MaaS growth for Daimler as car2go expands in the US

6 August 2018

Daimler has announced that its moovel Group Mobility as a Service (MaaS) products have grown to be used by five million people.

MaaS refers to the bundling of various types of public transportation, such as buses, subway, car sharing, bike sharing, and taxis, to form a multimodal transportation solution. Customers book and pay for services using an integrated account accessed via one app.

moovel offers cities and transit authorities a toolbox they can use to help integrate various mobility providers. The MaaS platform can also be used to optimise a city’s traffic flow. moovel refers to this as an ′operating system for urban mobility.’ One of the most important components of this operating system is the mobility app – an interface between cities, transit authorities, and end users. This allows users to book and pay for public transportation tickets, as well as other mobility options such as car sharing and rental bikes.

′We are, of course, pleased that five million people are excited about our moovel products. As a Mobility-as-a-Service pioneer, we will continue to work to simplify mobility in cities and improve people’s quality of life,’ says moovel Group CEO Daniela Gerd tom Markotten,

A study published in July 2018 by The Insight Partners indicates that the global MaaS market has strong growth prospects. According to the study, the market will see an annual growth of 33.9% between 2018 and 2025. The research company anticipates a market volume of $358 billion (€310 billion) in 2025.

Meanwhile, Daimler’s ride-share service car2go is to begin operating in Chicago as it looks to expand across the US. Since the start of the year, car2go has seen new car models added to its fleet, with users growing to over 300,000.

car2go CEO Olivier Reppert comments: ′Car-sharing is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. Six months into 2018, all our figures clearly show that this year will be the most successful year in the history of car2go. The cultural trend towards a sharing economy continues to pick up speed.’

The number of car2go customers has increased by 10% in the first six months of 2018 to a global total of 3.3 million customers, an increase of 25% year-over-year. During the first six months of the year, the 14,000 car2go vehicles were driven a total distance of over 90 million kilometres worldwide, with around 10% of this total being driven with the 1,400 electric cars.

′I am convinced that the future of car-sharing is electric,’ stresses Reppert. That car2go is actively promoting electric mobility can be seen in the development of its fleets worldwide. The first of the latest generation of electric smart two-seaters were introduced into the Stuttgart car2go fleet in mid-June. Thus, Stuttgart is the first car2go location worldwide with the latest smart fully electric 453 series, which successively replaces the previous generation.

In Montreal, 20 electric smart cars have also been available in the car2go fleet since June 2018 as part of a pilot project. And in Hamburg, there is an agreement in place with the city that the car2go fleet will be successively electrified by the end of 2019.