Digital platforms, multimodal transport, and super apps

Abstract

While bundling different mobility services has been an objective of transport authorities in recent years (i.e., Mobility as a Service, MaaS), we can now observe a shift where mobility is integrated with non-transport services and activities such as shopping, healthcare, and leisure. Indeed, driven by societal changes and business and market forces, some mobility service providers are offering a plethora of different services within the same platform. As a result, this trend has given rise to transport super apps like Uber, Grab, or Bolt. These companies are competing with super apps from a broad range of industries including communication (WeChat, KakaoTalk), e-commerce (Rappi, Shopee), and financial services (Alipay, Paytm), which, in turn, also target the mobility market. Along with this major paradigm change on how people access services and can chose among a multitude of service providers, this paper applies a multiple case study approach, based on purposive sampling, to examine the evolution of mobility platforms. We also outline changes in business models and revenue streams, and discuss implications and possible future transition pathways for the transport sector.