MaaS Market Could Reach Nearly $350 Billion By 2024
Car rentals could benefit most by Mobility as a Service
New York-based market research company P&S Intelligence issued a report declaring that the Mobility as a Service market will be worth roughly $347.6 billion by 2024. Predicting a growth rate of nearly 12 percent a year, the future tally is predicted to be more than double the market’s estimated current value of $171.5 billion.
Mobility as a Service, also known as MaaS, refers to the growth of service vehicles such as rental cars and its gradual intrusion into the private-owned vehicle domain. P&S figures revealed that the car rental industry currently comprises most of the MaaS market, a share that its enjoyed since 2014 and is not likely to change over the next five years.
The research company determined that a steady increase in activity in the international travel and tourism industry, especially with its conversion to more online-based booking systems, has been the prime determinant in the car rental industry’s growth. Electric vehicles, while currently slow in the U.S. in terms of sales, is gaining greater acceptance on the rest of the planet, and will be a major trend pushing MaaS acceptance, especially in public transit fleets.
Economic indicators also revealed that the greatest level of MaaS activity will be in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in China, currently the world’s largest market for that service. Additional growth in the country will be prompted by regulatory-driven production of greener vehicles, which the study claims will make the MaaS industry more robust than ever. Besides China, P&S pegged growth in the rest of the region as exponential, most due to increasing consumer demand for shared mobility and public concerns over environmental damage from internal combustion vehicles.
Fundamentally, P&S determined the greatest drivers of MaaS markets worldwide will be convenience and cost-effectiveness. While privately-possessed vehicles are convenient due to owners having immediate access to them, innovations in booking and hailing technology, primarily through upgraded real-time apps are likely to significantly improve service. Additionally, MaaS will be cheaper, given that users will no longer have to bother with sticker prices and maintenance costs of owning a vehicle.
The study also mentioned in passing the onset of autonomous vehicles as part of the MaaS equation, but shied away from mentioning any implementation timelines. However, P&S did indicate in a separate analysis that MaaS costs could further be driven down once self-driving cars do become reality, citing several developments in the technology in Germany, but not in the U.S.
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