Exploring the possibility of MaaS service in Thailand, implications from the existing conditions and experts' opinions on “Who should be the MaaS provider in Bangkok?”

IATSSR-00229; No of Pages 9 IATSS Research xxx (2019) xxx

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IATSS Research

Research article

Exploring the possibility of MaaS service in Thailand, implications from the existing conditions and experts' opinions on “Who should be the MaaS provider in Bangkok?” Sorawit Narupiti Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 1 August 2019 Received in revised form 10 October 2019 Accepted 14 November 2019 Available online xxxx Keywords: Mobility-as-a-Service MaaS provider Situation analysis Stakeholder analysis Bangkok

a b s t r a c t Mobility-as-a-Service or MaaS is the emerging transport solution that services a package of mobility to customers. MaaS aims to give a new travel experience to travelers, in terms of access to the services and seamless trips on one single platform. The organization of MaaS requires a new player, a MaaS provider, who mediates the travelers (customers) and transport services. The MaaS provider takes the roles of data provider, integrator, and MaaS operator. In many pilot and implementation of MaaS schemes around the world, the MaaS providers come from various stakeholders and employ various business models. MaaS providers are crucial in that they lead the cooperation among all stakeholders and are the driving force of the services. In Bangkok, Thailand, where MaaS is a relatively new concept, the identification of a suitable MaaS provider was explored. Taking the local transport conditions, both demand and service conditions, scenarios of probable MaaS providers were investigated. The study method included literature reviews and collection of present transport setting, including the organizational arrangement. Expert interview and focus group meeting were used to form a concrete understanding and to imply the possibility of the MaaS provider in Bangkok. Three scenarios of Maas providers were set: public transport service provider, private transport service provider and third party, and Public Private Partnership. The results disclose issues that need to be resolved if the stakeholder would serve as the MaaS provider. Several implications are drawn to set the directions of MaaS development and a possible MaaS provider in Bangkok. © 2019 International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction The needs around the world to improve efficiency and quality of transport services has been enduring. Especially, the exploration of innovative solution for urban passenger transport systems. In the era of information and communication disruptive technologies, Mobility-asa-service (MaaS) emerges as one of prospect disruptive technologies and services. MaaS creates a new environment of travel by providing easy access to variety of transport choices. The services are integrated into customer-focused ecosystem. Mobility-as-a-Service or MaaS is the limelight topic for many scientific communities and practitioners. MaaS is a relatively new concept that offers consumers access to a range of service types and journey experiences. MaaS allows travelers to conveniently access to ‘better travel choice’ and could shift in consumer behaviors on their travel. MaaS has emerged within the Intelligent Mobility domain and represents the shift away from purchasing products (vehicles) towards instead purchasing

E-mail address: [email protected]. Peer review under responsibility of International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences.

the access (service) for the benefits of mobility [1]. Seamless ondemand and point-to-point mobility on a one-stop service is introduced. MaaS is a user-centric, intelligent mobility distribution model in which all mobility service providers' offerings are aggregated by a sole mobility provider, the MaaS provider, and supplied to users through a single digital platform [2,3]. MaaS introduces a new player in the ecosystem and a need for new roles in the value chain. The conventional customers (travelers) and transport service operators (providers) are now mediated by a MaaS provider. In order to provide MaaS, two new roles are defined: MaaS integrators, which assemble the offering from several transport service providers and MaaS operators which package and deliver the combined offering to customers [4]. Another work defines two new roles (players) in the ecosystem: MaaS providers design and offer the MaaS value proposition to satisfy customer demand, and share data on mobility needs of customers, to help transport operators improve their service, and data providers act as data brokers to service the data and information sharing requirements of the transport operators and the MaaS provider [1]. The MaaS provider requires the ability to aggregate transport operator services on a single digital platform. The data provider owns a specific role to manage customer data, data exchange with transport operators,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.11.003 0386-1112/© 2019 International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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and gives access to new markets for data brokerage services (if any). The data provider is also capable of data analytics and gives access to new markets for data analytics. Although called differently, these roles require the same collective functionality and can be taken by one or more enterprises, depending on the market condition (Fig. 1). The introduction of the MaaS provider requires a person(s) or institution(s) to take these mentioned roles. Many literatures discuss the suitable players for these roles. Generally, two choices can be made: the roles are absorbed by the existing players (private or public transport operators), or the roles are taken by new emerging players. It is noted also that there might be more than one MaaS provider in the same area. MaaS is new in Thailand and many stakeholders still have limited knowledge on MaaS. Yet, MaaS is also considered by many stakeholders in Thailand. Based on early exploration about MaaS in Thailand, MaaS comes in view from many reasons. The most referred words are the relevancy to digital economy and trends. The digital disruption has impacted every move in work and life. This is coupled with demographic shift, and more population are ICT literate and use up-to-date technologies in their routines. Some mention that MaaS is the way to solve persisting problems of personal car traffic and poor quality of public transport services. Many of experts feel that this mobility trend is possible, as they see some efforts by stakeholders such as technology providers and new mobility services, like ride hailing services, who advocate the MaaS concept and ready to play as a stakeholder in the MaaS environment. The objective of this article is to search for a prospect MaaS provider in Bangkok, Thailand. Attempts are made to identify a suitable MaaS provider in the prevailing conditions that MaaS is not widely known and few available stakeholders can be identified. Therefore, this investigation can only use possible resources such as experts and literature to convey the draft justification on the suitable MaaS provider subject to Bangkok transport service conditions. The discussion and results do not show the commitment of the stakeholders in pursuing the business. The research of this article is therefore based on a mix between focus group meeting, interview, and literature research based on current situation and prospect of MaaS in Bangkok and vicinity. The focus group research is mainly the interview and meeting discussion in a few comprehensive workshops that involve experts from most relevant stakeholders, governments, supporters and technology providers. The objective of the focus group research is to scan rationale and opinion for further investigation and cross examine the players. The focus group can also suggest roles of other players that are not present in the meeting. Key considerations by experts are further discussed and implication on the possibility of a MaaS provider is disclosed. 2. Method To find out the prospect MaaS provider in Bangkok, Thailand, a research framework is arranged. The work focuses on preliminary

