle of personal data privacy being a human right. There is no better way to deliver on this deeply held conviction than to create a product that is fully functional even if travelers don’t want to share their location data either with our platform, or our partners. Certain features become less helpful but people can still effortlessly look for options that make the most sense for their situation.
Customizable off-the-shelf solution
Finally, for us at Trafi it’s very special that yumuv is sharing the same robust technology we use to power Jelbi and our other MaaS cities. Of course, we had to adjust and customize for Swiss regional specifics. However, our core functionality remains intact and is shared across other Mobility as a Service solutions, allowing for easier rollouts of upcoming features.
In other words, with yumuv, Mobility as a Service is entering its Act II. The launch of a completely integrated holistic multimodal service for a single city was exciting, but it was only the setup. Now, focusing on a multi-city regional approach and creating a single payment option like subscriptions opens new, yet to-be-explored avenues.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
VILNIUS – Leader in Mobility as a Service, Trafi announces a fundraise with new investors Sumitomo Corporation and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance and follow-on from EBRD and Octopus Investments. The investment will accelerate Trafi’s strategy to bring innovative mobility solutions to cities worldwide, and to Asia in particular.
Sumitomo Corporation and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance are the lead investors in Trafi’s recent round, opening the next company phase: more MaaS solution access to more people.
“We are proud to see the cutting edge technology that Trafi has deployed in major cities,” said Shingo Hosotani, General Manager of Business Development at Sumitomo Corporation Europe. “We intend to be the global leader in optimizing mobility of people and goods. Thus we had no second thoughts when we decided to rely on Trafi’s expertise. We now wish to help people anywhere to adopt sustainable and next-generation mobility services.”
In 2019, Trafi launched Jelbi, the world’s most comprehensive MaaS in Berlin, showing that city-led mobility solutions can offer all modes of transportation to Berliners in a single place for a more sustainable, equitable, and effective urban mobility. Following the success in Germany, Czech Republic, and Lithuania, Trafi will soon launch its MaaS platform in collaboration with SBB — the Swiss national railway company, and then intends to conquer more European and international capitals for 2021.
“The broad business perspective is the reason why we are so eager to partner up with Trafi,” says Hisashige Doisaki, General Manager at Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance. “The company does have a real success story of MaaS — from cities in Europe to trendsetting multinational technology companies, like Google, Lyft, and Gojek. We believe that by working closer together, we can help cities make this transition from personal cars into a safer, more equitable, and sustainable future of mobility.”
“Our partnership with Sumitomo Corporation and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance enables us at Trafi not only to accelerate the development of the technology that we already know, but also to open up our own MaaS platform to a much broader spectrum of urban mobility initiatives, projects, and experiments. No matter the size or scale,” says Martynas Gudonavičius, CEO of Trafi.
The company believes that cities have been suffering enough from car centricity, and the Covid-19 gave local authorities the final proof that public investment into transportation and urban mobility is needed. With this new financial round and the Japanese expertise, Trafi bets on a more sustainable and easier to access urban mobility solutions for the future of the cities.
With its global network and based on trust from companies in various industries and from consumers, Sumitomo Corporation engages in multifaceted business activities by making the most of its Integrated Corporate Strength. These business activities include sales of a variety of products and services within Japan, import and export, trilateral trade, and domestic and international business investment.
Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of MS&AD insurance Group, the largest insurer in Japan and the ASEAN region. Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance offers a comprehensive insurance service package: from fire insurance, casualty insurance, automobile insurance, allied insurance, to life insurance, and other products. Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance provides its services to individuals and groups domestically and overseas.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
Intermodal trips look like a saving grace in getting people out of their cars. Aurelija Petrauskytė-Latakė — Trafi’s Lead Product Manager for Routing — dispels the complex nature of intermodality and explains why people find it challenging to rely upon it.
Imagine that you are having coffee with a friend near Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on a lovely Saturday morning. Your friend gets an idea to visit the Zoo, and you don’t hesitate to agree. Now, if you were Anna, a Berliner through-and-through, you would walk. It’s 46 minutes, a beautiful route, and she enjoys a pleasant stroll while catching up on her podcasts. However, if you were Peter, an ex-pat, you would prefer convenience while being very price sensitive. In other words, you would take a bus. Would getting caught in the rain change anything? Anna most likely would immediately jump into a shared car and go back home. For Peter, however, nothing would change: it’s price over comfort pretty much always, and it’s charming when it rains.
