Analyzing the enabling factors to implement MaaS in Asian, African and Latin American cities

Abstract

The EU-funded SOLUTIONSplus project, which aims at kick starting urban e-mobility in developing countries, included the provision of a white label app customizable to the needs of the cities as part of its offer to its 7 demonstration cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Despite having the possibility of testing the customized app free of charge for the duration of the project, only 2 out of 7 cities, Quito (Ecuador) and Kigali (Rwanda), started and continued the process. Yet, only Quito was able to test the customized app in real operations. Thus, the paper analyzes the MaaS level and implementation barriers of the 7 cities and conducts an in-depth expert assessment of the technology, organization and environment enabling factors (TOE) to implement the MaaS concept in Quito, Kathmandu and Kigali. The results show that despite some progress towards an intelligent and integrated transport system in the analyzed cities, an important number of conditions that are a given in the Global North (e.g.: formality and integration of PT system), still need to be met in cities in developing countries before MaaS could be realized.