Background

The highlight of our MaaS Scotland calendar, the MaaS Scotland Annual Conference and Dinner, returned on Thursday the 12th of June.

The event, hosted in the fantastic Clayton Hotel on the banks of the Clyde, brought together over 100 senior representatives from across our mobility community, including local authorities, transport authorities, operators, technology providers and consultants.

This year, the focus of discussions was the recently published report, ‘Implementing Mobility as a Service: A Roadmap for Scotland’. This report, delivered by MaaS Scotland in consultation with its members, detailed 16 recommendations that will accelerate the delivery of MaaS in Scotland and across the UK. These recommendations focussed on key themes including leadership, user value, data, social value, innovation and investment.

Through a programme of keynote presentations, panel discussions and workshops, the conference explored each of these key thematic areas, providing attendees with the opportunity to plug into the ‘hive mind’ and share their experience and expertise. With so many key stakeholders in the room, this was a chance to plot a course for MaaS in the years ahead.

Opening Address

The event began with an extremely positive welcome address from Fiona Hyslop, MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Transport. As well as emphasising the Government’s view that MaaS will be a vital part of Scotland’s ambitions in integrated transport, the Cabinet Secretary also detailed the creation of a new MaaS Working Group, chaired by Transport Scotland. The initial priorities of this group will be to progress three key recommendations within the MaaS Roadmap, namely the development of:

  • A national MaaS platform.
  • A Scottish MaaS Code of Practice
  • A national MaaS evaluation framework

MaaS Scotland welcomes this encouraging step forward and looks forward to working with Transport Scotland and other key stakeholders on the delivery of these important actions.

Keynote speakers

Our first keynote presentation was delivered by Andy Taylor, VP Global Urban Mobility at Mastercard and President of the MaaS Alliance. Andy posed the question, ‘MaaS – are we there yet?’.

Throughout his presentation, Andy stressed the importance of knowing the user, a theme that was repeated throughout the day. He emphasised that efficiency does not equate to experience and that every individual user will make travel choices unique to them. Categorising travel by fastest, cheapest or modal choice – a common theme within MaaS offerings – does not meet the needs of users.

There is a continuing risk that we oversimplify user behaviour and fail to understand our customer – a basic principle of business. Andy introduced the SCARF (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness) model, describing it as ‘where neuroscience meets planning’.

Andy finished by reemphasising the need to stop putting great engineering and business models ahead of the user experience. Succinctly – no users = no MaaS.

Our second keynote of the day came from Olivia Walker, VP Operations at Via CityMapper. Olivia gave an excellent overview of CityMapper and its evolution over the last 20 years. In doing so, she touched on key learnings over that period with a focus on the critical need to improve the rider experience. In particular, Olivia highlighted the importance of including all modes, ensuring reliable real-time data, and delivering integrated ticketing systems.

Olivia then touched on two key questions. What is needed for MaaS to work and how do we know MaaS is working?

What is needed for MaaS to work?

  • Mission driven people – leadership and stakeholder management
  • Remove technology constraints
  • Develop human products

How do we know if MaaS is working?

  • Multiple teams in multiple agencies are being supported to meet their goals
  • Public transport ridership increases
  • Local social impact is proven

Panel sessions and workshops

Throughout the day, three panel sessions and two interactive workshops explored some of the key themes established in the MaaS Roadmap, in particular leadership, user value, data, social value and investment. While each panel session tackled these challenges from different angles, some common themes emerged:

  • We must do better in understanding the user – if there was a key theme for 2025, this was it. More than any previous year, there was a much greater emphasis on the need to move from technical capabilities to delivering a valued user service. Knowing your customer is arguably the most basic business principle, yet, to date, we have largely failed to do so.
  • Leadership is crucial but so is collaboration– MaaS is a complicated undertaking, involving many different stakeholders, all with their own priorities and ambitions. While leadership is vital in such an environment, there must also be an acknowledgment that there is a collective responsibility to work together towards a successful outcome. MaaS is a collaborative endeavour, and all stakeholders must play their part.
  • The rise of social value – this was the year where the wider impact of MaaS really came to the fore. Social value is a metric that is (rightly) gaining more and more traction, and it is important that MaaS projects leverage emerging frameworks to build the wider business case of MaaS upscale. This observation fed into a wider point on the importance of clear evaluation parameters for MaaS and adjacent mobility projects.
  • Longer term funding required – it is unlikely that MaaS will be fully commercially self-sustaining in the near future. Further public funding will be required, and this must be delivered with longer term timescales in mind. 6-12 month projects do not provide a suitable basis on which to evaluate MaaS or make further investment decisions.
  • Data and ticketing remain tricky areas – while this year saw a greater focus on the user and delivering social value, there was also an acknowledgement that none of this can be delivered without robust data and ticketing platforms in place. These are the essential enablers of MaaS and efforts towards standardised approaches are critical.

Evening

A hugely successful and very interesting day was brought to a close with an evening reception and dinner. This allowed for a more relaxed and informal networking opportunity as well as a chance to digest the days discussions over dinner and a few drinks.

It was hard to miss the overriding feeling of optimism at the end of this year’s event. Last year we asked the potent question – is MaaS dead? At that time the sense was certainly no, it was not, but there were significant challenges ahead. This year felt like a positive step forward as we addressed those challenges, building on the roadmap and the positive early response from Government and Transport Scotland.

The need for MaaS has not diminished, the underlying fundamentals remain strong, and we see an ever-increasing demand for digital access to integrated services across our modern lives. The MaaS Scotland will approach the next 12 months with optimism and look forward to reviewing progress at the next MaaS Scotland Conference and Dinner in June 2026.