These are typical mobility deliberations we all make every single day. What we are considering — taking a bus, car, or walking — are routes from point A to point B. Every route has an origin, a destination, a mobility mode, a path, and a cost. Anna doesn’t mind the physical cost of walking because she finds standing on a platform or inside a train annoying. Peter, however, is willing to pay for the convenience of public transport above the physical toll of walking. You, however, would likely have a different attitude. We all are different people with distinct preferences in disparate situations.
The takeaway: no route is absolutely right for everyone. Every option we take is a tradeoff against the existing alternatives.
Say that Anna, Peter, and you are relying on the same trip planner to find your mobility options. Well, then the routing software that powers any trip planner would have to know, accept, and adhere to your differences and return a set of mobility options that would make sense specifically to you and your situation. Honestly, every trip planner faces a challenge to achieve that.
There is a solution, though: every one of us, including Anna, Peter and you, consider wait time, trip price, duration, distance, etc. What makes us all different are the distinct values we assign to shared preferences: Anna is more tolerant of walking, and Peter is more tolerant of public transport. I, for example, maybe am more tolerant of paying for ride-hailing. Keep in mind that these tolerance levels also are sensitive to context: whether it’s raining or if it’s rush hour, whether you’re carrying grocery bags or just running late — we all tend to reconsider our usual choices if the situation changes. Routing software would have to start exactly here: by embedding this shared set of preferences and assigning tolerance levels specific to people, cities, and even context.
In other words, trip planners have to consider our shared preferences and return a list of routes that make sense to our tolerance levels in any given situation.
Anna and Peter’s options look like a walk in the park in comparison with intermodal routes, e.g., combining a shared mobility option with a public transport one. Imagine that for that trip to Berlin’s Zoo; you decide to take the intermodal route recommended by your trip planner: a TIER kick scooter with a transfer to U-Bahn №2.
What follows is the actual sequence of actions you would be required to perform in an intermodal trip. First, your find a scooter, walk to the scooter, unlock the scooter, put on a helmet, ride the scooter from Potsdamer Platz to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park station for 5 minutes, confirm that you can lock the scooter, take off the helmet, lock the scooter, enter the station and find the platform, wait 6 minutes, transfer to U-Bahn №2, ride five stops for ten more minutes, and complete your last mile on foot.
That’s 23 minutes and around 5 euros. Slower than car-sharing or even a bus but, probably, more convenient than walking. But for this trip to even be recommended, a trip planner has to perform some severe behind-the-scenes calculations:
1. Evaluate the amount of effort you are willing to invest in this route, i.e., tolerance limit to walking, tolerance limit to driving yourself, tolerance to switch from a self-driven mode to a mode where you are driven, tolerance to wait for a transfer, etc.
2. Evaluate mobility service availability, i.e., inquire all integrated shared and public mobility providers in real-time about their available supply, so that you would be able to unlock a kick scooter to start the trip, and a transfer to U-Bahn at your connection point without the necessity to wait for a long time,
3. Predict upfront, i.e., combining the availability and your tolerance levels, calculate how far into the future this trip can be guaranteed, as the scooter supply changes constantly, they cannot be reserved indefinitely. At the same time, U-Bahn №2 does run on a schedule, but it does get disrupted sometimes, and you still have to make your connection at a specific time.
In other words, a trip planner has to recommend intermodal routes that make sense: provide options that show a tradeoff between price, the effort needed, and time saved. But even then, one person will find paying 5 euros for a 23-minute trip outrageous while another would be less concerned about price. Moreover, people are also less likely to consider taking intermodal routes where they are not guaranteed supply at transfer stations.
One of the points that tend to get lost in the whole debate about the future of urban mobility is the cognitive complexity of intermodal routes. As we’ve discussed before, people calculate tradeoffs. Risks of not finding a kick scooter, riding on unknown streets amid the car traffic, the possibility of missing your U-Bahn connection — it all adds up to an apparent reason why Anna and Peter will mostly prefer sticking to their regularly scheduled options in the upcoming future.
