Mobility Service Platforms

Cross-Company Cooperation for Transportation Service Interoperability

Markus C. Beutel

1,2

, Sevket G

okay

1,2

, Fabian Ohler

1,2

, Werner Kohl

, Karl-Heinz Krempels

1,2

Thomas Rose

1,2

, Christian Samsel

1,2

, Felix Schwinger

and Christoph Terwelp

1,2

Informatik 5 (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

CSCW, Fraunhofer FIT, Aachen, Germany

MENTZ GmbH, M

unchen, Germany

markus.beutel, sevket.goekay, fabian.ohler, karl-heinz.krempels, thomas.rose,

Keywords:

Mobility as a Service, Mobility Platforms, Provider Cooperation, Virtual Marketplaces, Urban Transportation.

Abstract:

The growing number of modes of transportation with diverse characteristics and situational suitability would

allow a multifaceted mobility behavior. Unfortunately, the usage of a combination of heterogeneous mo-

des of transportation – speciﬁcally during a complex travel chain with multiple changeovers – is hindered in

various ways. Users have to query, compare, combine, book and use multiple specialized mobility service

individually which results in inefﬁciencies both on demand and supply side. Centralized mobility service

platforms can form a technological bridge to deliver service interoperability. In cross section between com-

petition and cooperation, the need for suitable, proﬁtable, and sustainable market forms to provide complex

service conﬁgurations arises. As a result of interdisciplinary workshops with domain experts, we describe a

role relationship model and identify relevant market forms. To do so, we present a conceptional tool to ana-

lyze, characterize and differentiate various mobility service platforms and apply it to set of platforms currently

beeing developed.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, in the modern transportation service sec-

tor, people can choose and combine manifold trans-

portation services with different characteristics. Tra-

ditional public transportation modalities, e.g., trains

or buses are being complemented with car- or bikes-

haring services. In (Huwer, 2004; Himmel et al.,

2016) promising synergy potentials concerning mode

combination are shown. With the help of informa-

tion and communication technology, barriers due to

the utilization of mode combinations can be reduced.

In the last decades, there is a rising trend to cre-

ate interoperability between heterogeneous transpor-

tation services via IT systems. Advanced travel in-

formation systems provide encompassing information

and assistance in relation to complex travel chains

(Beutel et al., 2016). In addition, modern fare ma-

nagement systems foster especially cross company

payment and accounting integration. As another step

forward, systems are able to integrate whole service

chains of different providers, starting from travel in-

formation to ticket booking and even an integrated tra-

vel assistance. We call these systems mobility service

platforms. Beside the technical feasibility of these sy-

stems, important questions arise concerning forms of

suitable provider collaboration and sustainable busi-

ness models.

As a basis of this work, we deﬁne a fundamen-

tal role relationship model to describe cross company

cooperation scenarios. Core part of this contribution

is the analysis, characterization and the comparison

of existing mobility service platforms. To achieve

this, we identify crucial system characteristics in con-

stitutive workshops with domain experts and form a

conceptual tool for analysis and design. For valida-

tion purposes, we apply this tool in a survey across

members of relevant German research and develop-

ment projects and present the results.

This work is structured as follows: Section 2 des-

cribes relevant theoretical foundations in the research

area. Afterwards, Section 3 presents a role relations-

hip model for the area of mobility service platforms.

Then, Section 5 describes the conceptional tool to

characterize mobility service platforms. Therefore,

we focus on transactions phases, business models and

Beutel, M., Gökay, S., Ohler, F., Kohl, W., Krempels, K., Rose, T., Samsel, C., Schwinger, F. and Terwelp, C.

Mobility Service Platforms.

DOI: 10.5220/0006705501510161

In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2018), pages 151-161

ISBN: 978-989-758-298-1

151

structures of platforms. Section 6 presents survey re-

sults and Section 4 describes selected platform sce-

narios. Finally, Section 7 reﬂects this work critically

and concludes the work.

2 THEORETICAL BASIS

The analysis and characterization of different mobi-

lity service platforms is based on the following foun-

dations.

2.1 Systems to Foster Interoperability

in Urban Transportation

Nowadays, travel information systems provide exten-

sive travel information concerning various different

modes of transportation. The assistance goes beyond

the pure information provision and enables handling

the complexity of planning, booking and utilization

of intermodal travels (Beul-Leusmann et al., 2013).

These systems have the possibility to optimize ﬂows

in transport networks (McQueen et al., 2002). Besi-

des travel information systems, electronic fare mana-

gement systems foster service interoperability by in-

tegration of payment and transaction procedures.

There is a rising amount of integrating solutions.

