Integrated Mobility, MaaS and Traffic Management at ITS World Congress ALL-ACCESS

On 8 October, Dr. Johanna Tzanidaki, ERTICO’s Director of Innovation and Deployment, took part in the ITS World Congress, ALL-ACCESS event as a speaker of the session ‘The Role of Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) in Mobility As a Service (MaaS): New Perspectives on Fully Integrated Mobility Marketplaces’.

ITS World Congress ALL-ACCESS is an immersive digital education event series delivering interactive education sessions, discussion groups, live Q&As, recommended content, and vendor solution presentations in the form of case-studies, keynotes and expert panels, all accessible on demand.

Dr. Tzanidaki presented the 2-year-long cooperation between two of the ERTICO Innovation platforms, TM 2.0 and MaaS Alliance, working together on the concept of ‘Mobility Network Management’.  “At ERTICO, we see MaaS and TM 2.0 as integral parts of the future multimodal mobility system”, said Dr. Tzanidaki.

With Dr Johanna Tzanidaki on the all-female panel, moderated by Carol Schweiger from ITS America, member of the International Planning Committee for the ITS Congresses, were two further speakers: Stephanie Leonard (ERTICO Strategy Committee co- Chair, representing TomTom) and Denise Markow, Director at TSMO.

Stakeholder discussion had already started in 2019, during the ITS European Congress in Eindhoven (NL), and continued the same year in Singapore, at the ITS World Congress, during the session “Towards an Optimised Mobility System: integrating Traffic Management and MaaS”, organised by Johanna and with both Carol Schweiger and Stephanie Leonard on the panel.

The role of traffic management or transportation systems management and operations (TSMO, as it is called in the US) when combined with MaaS has recently become part of the American ITS discussion. During the session, the topic was covered from different perspectives: Europe, by ERTICO, and the work of its innovation platforms; the US and the work on TSMO by the US public sector speaker and traffic management and mobility information, by TomTom.

Mobility Network Management bases itself on a “win-win-win” concept developed within the TM 2.0 Platform. Maas operators and service providers, traffic operators and stakeholders, including end users, cooperate within the mobility system to achieve the best results and benefits for all parties involved, whilst supporting public authorities in attaining their objectives and in reaching the goal of a balanced transport system. “The principle of co-opetition whereby competing mobility providers cooperate on attaining the objectives agreed with the public authorities for the common good, is the principle that should be followed in mobility network management as well”, said Dr. Tzanidaki.

“Traffic Management as a Service (TMaaS) can act as the glue between TM2.0 and MaaS”, concluded Stephanie Leonard, when discussing the case of Ghent, where TomTom is involved in the TMaaS project.

“The priorities set by public authorities, when they are excluding areas and parts of the mobility network from traffic, such as schools during peak hours, football stadiums after the game has ended, or a certain type of user (i.e. pedestrians),  should be understood, respected and followed by all mobility stakeholders active in the ecosystem”, says Johanna Tzanidaki. “This is being achieved in Traffic Management with TM 2.0 and it can also be achieved in the wider mobility network through MaaS, by applying the same principles of trust and cooperation”.