Fig. 1. Role of MaaS provider for making mobility service to customers.

investigation of the most probable person/organization to be a MaaS provider if the MaaS were introduced in the area. Therefore, literature investigation and experts/stakeholders opinion are the main source of data for consideration. The literature search was conducted and documented. The conclusion from the past studies and trials elsewhere were studied. The literatures give many conclusions that can be useful for the consideration of the matter in Bangkok, Thailand. Nonetheless, the nature of transport ecosystem wholly impacts the suitable MaaS provider selection and therefore the local Bangkok transport and organizational situations were analyzed on business environment, status, and organization's capabilities. The local situations were rationalized with the findings from the MaaS initiatives elsewhere. Then opinions and comments by experts were collected for stakeholder analysis. Since MaaS has not been introduced in Bangkok, Thailand, and the early investigation has found out that MaaS has still not comprehensively known by many stakeholders, a limited number of persons who have known the concept of MaaS were identified and interviewed. In the interview, the experts were acted as the representation of the stakeholder roles, rather than the representatives of their own organizations. The interviews were recorded. The statements were translated and examined to reach the conclusion on the possible MaaS provider that suits Bangkok situations. 3. Role of a MaaS provider Many literatures explain the roles of MaaS providers. Past studies conceptually list the value propositions of the MaaS operator (provider) [3–7]. In short, the function of MaaS provider is to design and offer a transport service package that satisfy customer demand. Based on the function of the MaaS that provides personalized services to customers on a single platform, MaaS requires the collection and/or integration of many options of services in their offering. The MaaS provider thus has a function of gathering transport services from many transport service operators. A study provides a comprehensive review of MaaS concepts and past literature [5]. Two articles from focus on the definitions and roles of a MaaS provider [3,4]. A comprehensive study gives a review of existing MaaS schemes in 12 areas [6]. The actors that are acted as MaaS providers fall into 3 groups; commercial MaaS provider (third party), public transport provider, and local government. An article discusses on the role of each actor in the development of MaaS [7]. In that particular case, the key players that are involved with the MaaS provider and business are city/regional authorities, taxi and digital industries, public transport operators. The paper identifies risks of having commercial MaaS and questions the role of transport authority in the MaaS environment. It mentions that strong collaboration between public and private sector is needed to avoid disconnection between private sector and authority in case that the commercial (private sector) provides MaaS services. A study proposes a concept of MaaS ecosystem and actors. Taking responsibilities to manage mobility, platform, manager services, a MaaS operator (provider) needs to perform a core business of manage the Combined Mobility Services or CMS [8]. The paper shows that the public transport operator can act as a coordinator or collaborator in the MaaS ecosystem. Another paper defines the role of a MaaS operator to combine the existing transport services into a single mobile application on the “one-stop-shop” principle and provides personalized transport plans tailored to customer needs, and thus responsible for customer service and user experience [9]. Field experiments and studies in many areas show that the stakeholder that could act as the MaaS operator can be a newly established business (company), public transport operator, or Public-Private Participation (PPP) scheme. A MaaS provider is defined as a person who designs service offering to any type of travel experience [1]. To emphasize on the importance of data sharing and provision, the data provider is proposed as a separate role. This in fact implies that the MaaS provider and the data provider can be different stakeholders with focused sets of capabilities and responsibilities. It also opens the opportunity to show a clear business

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proposition of MaaS provider and data provider. The role of data provider could extend onto the management of data and data analytics which could access to new market for data brokerage and data analytics. The MaaS provider also interfaces customers, which used to be performed by the service operators. A MaaS provider may be defined into two roles: a MaaS integrator who gathers and facilitates the offerings from several transport service providers through activities such as technical integration, contract management and financial clearing and a MaaS operator who delivers MaaS to end-users by enabling them to seamlessly plan, pay for and execute use of public transport and other transport services, through a single platform [4]. The main theme focuses on the development scenarios. Three scenarios are studied; namely market-driven, public-controlled and public-private development. In these development scenarios, the role of MaaS operator and integrator are absorbed by private sector, public transport provider, mixed private sector (MaaS operator) and public transport provider (MaaS integrator), respectively. The effects of public and private providers being a MaaS provider in each development scenario are summarized in Table 1. An article exemplifies that a MaaS operator could come from various establishments; newly created business for MaaS, telecommunication companies, public transport operators. For public transport operators, they can be municipality/region or state owned. The MaaS operator can also come from PPP, the collaboration among parties from company, municipality/region/state government, and transport operators. Some other businesses can also join the PPP, such as the mobile service and logistics providers [9]. 4. Analysis on transport and organizational situations in Bangkok Existing transport and organizational situations are critical to the development of MaaS service. It is postulated that the past and current experiences accrued from literature studies and pilot implementations may not be transferrable if the basic circumstances are different. This holds true in the case of MaaS consideration in Bangkok, Thailand. For demand side, Metropolitan Bangkok is a megacity of 13 million population with the area of 7700 km2. The demand for travel and its patterns differs from those with smaller city settings. People have a wide range of person characteristics and preference of travel. They have a level of adaptability to live with disruptive technologies and new travel conditions. Moreover, the behaviors of Bangkok people are distinctive. These travel characteristics are prerequisite for transport services. Bangkok has a distinctive arrangement of organizations and transport services. The most discernable conditions in the provision of transport services are institutional bodies and their roles and responsibilities,

