meccanica magazine42ENG“Mobility as a Service”: IP4MaaS projectThe Department of Mechanical Engineering is one of the partners ofthe IP4MaaS project, which is funded by the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking,and in particular its Innovation Programme 4 (IP4), as part ofthe Horizon 2020 Programme.Over the years, Shift2Rail IP4 has funded more than 10 projects, whichhave developed a wide array of digital services that aim to makethe traveler’s experience a seamless one. The technologies developedwithin IP4 cover all aspects of the travel experience, such as theshopping of travel offers, their booking, the emission and validationof tickets, and the real-time monitoring of trips. In addition, IP4 hasdefined an innovative framework that facilitates the interoperabilityof Transport Service Providers’ (TSPs) services.The ecosystem of services developed within Shift2Rail IP4 enablesthe new mobility paradigm known as Mobility as a Service (MaaS),where different public and private transportation services are seamlesslyintegrated by Information Technologies.The IP4MaaS project aims to advance the uptake of MaaS schemesby supporting, facilitating and evaluating the demonstration of thedigital services developed within Shift2Rail IP4. The demonstrationswill be carried out in 6 sites distributed across Europe, and willinvolve more than 10 transport operators, authorities and agencies.The work carried out in IP4Maas contributes to the creation of a digitalecosystem for door-to door travel in a seamless, multimodal andEuropean-wide transport system based on the railways.IP4MaaS is developing the demonstrations’ scenarios and a thoroughassessment strategy that tackles both the performance of thedemonstrations as well as the impact of the technologies on usersand on the transport environment in urban and suburban contexts.The project will provide recommendations regarding the promotionand transferability of the technologies to other locations in Europe.IP4MaaS is organizing one of the largest demonstrations of technologiesin European projects’ history and expects its findings to beused as a baseline for future demonstrations that involve a large anddiverse group of partners.The IP4MaaS project started in December 2020, and will end in April2023. The demonstrations will be run in two rounds. A first round ofdemonstrations has been carried out during the summer of 2022,while a second round is planned for early 2023.Within IP4MaaS, Politecnico di Milano’s research unit leads the workpackagefocusing on: (i) the analysis of the existing digital servicesthat are available in the 6 demonstration sites; (ii) the definition ofthe needs and expectations of users (both travelers and TSPs); (iii)the definition of the scenarios to be demonstrated. In addition, itleads the activities regarding the monitoring of the ongoing integrationof the services provided by IP4MaaS TSPs into the Shift2RailIP4 ecosystem.The research activities carried out by Politecnico di Milano’s team,within IP4MaaS, are coordinated by Prof. Matteo Giovanni Rossi,DMEC. He has also coordinated Politecnico’s teams that have contributedto several projects carried out within Shift2Rail IP4, whichhave developed some of the technologies that will be demonstratedwithin IP4MaaS. Politecnico’s researchers have collaborated to thedefinition and realization of the framework facilitating the interoperabilityof services provided by TSPs. They have also developed severalservices that support travelers during various phases of theirtravel experience. More precisely, they have realized mechanismsto, on one side, analyze the choices made by travelers when decidingwhat travel solutions to buy (i.e., in the shopping phase) and,on the other side, automatically learn their preferences and use thisinformation to help them select the offers that best fit them. In addition,they have contributed to the creation of a system that enablesand integrates ride sharing (one of the new mobility paradigms thatare part of the MaaS concept) in the context of multi-modal trips. Inparticular, they have developed mechanisms to monitor the executionof rides, and the detection of disruptions (e.g., delays) that cannegatively impact the whole trip.
meccanica magazine43
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