One example is the system Mobility Broker

, which

combines public transportation services with car- and

bikesharing in the German region of Aachen on a cen-

tralized system. Focus is to integrate large parts of the

entire service chains to foster service utilization free

from barriers. Additional prominent examples in Ger-

many are Moovel

and Qixxit

, which provide inte-

grated services partially supra-regional or nationwide.

In addition, there are cross-border software solution,

e.g., AMADEUS

2.2 Types of Economical Cooperation

In (Lesourne, 1992) the authors deﬁne coordination

as an overall target compliant alignment of interde-

pendent tasks via participating task-carriers. The ac-

tual interaction of the task-carriers with the purpose

to coordinate and execute tasks is called coopera-

tion (Benger, 2007). Company networks are a speci-

ﬁc form of cooperation, where formally independent

companies follow a uniﬁed goal (Siebert, 2003). They

build themselves in or across branches of industries as

https://mobility-broker.com

https://www.moovel.com

https://www.qixxit.de

http://www.amadeus.com

Figure 1: Impressions of an expert workshop.

a result of diversiﬁcation and integration of economic

activities (Benger, 2007). Besides possible potentials

of cooperation like synergy effects or cost reduction,

communication, adjustment and control cost occur.

Moreover the competitive position might even wor-

sen. Hence, information and communication techno-

logy widens the spectrum of cooperation possibilities

(Benger, 2007).

2.3 Electronic Marketplaces

Information and communication technology eases the

market entry and fosters competition on supply side.

On demand side, search costs are lowered, price com-

parison is facilitated and transparency becomes in-

creased (Clement and Schreiber, 2016). The usage

of information and communication technology in the

coordination mechanism market guides to electronic

markets. Electronic markets are marketplaces that are

realized via telematics (Schmid, 1993; Fischer, 2008).

3 EXTENDED ROLE

RELATIONSHIP MODEL

The following clariﬁcations are based on standard

ISO 24014 (ISO 24014-1, 2015) as well as the role

relationship model of the VDV-KA (KA BOM-SPEC,

2016) and are intended to be published in a document

of the Association of German Transport Companies

(VDV-Schrift-series). To develop the role relations-

hip model, we conducted several expert workshops, as

depicted in Figure 1. The approaches mentioned are

primarily related to fare management. However, ad-

vanced travel information systems and complex mo-

bility platforms offer functions compassing the entire

service chain (Beutel et al., 2016), of which fare ma-

nagement is only one part. For the comprehensive

modeling of the roles in context of travel information

systems and their inter-dependencies, extensions are

needed on the travel information side. During deve-

lopment of the model, we focused on the information,

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152

agreement, completion and service phase of system

usage.

Figure 2 depicts the extended role relationship

model for mobility platforms. The loops denote re-

levant interactions between several (hierarchical) in-

stances of the role. Compared to the role relati-

onship model of fare management presented in (KA

BOM-SPEC, 2016), the most striking changes are the

following: The roles Informant, Information Mana-

ger, Mediator and Payment Provider are added. The

role of the user is split into multiple individual ro-

les: Booker, Payer and Mobility Service User. Furt-

hermore, the roles known from fare management are

expanded to undertake tasks to support a broader

spectrum of (mobility) services.

In the subsequent sections, the newly deﬁned roles

are described in more detail and the extensions to the

relationship diagram of VDV-KA (KA BOM-SPEC,

2016) are presented.

User / Customer

The role user / customer is considered in a reﬁned way

when compared to the VDV-KA and is therefore split

into three roles: Booker, Payer and Mobility Service

User. All of those three roles can fall onto a single cu-

stomer, but also on different persons. A typical exam-

ple for the latter case would be the travel department

in a company: A person chooses the journey and per-

forms the booking, a different person from the ﬁnance

department is responsible for the payment and a third

person from the customer service department ﬁnally

goes on the journey as Mobility Service User.

For further explanations, e.g. with respect to the

transactions with the customer, please also refer to

(KA BOM-SPEC, 2016).

Mobility Service Operator

The Mobility Service Operator (MSO) delivers mobi-

lity services in a narrow as well as a broader sense.

Mobility services in a narrow sense are transportation

services, e.g., public transportation or vehicle sharing.

Examples for mobility services in a broader sense are

provision of parking space or insurance services.

In the area of public transportation services, a

transportation contract is created between a Mobility

Service Operator and a customer by entering the pu-

blic transit. In case of vehicle sharing, a permission

for use contract is used. The conﬁguration and forma-

tion of a contract can vary concerning other services.

The tasks of a Mobility Service Operator are the

provision of a mobility service, an appropriate custo-

mer service and the inspection of tickets. These tasks

are complemented by tasks w.r.t. data collection: He

collects planning, real-time and usage data for his ser-

vices.