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the past operational performances, and capability of the organizations. The settings of the transport services are also important. In Bangkok, several modes are operated as traditional public transport services which have fixed routes and schedules. There are also the number of modes that are regulated in principle, but the actual operations are more relaxed. There are also new mobilities and informal transport. New mobilities here are defined as new transport services, apart from traditional means, which are shared, or have different operations and management. The new mobilities do not fit in traditional operation and regulation protocols. Examples of new mobilities are shared mobility services (car-sharing, car-pooling) and hailing services (involved with network services that connect customers and service operators). The new mobilities are essential for MaaS consideration as these services are to be integrated into MaaS service packages. The experiences on the level of imposed regulation, the capability of the services to adapt to the new service environment, the acceptability of the changing service environment and regulation, etc. are important to understand the relationship among these transport service providers and would be a proxy on the introduction of MaaS and the MaaS provider.

4.1. Transport demand (MaaS potential customers) Being a megacity, Bangkok has a wide variety of household and trip characteristics. Around 25 million trips are made daily. Around 75% of trips are frequently-made work or school trips [10]. For daily commuting, 64% of people use private modes (private car and motorcycle). Public bus and van services are still the major mode of public transportation, despite the rise of rail transit usage. The rail transit demand is expected to increase as major rail transit development is under construction and rail will be a significant backbone of travel in Bangkok. Considering the area vs. mode usage, people who live in the CBD area use more public transportation (almost 50%) whereas only 20% of people in the suburban area use public transportation. Travel distance on average is 12.6 km. The average travel time of travelers ranges between 40 and 70 min depending on public transport means. Taxi is the fastest mode and the most expensive mode. The access time to all public transport is around 10 min. Although the data on number of connections (tours) are lacking, one can see clearly the situation of travel behaviors and mode share in Bangkok and vicinity. The current travelers suffer from long travel time and distance. These travel characteristics post unhappiness not only from private car drivers (i.e. traffic congestion) but also public transport riders. Factors that affect the travel choice the most is travel time, and the cost of travel (fare) and good access come in second and third, respectively.

Table 1 Summary on what will happen to MaaS providers in each development scenario. Development Scenario

MaaS Example operator/integrator

What will happen to MaaS providers

What will happen to other actors?

Market driven

Private operator Private integrator

Technology provider (i.e. TNC) New start-up Third party Telecom company Private transport service operator

Public controlled

Public operator Public integrator

Public transport provider extended their roles to MaaS provider

- Public transport providers only act as enabler and have less interactions to customers - Public transport providers still need adjust themselves to join MaaS. For example, prepare ticket resale scheme and data sharing - requires good public transport services as prerequisite - implies more reliance to private transport service providers - Private service operators may have conflict with the MaaS operator if the MaaS operator fulfills societal goal and the private service operators cannot maximize profits from their services

Public-Private Private operator Public integrator

PPP establishment

- Business-like MaaS operation - expected to have higher incentive and better ability to develop innovative services - Minimal change in public transport service organizations - If MaaS providers are from either public or private transport service providers, they would favor their own transport services. Only third party private operator would be unbiased - Public transport providers adopt new function of procuring and operation. E.g. buy services from private sectors. - able to manage public transport services to compete with private car usage - Neutral and not-for-profit public providers can pursue societal goal of sustainable transport policy - Public integrator acts as a neutral buffer between MaaS operator and transport service providers

- Public sector providers still act as enabler to the MaaS ecosystem.

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4.2. Transport services and organizations Bangkok has a wide variety of transport services. Focusing on people movement, the public transport systems include conventional and “new” mobilities. The existing conditions of the public transport and their organizations play important role in the consideration of a MaaS provider, both from the nature of public transport services and from the prospective candidates to be the MaaS provider. The passenger transport services in Bangkok can be classified into three types of modes: • Conventional modes: bus, rail, public van, boat, local transit service (songtaew) • Paratransit: taxi, tuk tuk, motorcycle taxi • New mobilities: passenger car-sharing, small car-sharing (Ha:mo), escooter, shared bike, e-tuk tuk They can also be typically classified into types of services (long-distance, point-to-point, local access) as shown in Table 2. 4.2.1. Bus Bus service in Bangkok is operated by Bangkok Mass Transit Authority or BMTA, a state-owned enterprise. BMTA has run its own buses and has contracted private operators to run the joint buses on selected routes. The bus fare is fixed by the road transport operator, Department of Land Transport (DLT). BMTA owned bus fleet had dropped from 3506 buses in 2011 to 2771 in 2018 on 118 routes. Private joint buses are 3301 big buses and 882 minibuses on 136 routes [11]. BMTA also manages 2053 local transit services on secondary roads (soi). BMTA continues to have deficit over decades. The total accumulated debt is over 107,098 million baht or around 3.25 billion US dollars [12]. The weak financial status makes BMTA difficult to improve its efficiency and quality of services. The number of buses is not sufficient and the bus quality is degrading. Moreover, the tight organization budget limits the recruitment of new staffs declared by Cabinet in 1995. Recently, BMTA is subject to reform. BMTA used to control joint bus services. Now the joint bus operators have to be registered and regulated by DLT. The regulation includes the registration, the service operation agreement, routes, fare, monitoring and control. BMTA will become one bus operator only. Fare payment on buses in Bangkok is by cash only. A conductor collects cash from each rider. BMTA introduced E-ticket payment system in 2018 but for a short while the system was voided. The common ticket, which is commonly used with rail and boat, has never been realized. 4.2.2. Rail Urban rail transit is expected to be the backbone of transport in Bangkok. The rail systems are operated by three organizations. Mass Rapid Transit Authority (MRTA), a state enterprise, currently regulates the rapid rail lines (subway) under national government jurisdiction. Bangkok Mass Transit System Company or BTSC is a private company who gets the concession to build and operate BTS line (skytrain) from Bangkok Metropolitan Administration or BMA. SRT Electric Train Company or SRTET owns and operates the Airport Rail Link (ARL) linking the airport and downtown. The three organizations currently operate

