TSC to look at Mobility as a Service

This from the Transport Select Committee…

Committee to explore transformative potential of ‘Mobility as a Service’

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a broad term for a range of digital transport service platforms, from quite niche online car and bike-sharing schemes to hugely popular, high profile taxi and private hire smartphone apps.

MaaS apps can provide value for money, convenient, on demand services and are transforming how people, particularly younger people in cities, use urban transport. But, while door-to-door journeys in cities tend to utilise several transport modes— walk/cycle/minicab; train; bus; walk/cycle, for example—the most popular smartphone apps to date have tended to be single mode, typically taxis and minicabs.

Proponents of an emerging model of MaaS, in which multiple modes of transport are brought together under a single app, believe it has the potential to make getting around via public and shared transport so convenient it will negate the need for people in and around cities to own their own car, with potentially massive benefits in relation to urban congestion, air pollution and health.

The Transport Committee is launching a new inquiry into the transformative potential of this type of integrated, multi-mode MaaS app, and overcoming barriers to implementation in UK cities and regions.

Lilian Greenwood, Chair of the Transport Select Committee, said:

“Integrating urban transport modes into a single, integrated MaaS app represents a really exciting opportunity to transform how we get around in our cities.

“An integrated MaaS app can create a single, seamless journey, cutting out the hassle of separate ticketing for different legs of a journey. The app can plan and book your whole journey from door-to-door in the most efficient way possible, using real-time service data across all the transport modes in the city. This could substantially reduce reliance on the private car; ease congestion; increase productivity; and lead to more pleasant, healthier cities with better air quality.

“Integrated MaaS is a much talked about concept, but it is not generally well understood. We want to increase public understanding; find out if the bold claims are justified; and, if they are, recommend ways the Department for Transport and others can support and facilitate its implementation in the UK."

Submissions can be made here.

Timely for the Rail Supply Group, as it seeks a Sector Deal.

RSG and RDG merge

This from the Rail Delivery and Rail Supply Groups...

WORKING TOGETHER – NEW PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN RAIL SUPPLY GROUP AND RAIL DELIVERY GROUP

• New partnership will give supply chain a stronger voice
• Move will ensure both groups are better joined-up
• RSG chair Gordon Wakeford will join RDG board
• RDG chief executive Paul Plummer will join RSG council
• RSG council remains independent and becomes RDG’s fourth ‘strategic board’

The Rail Supply Group (RSG) and the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) have announced a new partnership to coordinate shared objectives better and to strengthen further the industry’s voice.

The creation of a new partnership, using the resources of RDG to better support and join-up the work of the two groups, will:

• Maintain a clearer, independent voice for the rail supply chain within RDG;
• Offer closer alignment and collaboration between train operators, Network Rail and their supply chains;
• Streamline activities and avoid duplication, ensuring more efficient use of combined resources;
• Continue to jointly sponsor groups relating to technology and skills;
• Give government and stakeholders a ‘one-stop-shop’ for relations with the industry;
• Give clearer focus on unique RSG activities around exports, imports and inward investment;

The arrangement, while maintaining the RSG’s necessary independence, will see the RSG become a new strategic board of the RDG and its chair will become a full member of the RDG’s board. The partnership has also appointed Programme Director Anna Del Vecchio as an industry secondee from Amey, who will ensure that the supply chain’s independence is maintained.

Notwithstanding the super-abundance of bullet points in the release, this is good news.

Not least because the supply chain lobbied to be part of the Rail Delivery Group when the body was first set up in 2011, following the McNulty Review.

UPDATE: This from George Ramshaw Curry (via the digital ouija board)...

Meanwhile back in the world of work the sons of Martha at the Railway Industry Association continue with the hard slog of actually helping British industry to export more, innovate, become more efficient and try and understand their domestic monopoly customers etc etc. 

Not to mention actually trying do do something about Network Rail renewals falling off a financial cliff edge in the last year of CP5.

Industry simplification - Supply and Deliver!

Eye exclusive: Inside the office of the RDG CEO!

An Aldersgate mole has supplied extraordinary footage of recent high level discussions between leaders of the RDG and RSG.

Here Paul Plummer offers the Supply Chain a seat at the table:

Truly, Master of all he surveys!