Tag: Sustainability

MOBiNET delivers a Europe-wide e-marketplace of mobility services for businesses and end users. A sustainable marketplace requires a legal entity for daily operations and a viable business model that generates individual benefits to all stakeholders involved. Determining the possible organisation and governance structure of such an entity, and identifying the conditions for a successful business model, are an essential part of the MOBiNET project.

The MOBiNET project intends to develop, deploy and operate the technical and organisation foundations of an open, multi-vendor platform for Europe-wide mobility services. There are several local or national platforms but they cannot attract a sufficient number of users or service providers to deliver a wide-range of multi-modal transport options that cross national borders. Once deployed, MOBiNET can.

MOBiNET puts forward three legal entity options and, based on these options, three business models delivering additional value for the public and private stakeholders involved.

Organisational and Governance: a Key Project Component

From the start MOBiNET assumed that some organisation or entity, possible under contract, will operate the e-marketplace platform for which a proof of concept is developed in the project. It may also be that private market players, either European or global, take an initiative that meets the needs of the users and service providers. In case no other solution is available, the MOBiNET project members are committed to establish a framework and organisation for the operation of the platform and delivering mobility services.

“MOBiNET Legal Entity” (or MLE) is the generic term for the organisation that would be responsible for the overall operation of a multi-vendor, multi-user platform for Europe-wide mobility services. This is in order to distinguish it from the current MOBiNET development and research activity.

MLE is viewed as part of a community, or ecosystem, with a number of public and private organisations and public authorities comprising vehicle makers, IT suppliers, content providers, service providers, municipalities and public authorities.

The MLE plays a key role in the market development process and creates value for ecosystem participants acting as:

• An aggregator of service providers, service enablers and technology suppliers to reach critical mass;
• A market enabler via its platform and B2B services;
• A focal point where service providers can meet and define common rules and interfaces to service enablers and technology suppliers; and,
• A contact point for policy makers to help formulate regulations.

The MOBiNET Legal entity can use an approach to allow (potential) competitors to work together to:

• Facilitate a timely and cost-effective deployment of ITS services and products that save end users time and money, increase traffic safety, and minimise environmental impact;
• Improve the quality and minimize the cost of such services and products by maximizing interoperability

MOBiNET e-Mobility Marketplace as a Business Enabler

Evaluation of business models for MOBiNET

The principal objective of the analysis performed in MOBiNET on business models is to identify how a marketplace for e-mobility services can reinforce the current business models of private businesses and public authorities in Europe, or perhaps lead to modifications in their current business models that will result in better performance on the important indicators of success. Success means for commercial players more customers, higher revenue and higher profit margins; for public sector organisations is means fewer vehicle-related death and injuries, lower emissions and improved traffic flow.

Business model options

After sound analysis of the business models of the enterprises and a categorisation of the potential fit of the a MOBiNET business model with the Proejct Team’s operation, three business models options are considered (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Three potential business models for the MOBiNET Legal Entity

It is critical to understand how each of these models could be applied to MOBiNET

Option One: Pure MLE-to-B – Provide services to business users only.

This is the model used by Amadeus as a travel services platform provider.
This option would support organisations that have their own customer relationships with their own payment systems, as shown in the example of truck parking payment (Figure 2). MOBiNET delivers the consolidation of content from multiple sources and a white label service discovery interface that can be branded by the service provider.

Figure 2 – Option One: Pure MLB-to-B Model

Option Two: MLE-to-B and MLE-to-Customer Service only – Provide services to business users but also provide information to end users.

SWIFT uses this model.
Usage based insurance (UBI) is an example of how this model could be applied to a service that is being delivered today, but for which MOBiNET could significantly improve the service potential and benefits for both the insurance providers and insurance customers. (Figure 3). MOBiNET provides a customer seeking UBI with access to information about which insurance companies offer UBI for the customer’s specific vehicle, and facilitates the contact between the customer and the insurance companies. Once contact has been made, a contract is signed directly between the insurance company and the customer. MOBiNET is then used to direct the data coming from the vehicle to the contracted insurance company.

Figure 3 – Option Two: MLE-to-B and MLE-to-Customer Service Only

Option Three: MLE-to-B and MLE-to-Customer – Provide services to both business users and end users.

Figure 4 – Option Three: MLE-to-B and MLE-to-C

An example of this model is the car parking and payment service. Commercial and private customers use MOBiNET to deliver data, information about parking availability and provide the means of paying for parking. (Figure 4)

Business Model
Options

The MOBiNET project then developed three business models that correspond to the three legal entity options:

• For-profit – High Service: A private company as the sole owner and operator of the MOBiNET Marketplace Platform.
• Not-for-profit – Low Service: A public agency that owns and either operates the Platform or contracts for its operation. The Mobility Data Marketplace in Germany and the National Data Warehouse in The Netherlands are two potential organisations.
• Not-for-profit – Medium Service: A consortium of public and private organisations that own the Platform and contract with a third party for its operation. The consortium would be created with some members of the current MOBiNET project and their third-party suppliers as well as external parties. It is an option that would be considered if either of the first two options cannot be implemented.

Each of the business models associated with it an approximate budget for the initial building of the platform based on the assumptions of the type of organisation that would be established for governing the operations and the types and levels of service that the platform would offer.

Source:

Paper “Business Models for a Pan-European e-Mobility Marketplace”, Michael Sena, Allianz Telematics, Sweden presented at the ITS European Congress, Glasgow, 6-9 June 2016

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