the total of 125 km of rapid rail lines. As of December 2018, the new rail lines under construction will add 170 km of length with the total of 510 km to be planned. MRTA, SRTET, and BTSC belong to different authorities, thus the management and operations of rapid rail are entirely separated [13]. Urban rail transit in Bangkok serves 1.38 million passenger trips per day [14]. The services are already crowded during peak periods, especially the downtown routes. Since rapid transit systems are public-private investment projects, the fares are determined and set in the PPP contracts. Each rail system has its own fare structure. The rapid transit systems from the three organizations have their own ticketing and payment system, even the traveler information for planning trips. There is an attempt to make a common ticket for all rapid rail transit systems. A common e-payment ticket, Mangmoom or literally translated spider card, was introduced in 2017 after the long planning and negotiation. Yet, the card is not successful as it is not accepted by all rail systems. Currently, it can only be used on MRT subway. Lately, MRTA is studying a new standard of an e-payment using EMV technology and intended to be the central system for the smart payment card. 4.2.3. Boat Boat services in Bangkok are operated on the river and canals. The boat services are regulated by Marine Department. The fare is relatively cheap. The access to boat piers is subject to improvement. 4.2.4. Public van Public van in Bangkok is a contracted service to run shuttle-like point-to-point operation. The routes of public vans normally lie between city skirts and downtown, or vicinity area to downtown. The number of public vans is 3953 vehicles on 139 routes in 2019 [11]. Currently the regulation of public van services in Bangkok is performed by BMTA. The fare is fixed by DLT. The service is popular and takes a considerable proportion in public transport ridership. Unfortunately, no statistic on ridership and profit is collected. Public vans are mainly owned by individuals and they join the route services. The riders pay for the service by cash to an informal route manager or the driver. Recently, DLT rules that new public vans must be replaced with minibuses in 2019. Therefore, the existing public van will be replaced with minibuses. 4.2.5. Local transit vehicle Local transit vehicles are the public transport services on the secondary roads. They are registered as type 4 service to DLT. Most of them utilize small passenger vehicles or vehicles that are modified from pick-up trucks (specifically called Songtaew). They operate on a fixed route basis, but the scheduled time are hardly maintained. There are 2125 vehicles in Bangkok and vicinity [11]. The main purpose of this service is to give access to the area. The payment is fixed price and given to the driver. 4.2.6. Taxi Taxis in Bangkok are for-hire service with fixed fare by distance and time. The total number of taxis in Bangkok is close to 78,078 vehicles [15]. Taxis can be owned by individuals, companies, or cooperative bodies. Conventional taxis get customers who wave for them. But now many taxis join one (or more) ride hailing service application. They can choose to get assigned customers from App or look for standby

Table 2 Available major modes of transport (services) in Bangkok.

Conventional Paratransit New mobility

Long-distance, Mainline

Point-to-point

Local access

bus, rail, public van, boat taxi⁎ ride-hailing⁎

public van⁎ taxi, tricycle ride-hailing, car-sharing⁎, e-tuk tuk⁎

local transport service(songtaew) taxi⁎, motorcycle taxi ride-hailing⁎, passenger car-sharing, small car-sharing (ha:mo), e-scooter, shared bike, e-tuk tuk

⁎ Means it is also possible to classify the service in that category.

