Mobility as a Service (Maas) | International Travel
Cross-border Project
The Cross-border Project consist of 2 parts, which are 'connected' by the ACCEPT Router Infrastructure (ARI):
1. easyConnect project in Germany; and
2. cross-border MaaS Pilot in The Netherlands.
The easyConnect project is a follow-up of the European Travellers Club project, funded by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 Transport Programme. ACCEPT Institute is one of the partners in the project, together with ASEAG, Nahverkehr Rheinland, Deutsche Bahn, VRS, VDV-eTS and the Kompetenzcenter Digitalisierung NRW. The Aachener Verkehrsverbund acts as the project lead for the easyConnect project.
The cross-border MaaS Pilot is one of the 7 MaaS pilots in The Netherlands. In this project, awarded by the Province of Limburg and Zuid-Limburg Bereikbaar, Arriva acts as the project lead. Other partners in the project are eg. Translink and Ximedes.
Architecture
A high-level overview of the architecture, with the ACCEPT Router Infrastructure (ARI) is shown below:
Planning
The cross-border project has gone live in the 4th quarter of 2022. As of that moment it is possible to travel cross-border between the 2 countries with a pre-paid ticket. It is a multi-modal ticket, valid in the train between Maastricht and Aachen and the busses in the Aachen region. The next phase, will be based upon 'pay-as-you-go' with a price being calculated in the back-office and post payment. This phase is expected to go live in 2023.
Demo / Proof of Concept in 2020
ACCEPT Institute was contracted by Dutch Ministry of Transport and Watermanagement to design and implement a demo (proof-of-concept). The demo was based upon the existing European Travellers Club (ETC) router infrastructure and demonstrates cross-border traveling. The example area that is used in the demo is Maastricht (The Netherlands) and Aachen (Germany), the same area as for the cross-border MaaS Pilot.
The goals of the demo were:
- use a router infrastructure and uniform transaction format (MaaS Datastring in a MaaS Message) for communication between MaaS Service Providers and Transport Operators;
- the demo needs to be international and address cross-border traveling; and
- the demo should integrate the (current version of the) TOMP-API.
The power point presentation (ppsx format) below shows the demo, which consists of 3 parts (part 2 and 3 contain video's with spoken explanation of the demo). In this new version (July 2020) the rental and usage of a shared bike is included:
- Part 1: Introduction and booking phase of the demo
- Part 2: Receival and processing of bookings at Transport Operators and Travel Right Stocks
- Part 3: The trip execution and conclusion of the demo, including a full overview of all messages sent
To download the new version of the MaaS Travel Demo, please click on document (MaaS Travel Demo 1.1.ppsx) below.