Nevertheless, for most people, sticking only to scarce public transport or private cars is not an answer either. We must increase the connectivity of the whole urban mobility network. Intermodal trips seem to be a legitimate way to get there. One immediate example is urban park & ride systems that allow commuters to leave their cars and switch to public transport or micro-mobility.
To put a finer point here: intermodal routes are already being suggested. In Berlin, Jelbi — a city-led MaaS platform — recommends taking at least one shared mobility combination with public transport in every tenth route search request. However, guaranteeing intermodality is still very complex: these routes have to deal with far more variables than distinctly public transport or shared mobility ones.
One can only hope that intermodal variability can be handled by an abundance of micro-mobility supply soon. Until then, it’s only natural that for regular people, intermodality is rarely the preferred option.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
Navigating cities has become an extremely complicated task. MaaS promises to guide travelers effortlessly through the so-called jungle of the urban mobility network. One of the severe challenges that stands in the way of living up to this promise is disruptions, which happen on a daily basis, especially in larger cities. The majority of urban dwellers can relate to being extremely frustrated by being late to work because of a disrupted line. In these situations, what travelers need the most are guidance and reassurance.
At Trafi, we took this challenge very seriously — to provide top-notch real-time disruption updates, to allow travelers to plan their door-to-door trips effortlessly even when disruptions occur. Firstly, we analyzed the currently available disruption services on the market and identified multiple problems, and then attempted to tackle them.
Based on these observations, we designed a solution to tackle these problems heads on.
Types of alerts sent to travelers:
The most granular disturbances on a direction and stop level for planned and unplanned disruptions.
Planned disruption information comes from the official Public Transport Authority (PTA) sources that we receive through API. Trafi’s system sends automatic updates every 5 minutes, checking for the newest information from the PTA source. E.g. canceled bus line, change of route length, etc. Our system indicates not only that there is a disruption per route level, but also indicated it for a particular disrupted direction (track) for each schedule, meaning that users who are traveling in another direction on the same affected route are not bothered or misled by redundant information.
Unplanned disruption updates are derived from real-time mobility situations. Let’s say that there is a major congestion due to a huge storm. As a result, four busses are stuck and have not been able to move for the past 35 minutes. Thanks to real-time vehicle tracking, Trafi will spot this and immediately send a disruption alert.
For example, Berliners are warned about all service disruptions in one place -the BVG Jelbi app-, including U-Bahn, BVG buses, BVG trams, and S-Bahn disruptions, which cover 95% of the total annual public transport passenger traffic. And soon we will reach 100 % of trip coverage.
Trafi prepared a toolset for cities to publish disruptions manually to cover all possible cases.
Official sources do not always provide all the disruption information and sometimes it requires adding them manually. The lockdown situation during COVID-19 proved that changes for public transport were made quicker than updates were available in official sources. E.g. information such as front bus doors won’t be used to enter a bus anymore, or that it is required to wear a mask if a passenger wants to enter the vehicle were not part of official disruptions but yet highly important for people to know.
Our proprietary tool allows MaaS operators to manually post disruption information: not only by writing a message but also marking what lines, schedules, directions, or stops were affected and how.
The disruption function is now live in the BVG Jelbi app powered by Trafi. The ability to provide the most accurate and granular public transport disruption information sets Trafi apart. But we do not stop here, we strive for the best support of the travelers, thus next we are working on:
– Informing users on the way. E.g. if a traveler is on the way and disruption happens that affects their journey, they will be informed.
– Supporting replanning of the trip to navigate around disruptions. In addition to suggesting another public transport route, we plan to help people discover other modes, and intermodal routes to reach their destination on time.
Founded in Vilnius, Lithuania, Trafi has been revolutionizing urban mobility since 2013. Our MaaS platform is designed to run even the most complex transport systems and has been trusted by Berlin (BVG), Brussels (STIB), Portsmouth & Southampton (Solent Transport), Munich (MVG), and Zurich (SBB).
Trafi’s mission is to empower cities with state-of-the-art MaaS solution that helps to tackle their mobility challenges and to achieve ambitious sustainability objectives. Our white-label product offers all the features and components needed to launch your own-branded MaaS service. With more than 50 existing deep integrations to mobility service providers and payment facilitators, we help to reduce risk, cost, and time-to-launch for new services.