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customers. Taxi OK is the DLT project that encourage new taxis to install several safety and security equipment. This Taxi OK can be called on Taxi OK application. The data on the travel status ensures that riders would not have problems with rejection by taxi drivers, fare of travel. At present, there are 17,240 Taxi OK vehicles. All taxis are required to install GPS tracking devices and other equipment such as passenger indication. Taxi OK has some additional requirement on the equipment such as emergency button for riders, snap-shot picture. Taxi OK has its App platform. This taxi service is similar to those offered by private mobility service provider such as Grab and LINE taxi. There are a few mobility service providers. Grab and LINE taxi run taxi call service on App. Grab also offers ride-sharing on its App. (Ride-sharing uses different types of vehicle and operation. An example of ride-sharing is Grabcar. Currently, the service is still illegal in Thailand). Taxi App or mobility service App becomes popular in Bangkok, as the customers get a lot of fare incentives, due to market competitions among several service providers. The App offers regular taxi with some discount. 4.2.7. Tricycle (Tuk Tuk) Tricycles have long been a means of transport in cities around Thailand. In Bangkok, there are around 9000 tricycles or Tuk Tuk in Bangkok. The quota on the number of Tuk Tuk registration has been posted since 1992 throughout the country and therefore there is no new Tuk Tuk recently. Nonetheless, some quotas have been issued on the odd occasion [16]. Tuk Tuk is for hire service that riders have to negotiate the fare with the drivers. Normally, Tuk Tuk operates at locations such as markets, schools, tourist attractions. 4.2.8. Motorcycle taxi The number of motorcycle taxi is 96,641 vehicles and the number of registered drivers is 98,826 persons at 5638 locations [15]. The fare and the price of joining the location, or known as “win jacket cost” is recently suggested by DLT. Conventional motorcycle taxis operate more or less informally at the selected locations. They have no App and passengers must go to the selected locations Motorcycle taxis are operated at designated locations. The service routes are mainly for short distance in the area. Nonetheless, the riders can hire motorcycle taxis to go further, subject to agreement by both riders and drivers. There are also many illegal motorcycle taxi services that use unregistered motorcycles (white plate), with no public motorcycle operator licenses, or at unregistered locations. Currently, some applications (App) include motorcycle taxis in their calling service, such as Grab and GET. The applications can legally call the motorcycle taxis that are registered (yellow plated) and the drivers have public motorcycle operator license. Customers can choose the pick-up and drop-off location, know the calculated fare, and can track the service in real-time. The fare structure is fixed and must pay additional 10 baht for calling fee. Conventional and calling motorcycle taxi services often get into conflict, as the conventional taxis protect their service boundary and feel that those calling motorcycle taxis are illegal and unfair. 4.2.9. New mobility services The word “new mobility” is used to represent mobility in the age of collaborative economy [17]. This service offers an integration or pooling of resources, operates with a new business model, offers new product values to customers, utilizes cutting edge technologies such as electric cars (or autonomous cars in the future), and uses ICT and digital platform. These services can be either shared or demand-responsive. In Bangkok, a number of new mobility services are provided, namely ride-hailing, passenger car-sharing, small car-sharing (Ha:mo), Escooter, shared bicycle, and E-tuk tuk (electric tricycle). The service types and boundaries vary by types of vehicles and services. Nonetheless, all of new mobility services utilize App and technologies to match customers' need. The operations provide convenience to customers such as App features for journey planning, booking, and payment. Ride-hailing services are the operation of Transport Network Company.

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Grab has introduced Grabcar (and its variations) serviced to customers on the same Grab taxi App. The service is competitive to conventional taxis (and other access services). The shared services include passenger car-sharing (Haupcar), small car-sharing (Ha:mo), electric scooter (Leaf, Neuron), bicycle sharing (Pun Pun), Tricycle demand-responsive (E-tuk tuk) for selected customers or point-to-point operations (Tuk Tuk Hop, Muvmi). Grabcar gains popularity due to market incentives to be competitive with taxis. Other services have been introduced in Bangkok in the past two years and they serve only in small areas. The customers of these services are still limited. Table 3 shows the current degree of mobility offerings by each mode service in Bangkok. All modes are offered to travelers (customers) separately, therefore no data sharing exists. Each mode of travel has various degree of information and customer services. To examine the level of mobility offering, the basic functions are classified into 5 categories: information, journey planning, (ticket or seat) booking, payment, and assistance during the journey. The current service offering on mainly Application (App) to access the service items are shown in the Table. Conventional mass transit, specifically bus and rail, has only mode information provided to customers on App. Moreover, each rapid rail transit has its own information App. Public van and local transit service (Songtaew), however, do not provide travelers any information. Traditional paratransit, including taxi and tricycle, has various level of offering. The conventional taxi, which is called by waving by a road, does not have any service offering while the ride hailing taxis can be called on App. The on-call taxi service has been operative for some years but it has recently become popular when Transport Network Companies (TNC) service their App. These taxi services are included in the TNC App and thus incorporated in the MaaS like environment. New mobility services come with a full package of service offering on App, therefore, their data are well managed. These services still serve their own customers and thus the data are not shared. 5. Analysis on stakeholders and scenarios building for a MaaS provider for Bangkok Stakeholders were analyzed to justify a proper MaaS provider for Bangkok. Several mapping matters were explored. First, a clear and common objective of MaaS by stakeholders was sought. Clarification of the MaaS objective implies the MaaS development direction and functions of MaaS providers. This is essential as MaaS is still relatively new in Thailand and no unified agreement on the concepts and policy direction. During the discussion with stakeholders, many objectives of MaaS were considered. The most probable objective that was understood by most experts was the promotion of integrated transport services. The existing stakeholders related MaaS to their own organizational objectives and hoped to see win-win solution to both customers and service providers. Secondly, the mapping of MaaS to be a “central” or an “optional” transport service was explored. The central service means that MaaS is designed to cover entire transport services for all customers. The platform targets to include as many transport services as possible and thus the MaaS provider must unbiasedly attempt to integrate all services from all providers/operators. MaaS is meant to serve the wider spectrum of customers/trip purposes. The goal is that every customer uses this service for travel. It is also necessary to have a variety of services offered. Unlike the “central” service, the optional service runs in parallel with or supplement to the existing services. The optional MaaS service may be offered by a group of transport service providers for a subset of possible transport scenarios. The organization of the MaaS to provide an optional service may be easier, as it may not try to catch all users and services. It is generally easy to start with a few private service providers in a free market environment. Still the optional service may have an issue on inclusion of major public transport services, especially those services are publicly operated. During the discussion and interview, stakeholders considered the existing transport service

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Table 3 Digital services by transport services.

