Mobility as a Service (MaaS): Whim's Promise, Failure and What Works

Mobility as a Service, known as MaaS, is the model that integrates public transport, shared bikes and scooters, taxis, hourly car rental and other services into a single app where the user plans, books and pays for any trip, with the promise that such integration makes owning a car unnecessary. The idea was formulated by the Finnish engineer Sampo Hietanen and launched in Helsinki in 2016 with the Whim app, which offered monthly subscriptions for unlimited mobility. A decade later, researchers such as Susan Shaheen of the University of California, Berkeley, and analysts such as David Zipper have assessed what that promise delivered and what it did not.

Against fragmentation: the promise of Whim and Helsinki

The proposal answers a real problem: fragmentation. In most cities the metro, bus, bike share and taxi have different tickets, apps and fares, and that friction pushes people toward the car, which is always at the door. MaaS promises a door-to-door journey combining modes, real-time information and a single payment, and its advocates reckoned such a service could compete with the convenience of the private car. Shaheen, a pioneer of shared mobility research since the 1990s, has shown that integration works when public transport is the backbone and shared services solve the first and last mile.

David Zipper: why private MaaS did not change modal share

Experience has been more modest than the promise. Whim did not get its users to give up cars in significant numbers and its company, MaaS Global, filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Zipper has documented that outcome in his analyses: private MaaS apps fail to find a sustainable business model because transport margins are minimal, operators do not want to give up their customer relationship and users will not pay for an integration Google Maps offers free. His conclusion is that MaaS does not change modal share on its own: what reduces car use is the quality of public transport and the restriction of space for cars.

Susan Shaheen: integration works when it is public

The versions that work are public. Shaheen and other researchers note that fare and information integration led by the transport authority, as in Vienna with the WienMobil app, in Berlin with Jelbi or in Helsinki with HSL itself, does improve experience and use, because the public operator integrates private providers on its terms rather than the reverse. MaaS as a public good, with open data, social fares and coverage of peripheral neighbourhoods, can also reduce inequalities of access; MaaS as a private subscription product tends to serve those who already have alternatives.

Interoperability, privacy and equity: the governance challenges

The challenges both authors identify are about governance more than technology. Interoperability of data and tickets, which requires rules and standards; revenue sharing among operators; privacy protection in apps that record every trip; and a guarantee that integration does not exclude those without a smartphone or bank card. Zipper adds a warning about scooters and shared cars, whose net effect on private car use is small, and about the risk that cities invest in platforms before buses.

The lesson of Mobility as a Service is that integration is valuable but does not replace infrastructure. An app does not create frequencies, bus lanes or cycle networks, and without them it merely orders what already exists. The cities that have achieved results have used MaaS to make public transport easier and the car harder, with the public authority as integrator. On that condition, Helsinki's promise still holds: that moving around the city without a car should be as simple as opening an app.