This learning history provides an overview of the emergence and consolidation of a novel approach to transport, called mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), and the policies underlying and influencing this development in Finland.
The idea behind MaaS is that travellers have easy access to the services they need, from door to door with a single payment and ticket. Different modes of transport work seamlessly together, and a plan can be changed even in the middle of the journey as information can be communicated smoothly if the mode of transport changes. MaaS aims to bring together three sources of vehicle capacity heretofore separated: private cars, mass transit and on-demand services. This means the emergence of an extra layer, a mobility operator, between the users of transport and various vehicle owners. The learning history shows that transformative innovation emerges through iterative, cross-sector learning processes – where shared visions, experimentation, policy coordination, and stakeholder interaction can reshape systems.
Acknowledgements
This innovation history is based on a number of written sources, a 4-hour workshop in Tekes (09.05.2017) with various stakeholders related to mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), as well as a number of preparatory and follow-up conversations. The reconstruction of the events is partly based on the empirical material gathered by Jukka-Pekka Ovaska (University of Aalto) for his MA thesis. The stakeholders met include:
- Senior government official from the Ministry of Transport and Communication (LVM)
- A MaaS expert from Tekes
- Two representatives of Liikennelabra (Traffic Lab)
- Two representatives from MaaS start-ups (MaaS Global and Tuup)
- Two senior transport researchers (VTT and Aalto University
Tekes merged into Business Finland in January 2018
Citation
Kivimaa, P., Kanger, L., Palmberg, C., Alasoini, T. and Karjalainen, H. (2017). Transformative innovation learning history: Finland. Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC). Available at: https://tipresourcelab.net/resource/transformative-innovation-learning-history-finland/