conditions; for example, limitation of his/her own organization stance, or limitations of other stakeholders. They also considered the possible MaaS development scenarios in reality. For example, how many services that can practically be integrated, timing of MaaS development. Clearly, the central MaaS service implies that most (although not all) transport service providers must express their willingness to join the MaaS ecosystem and their willingness to adapt their organizations in a way to foster the MaaS new environment. The optional MaaS service implies that selected transport service providers can be grouped up as a business partnership and pursue the MaaS service. The findings from experts' opinion are diverse. Experts from the public owned transport operators wish to see the “central” MaaS service, as they see that the conventional mass transit are fundamental and needs to be in the service platform. Because the conventional mass transit services (bus, rail) are provided by public sector, the MaaS service must be open to all other transport services to join in this integrated service platform. The other stakeholders agree on the necessity of having traditional mass transit in the offering, but they weigh the ease of implementation and thus believe that the optional MaaS service is more realistic. They take the experience with organizations' past performance and ability for collaboration into consideration. Next, the current conditions and interest of all stakeholders including transport service providers were analyzed. A past report provides a perspective view of possible stakeholders in the MaaS ecosystem [3]. The stakeholders in the core business of the MaaS provider are customers, data providers, and transport service operators. The extended enterprises include those in IT infrastructures and IT service solution. The business ecosystems which distantly influence the MaaS provider are regulatory body, policy institution, research institution, investor, media firms and unions. In Thailand, as it is in the early stage of understanding on MaaS development, the investigation on the interest in MaaS indicates that only a few actors know MaaS and some place the willingness to investigate it and/or jump into this business. Three scenarios of a MaaS provider emerge from the analyses: public transport operator, private transport operator, and third party (Fig. 2.):

- Public transport operator – Bus and rail authorities - Private transport operator – Ride hailing service - Third party – IT companies, PPP (Public-Private Partnerships) 5.1. Public transport operator as a MaaS provider Bus and urban rail transit authority the public transport operators that may extend their current responsibility to the MaaS provider. Bus authority, either at the city and country level, can be a candidate of a MaaS operator. In Europe, pilots and implementations involve bus services in their offering [6,9]. In Bangkok, experts agree that the bus authority, BMTA, is difficult to be a MaaS provider for many reasons. First, BMTA has struggled from degrading quality of bus services and organization performance. The authority finds itself as a passive role in shaping urban travel. BMTA has limited data and manpower to extend the scope of work onto the MaaS service. The current technologies on bus operation and services are lacking. Even though the journey planners are currently provided, it is not updated or promoted. They do not have much of IT infrastructure and data exchange culture. Currently, bus system does not have nice bus service information. Recently, BMTA introduces epayment by electronic data capture (EDC) and QR code (managed through banks). The bus offers various fare structures such as discount for students/seniors and monthly fare, nonetheless BMTA never manages the service integration with other means. More importantly, the experts believe that the bus authority may not extend its role to be the center that coordinates and integrates other services. According to expert opinions, it is very likely that the bus authority cannot be the MaaS provider. All experts agree that urban rail transport must and will be the backbone of transport service in Bangkok. Urban rail transit authorities can be a good candidate of a MaaS provider. MRTA is a state enterprise with its scope of responsibility covering the coordination of all urban rail services. MRTA wishes to see the integrated services into one single platform. Nonetheless, it has limitations of extending current responsibilities to MaaS service. Although the first-mile and last-mile services directly impact the rapid rail services, MRTA currently does very little in

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Fig. 2. Three scenarios of potential MaaS provider for Bangkok.

considering it or integrate the access (feeder) services, as the scope of authority does not allow MRTA to manage the feeder systems. One interviewee reported that MaaS was also new in MRTA and it would take a while to understand and position the organization in the MaaS ecosystem. MRTA makes some progress on the integration of common ticketing (e-payment) that would combine payments of all rail lines and wishes to extend the system onto buses and boats. The epayment is one of MaaS features and thus MRTA can consider the extension of this payment on to other transport services and eventually integrate all services in a package. If MRTA wishes to act as the operator and integrator, many transport policies, regulation, and its organizations must be addressed. The policy must direct the MaaS provider role to MRTA, as it requires budgets and authorities. The regulations have to be revised to allow MRTA manage the integration of data and transport services from several stakeholders. One critical issue for MRTA is the revenue policy. The regulation on fare structure is rigid for the publicspending rail system, thereby hard to provide incentives to the MaaS offering, e.g. discount of large volume of tickets. The revenue sharing must be predetermined and transparent. Experts' opinion on BTSC and SRTET to be the MaaS provider is clear. BTSC can manage a MaaS provider but it can be a long term plan. As BTSC is private company, many stakeholders believe that BTSC should not be treated as the public sector entity, thus being treated as a private transport operator. BTSC has business partners in many sectors and it can be implied that the interest of MaaS provider does not come from BTS operation but the global mobility and related commercial businesses. BTSC has advantages of performing the operator services in numerous forms. BTSC group is the operator of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line in Bangkok. Its Rabbit card can be used on not only BTS but also bus payment in many areas (outside Bangkok) and commercial e-payment at many stores. BTSC has a wide variety of business partners that are in mobility and payment fields. BTSC is interested in MaaS, however, there are still uncertainty on the scope of operations that MaaS provider can legally and practically do. For instance, the limitations by the new data protection law and an agreement with business partners. Despite the strengths in manpower and ability to extend their services onto the platform-based environment, BTSC is not interested in jumping into MaaS business in the near future. Moreover, it is likely that if BTSC operates MaaS, it will manage MaaS provider function by linking only with the present business partners. Therefore, MaaS by BTSC will be based on a set of businesses which are associated with the company. SRTET is not considered as the MaaS provider since it is a relatively small business compared with the other two rail transit operators. ARL can be a service to be integrated in the MaaS package.

existing transport service providers who are knowledgeable in transport services, or third parties. The third parties are normally stakeholders in the MaaS extended enterprises or business ecosystem [3].

