By Tom Austin-Morgan

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is testing innovative technology that brings together people, operators, and authorities under a FTZ. One of the programme’s main aims is to introduce booking platforms, giving people access to book one journey across multiple modes of transport through the click of a button.

“Our FTZ programme, which includes mobility as a service (MaaS), encompasses a transport data hub that we’re trialling and developing,” explains Oliver Coltman, FTZ programme manager, WECA. “We’re exploring mobility hubs (physical places to connect with transport modes), micromobility (including e-scooters, e-bikes and e-cargo bikes for public hire and use), urban freight, and demand-responsive transport to become the digital heart of the transport system in the West of England.”

From a customer service perspective, WECA is building an app that allows travellers to book a journey from door-to-door irrespective of the types of transport required to make the trip. Coltman likens it to a travel agent experience where the customer simply enters the start and end point of their journey and the app will provide the best routes between the two, listing each method of transport required as well as timings.

“Google can’t do this,” Coltman states. “Because - and people might not realise this - it’s limited in the information it has. It will give you bus schedules, but it can’t give you real-time bus information.

“[It is] similar with walking, cycling, and using e-scooters; Google Maps will give you a route based on traffic information where local knowledge will tell you that there are faster routes. We can integrate that into our journey planning.”

The app will simplify proceedings by displaying a single price rather than a list of prices or redirecting users to the individual mobility provider websites to make multiple payments. To enable this, WECA is working with payment and transactional services company, Worldline, to apportion funds to the correct mobility service provider, as the French company already provides a similar service to the national rail industry.

Coltman says that one the challenges in building a platform that ‘retails’ the services and products of different service providers within the scheme is setting out commercial arrangements as there are no regulations covering this yet in the transport system.

“The second challenge has been making the data connections,” Coltman admits. “Even when mobility service providers have matured digital products, [it] doesn’t mean the systems behind it are designed and capable of being open to others, they’re very internally focussed.

“Alongside that, the quality of the data that comes through, because there’s not a clear standard, isn’t always what we need for the MaaS platform to work so that the customer gets the right information, or we can provide the right information around fares. We’re still doing a lot of work to be able to get to the point of connecting everything.”

The app should go live at some point before the end of 2024 after beta testing is concluded but won’t initially support the whole range of transport modes.

“We’re taking a minimum viable product approach,” Coltman explains. “There will be a roadmap to deliver the backlog of other features and mobility service providers over the next number of years as we continue to enhance, develop and expand the product.”

: Tier’s range of e-scooters, e-bikes and e-cargo bikes; credit: Tier