Mobility as a Service

Stuff reports:

The head of New Zealand’s biggest car company says the future will see nobody owning a motor vehicle – just sharing them.

Toyota New Zealand managing director Alistair Davis made the prediction at the media launch of a new Toyota Corolla hybrid in Manawatu.

“I foresee a future where there will be MaaS (Mobility as a Service) everywhere,” he said. “Instead of people buying cars, the vehicles will be shared and the drivers will be billed monthly for car usage and road user charges.”

In fact the change is already happening on a rapidly increasing scale, Davis said. Car-sharing initiatives such as Zipcar in USA, DriveNow in Europe, and Uber in many parts of the world are gaining traction – Uber is now completing five million rides a day.

I’d happily not own a car so long as I can get access to one within say half an hour or so. The business models are not quite there, but are coming.

Taxis and even Uber are too expensive, especially for longer distances. And rental cars have a minimum hire of a day so are no good for shorter trips. Once we get driverless cars, I think the business model will follow.

Research is proving that car-sharing is a far more efficient way of vehicle use, Davis said. At present the average vehicle spends 95 per cent of its time not being used, whereas car-sharing initiatives and autonomous driving would see them used at least 60 per cent of the time.

Far more efficient.