5.2. Private sector as a MaaS provider

5.2.1. Private MaaS provider extended from one of transport service provider Many statements in the experts' discussion favored the private transport service provider to become a MaaS provider. Currently, some transport service operators perform similar functions of the MaaS provider within their industries. The ride-hailing company, i.e. Grab, and new mobility companies connect their customers with their services on a single platform. Experts' opinions indicate that no one is ready to take a lead role as a MaaS provider. It is noted that the conclusion came from experts' discussion, not the expression by individual companies. Perhaps, the development of MaaS service is a bit too soon for them, as there is not a good sign from the business partners and government policy. Three matters were concerned by stakeholders. First, the most concerned matter to the transport service providers who wished to become a MaaS provider was the support from the government and inclusion of the conventional mass transit in the service package. They pointed out that coordinating with public organizations might take long time and the results could be unpredictable. Without main mass transit service, the MaaS provider tended to provide an optional service which are joined by a few “business partners” that the MaaS provider could negotiate the goal and operational agreement. Second, the revenue stream. As the MaaS providers involve the operational expense and profit, a private transport service operators would like to become MaaS providers if it could yield benefits on the increased revenue/ value. On one hand, they like to manage the customers' needs and data, and make sure that their transport services are included in the package. On the other hand, they have to be in the competition with other services, within the MaaS offering and with those are operated independent with the MaaS offering. The experts and stakeholders were unsure on the possible revenue model, both reselling and discount from each provided service. Third, the transport service providers normally do business on the transport service and they have no experience on data services. The data from several transport service providers can be integrated, and the MaaS providers can manage the data business. The stakeholders informed that this would be the new business for them and they would need to explore the business opportunity. Experts' opinion agreed that most of new mobility providers are too small to extend themselves to become a MaaS provider. Grab is the only company who is big enough to run, but there is no announcement by Grab on the interest to become a MaaS provider in Bangkok to date. Nonetheless, Grab has though launched a Grab journey planner which could be furthered into other MaaS features easily.

Many private transport service providers are operational in Bangkok. The private business is more flexible to establish a MaaS business than a public organization. The private sector can come from the

5.2.2. Private MaaS provider as a third party The experts tried to identify candidates to become MaaS provider from third party businesses. In pilot studies and implementation in

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many countries, many extended enterprises such as telecommunication companies, finance institutions are interested and join the MaaS provider role. Some companies are newly established for the MaaS business, such as Whim, or TuuP. However, in Thailand the current third parties who are interested in becoming MaaS are limited. None of business in Thailand specializes in a mobility service provider role. There are a few start-up companies who are specialized in journey planning, electronic payment, and IT companies, who are interested in the MaaS business. These companies are small and may not be capable of managing the main MaaS operator and integrator roles. According to the interview, the stakeholders in the IT business would like to be the supporter to the MaaS providers in technical aspect of data integration and App. Big businesses like banks or telecommunication companies do not currently enter the mobility service business. A third party can start the business as a MaaS provider on the condition that all transport operators agree to do so. This implies that the major third party businesses have not yet explored the possibility of entering MaaS service business. There might be potential to have a MaaS provider from the list of potential third parties in the near future. Even though a prospect full-function MaaS provider cannot be identified from the third party businesses, many businesses can do parts of MaaS provider functions. Two notable functions can be done by third party players and they are in progress. First, the journey planning can be offered by several IT companies in Thailand. They normally work with one transport service provider to offer multimodal traveler information service on App/web. Attempts are made to integrate the data and information from several modes of transport. Small start-up and IT companies can technically develop journey planning. They might not be able to gather data from several services, as the MaaS integrator, nor provide customers with multimodal trip planning, as MaaS provider. They are also afraid of big international companies, who can come and take over all the journey planning business. The other function that is progressing in Bangkok is the electronic payment. Despite some lessens learned from past studies and trial, the common epayment ticketing is underway. 5.3. Public-Private partnership (PPP)

for MaaS provider due to the strength that the organization is public and can integrate the rail service with other (access) modes. Still, many regulations must be revised so that the new MaaS provider can manage the data sharing, the integration with all other transport services, and incentives to customers and transport service providers. As the organization expands itself into this new role, upgrade must be made on human resource, technology capability, etc. The most concerned matter is timeframe and motivation to do it as MaaS does not appear in MRTA current policy and practice. MaaS services provided by a private transport service extended to MaaS provider or PPP take advantages on the flexibility of the business and can develop a MaaS provider role quicker. The private business still focuses on the profit and thus the number of integrated services, the number of customers, and the revenue schemes are important. A clear view on business model and financial feasibility is needed. It is likely that the MaaS service will be offered from a subset of private transport services. For instance, in the case of BTSC group or Grab which would operate MaaS provider function within its partner businesses and the integration of the main public transport is still unknown. The strong willingness to become a MaaS provider is also important. 2. A lot of things have to be done. IT and data infrastructure is first to go Focus on IT infrastructure, especially data infrastructure. Data exchange center (or data standard) should be established to collect data from all stakeholders. The data exchange center should identify data exchange standard make a data catalog, so that it facilitates the data sharing fairly and easily. Trip planner can be a good start that all stakeholders must join and make it together. The strength of data sharing can also discourage those who would like to do it individually. It also implies that the services in the MaaS ecosystem will favor localized data and services. 3. Some MaaS features and integration should be initiated Recently, there are growing number of transport services on digital platforms. They are different from MaaS in that they do not focus on the integration (or bundle) of services. MaaS has many levels of integration; from data, multimodal planning, service packages, pricing, payment, and platform. Some features are relatively easy to be integrated and should be initiated among stakeholders. For example, multimodal traveler information or trip planning.

