Mobility as a Service: Exploring Young People’s Mobility Demands and Travel Behavior

Sammanfattning: Increasing vehicular travel and environmental issues are trends increasing the pressure on urban transport systems. The new concept Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is one approach to tackle these challenges. The aim of MaaS is to reduce the need of the private car and increase the use of shared resources by providing one single application that integrates all transport modes, payment, and services. Several ongoing societal trends such as urbanization, technologic development, and sharing economy are examples of reasons for the emergence of MaaS. Young people are often leading the development and are early adopters of new technologies. The mobility demands of young people today and in the future will therefore play an important role in the implementations of MaaS. This qualitative study uses focus groups to explore mobility demands today and in the envisioned future of young people (aged 15-23) living in Stockholm. Our understanding of travel behaviour and mobility demands among young people is limited, and this study also aims to get deeper understanding of the underlying values and attitudes towards mobility that influence those demands and behaviours. This study aims to answer how young people’s mobility demands look like and if they correspond to the visions of MaaS as stated by developers and experts of the concept. Findings indicate that mobility demands and behaviour are strongly influenced by parents, and underlying values such as ‘Freedom’ and ‘Comfortable life’ affect mobility more than factors such as availability and travel time. There is little need for increased accessibility to transport today and in the envisioned future. Findings also indicate a relatively widespread environmental awareness, but an unwillingness to convert awareness to change of behaviour. The demands of young people correspond to some extent with the visions of MaaS, and the probability of young people to adopt MaaS and to choose environmentally friendly journey is high if demands for convenience and comfort are fulfilled.