The PPP MaaS provider gets the collaborative efforts from many business partners. A good example is the Seinäjoki/Sito case in Finland [18]. The MaaS provider came from public (municipality), transport operators, and a private company (consulting firm as a third party). The study recommends that this MaaS model is good for rural setting. Nonetheless, the PPP approach was brought into the discussion, as the MaaS service can be offered also in a specific area, i.e. a vicinity (province) of the metro Bangkok. The discussion concluded that even though the approach was theoretically sound, the PPP approach could not avoid obstacles in the case of public and private transport service providers being a MaaS provider. The PPP MaaS provider still needs to cooperate with both public and private operators and has to consider fair business and revenue sharing among the partners. One advantage from this approach is that the city can act as the partner of the MaaS service provision. The city government or municipality can administer the service under its regulation. It is unfortunate that the transport services normally run across boundary of the city/municipality. The MaaS provision can be only for the subset of travel, e.g. the access modes from/to the main public transport systems.

With no doubts that all stakeholders have positive expectation with MaaS. The big question is how to make it happen. Apart from a suitable MaaS provider, the entire ecosystem would need a “product champion” who would nourish the MaaS service. The product champion is who sees the value in a product (MaaS) and entices all stakeholders to invest, collaborate, and promote the product. This person also markets the product to customers and make sure that the project is in customer's minds. The product champion does not always have to be the MaaS provider, but can be anyone in the ecosystem. The experts' opinions imply that the MaaS product champion can be the policy maker or transport regulator, who can set the policy direction and manage the course so that MaaS can be realized.

6. Implications

5. MaaS provider's duty on branding and customer's behavioral change

1. Based on current transport service conditions and readiness of the organizations, none of the organization is ready to be a MaaS provider

Although the paper discusses on the MaaS provider, the experts also mention the importance of the MaaS brand making. The success of MaaS will be reflected from the number of customers and sustainability of the services. It is predicted that, when MaaS is in service, travelers will have choices of choosing MaaS or continue using the status quo transport services. The good branding will keep the customers on the MaaS services.

For Bangkok, the national transport policy directs urban rapid rail transit to be the backbone system. Thus, MRTA can be a good candidate

4. Building a “Product champion” is vital to advance MaaS in Thailand.

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7. Conclusion This paper elaborates the investigation of a potential MaaS provider in Bangkok, where the MaaS is not yet in operation and the concept is new. The findings are drawn from literature study, situation analysis, and stakeholder analysis. The current travel conditions show that the level of digital service provision and the level of integration is low. Each service or organization is lack of the basic IT and digital infrastructure and does not build a full digital service yet, i.e. journey planning and electronic payment on the conventional transport services. There are a number of new mobility services and they can be integrated into the MaaS service offering, but the current scales are still small. The stakeholders and organization analyses reveal that there are still obstacles in developing MaaS and being a MaaS provider, especially the issues of service integration and regulation that favor MaaS business environments. The paper identifies many points that are concerned if one wishes to become a MaaS provider in Bangkok. References [1] Transport Systems Catapult, Mobility as a Service: Exploring the Opportunity for Mobility as a Service in the UK, June 2016. [2] Transport Systems Catapult, Traveller Needs and UK Capability Study, October, 2015. [3] M. Kamargianni, M. Matyas, The Business Ecosystem of Mobility as a Service, 96th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington DC, January 2017. [4] G. Smith, J. Sochor, I.C.M. Karlsson, Mobility as a service: development scenarios and implications for public transport, Res. Transp. Econ. 69 (2018) 592–599, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.04.001.

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[5] R. Utriainen, M. Poollanen, Review on mobility as a service in scientific publications, Res. Transp. Bus. Manag. 27 (2018) 15–23. [6] P. Jittrapirom, V. Caiati, A.-M. Feneri, S. Ebrahimigharehbaghi, M.J. Alonso-González, J. Narayan, Mobility as a service: a critical review of definitions, assessments of schemes, and key challenges, Urban Plan. Forum 2 (2) (2017) 13–25. [7] Polis, in: S. Hoadley (Ed.), Mobility as a Service: Implications for Urban and Regional Transport, 2017. [8] P.-E. Holmberg, M. Collado, S. Sarasini, M. Williander, Mobility as a Service-MaaS: Describing the Framework. Final report MaaS framework, Viktoria Swedish ICT, 2016. [9] D. König, J. Eckhardt, A. Aapaoja, J. Sochor, M. Karlsson, Deliverable 3: Business and Operator Models for Mobility as a Service (MaaS). MAASiFiE Project Funded by CEDR, September 2016. [10] Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, Travel Demand Freight Movement Survey for National Transport Planning, http://www.otp.go.th/index.php/ edureport/view?id=147. [11] Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, Status Summary, http://www.bmta.co.th/th/ statistic. [12] Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, Annual Report, http://www.bmta.co.th/th/statistic 2018. [13] Ministry of Transport, Rail Statistics, http://www.motoc.mot.go.th/stat/railinfra.php 2019. [14] Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, Annual Report, https://www. mrta.co.th/en/about_mrta/annualreport/ 2019. [15] Department of Land Transport, Statistics, https://web.dlt.go.th/statistics/ 2019. [16] Department of Land Transport, Public News, https://www.dlt.go.th/th/public-news/ view.php?_did=990 2019. [17] Coursera, New Mobility Service, https://www.coursera.org/lecture/electric-vehiclesmobility/new-mobility-services-3n4TS 2019. [18] A. Aapaoja, J. Eckhardt, Business Models for MaaS, 1st International Conference on Mobility as a Service, Tampere, November 2017.

Please cite this article as: S. Narupiti, Exploring the possibility of MaaS service in Thailand, implications from the existing conditions and..., IATSS Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.11.003