The task Collection, which was already part of the

model in (KA BOM-SPEC, 2016), was speciﬁed furt-

her to Collection of Usage Data to distinguish it from

the other (new) collection tasks. The task Collection

of Planning Data refers to the collection of all plan-

ning data of the provided service, e.g., timetable in-

formation in public transportation, routes, locations

of stops and parking spaces, etc. The task Collection

of Real-time Data refers to the collection of all real-

time data concerning the provided service, e.g., re-

cent vehicle positions, recent availabilities of sharing

vehicles, recent availabilities of parking spaces, status

interruption of escalators and lifts, etc.

Informant

The Informant (INF) provides travel information to

the end customer using intermodal trip options. For

this purpose today’s technical systems are interacting

with the end customer. The systems request start and

destination of the trip, as well as further options and

desires of the passenger. These interactions can be

done in browser-based applications, mobile applica-

tions, voice-directed systems or in any other possible

interaction system. Thereby data is gathered to allow

personalization for the passenger.

The Informant offers the following sub-tasks to

the end-user: trip calculation from start to destination

point, fare calculation or fare estimation, current de-

partures/arrivals at stops/stations, locations and avai-

labilities of sharing vehicles, locations and availabili-

ties of parking spaces and charging stations, display

of routes on maps for routing and indoor routing (in-

terchanges) and more. These sub-tasks are embraced

by the term travel information. For the fare calcula-

tion or estimation, the Informant ﬁrst has to employ

the task of product determination. For the suitable

products identiﬁed, the resulting price (estimation) is

determined.

The data which is required by the Informant to ful-

ﬁll his tasks, is sourced from the Information Mana-

ger and other (distant) Informants. Using real-time

data like train delays is an example for this case. The

real-time data is not present to the Informant itself but

provided by another Informant.

Moreover, the Informant is responsible for the an-

notation of prices to travel chains (product determina-

tion). For trip calculation the Informant tries to opti-

mize the result, which has to fulﬁll the criteria of the

end-user (or a combination of several criteria). Ty-

pical criteria of optimization are: fastest connection,

Mobility Service Platforms

153

Payer

Application Owner (AO)

Registration

Security

Management

Revocation

Service

Certiﬁcation

Booker Mobility Service User

Information Manager (IM)

Data

Treatment

Payment Provider (PP)

Receivables

Management

B2C

Settlement

Product Owner (PO)

Product

Deﬁnition

Usage and Sales

Data Clearing

Receivables

Clearing

B2B

Settlement

Mediator (MED)

Contract

Mediation

Service

Mediation

Product Retailer (PR)

Tender

Preparation

Ticketing

Billing

Customer

Service

Mobility Service Operator

(MSO)

Inspection

Collection of

Usage Data

Collection of

Real-time Data

Collection of

Planning Data

Mobility

Service

Customer

Service

Informant (INF)

Travel

Information

Travel

Assistance

Product

Determination

Customer

Service

Figure 2: Extended role relationship model.

shortest distance, cheapest connection, shortest foot-

path, least interchanges etc. Especially for handicap-

ped persons (e.g., wheelchair users, baby carriage)

further criteria can be taken into account (e.g., ﬂoor-

level access, avoidance of stairs, etc.).

During the trip, the Informant provides infor-

mation (relevant for the trip) to the passenger (tra-

vel assistance). This can be navigation assistance

or notiﬁcations about disruption which might con-

cern/inﬂuence the trip. If necessary, the Informant

provides an alternative trip, which helps the passen-

ger to bypass the disruption.

Additionally, the Informant provides a customer

service to help end-users utilizing his services con-

cerning information provision.

Information Manager

The Information Manager (IM) collects and treats all

data which is necessary for a comprehensive, integra-

ted, intermodal trip and fare calculation. This inclu-

des timetables, real-time data, locations of stops, par-

king spaces, sharing stations, vehicles, charging stati-

ons, product deﬁnitions and fare data, maps etc.

These data come from the responsible Mobility

Service Operators or from the Product Owner (in case

of fare and product data). The Information Mana-

ger monitors the data with regard to currentness, cor-

rectness/plausibility, completeness and consistence.

For quality improvement, the data collecting Mobi-

lity Service Operator or Product Owner receives feed-

back.

The Information Manager also checks if the data is

unique and eliminates double deliveries, for example

regarding stops served and used by several transport

authorities, for which several Mobility Service Ope-

rators provide those data (which might be inconsis-

tent) to the Information Manager. After receiving the

data deliveries from the Mobility Service Operators,

the Information Manager harmonizes the data and for-

wards this integrated database to the Informant. In

Germany, for the area of public transport data, this

task is e.g. done by the DELFI data pool.

Mediator

The main task of the Mediator (MED) is the me-

diation of contracts between Product Retailer and

ICEIS 2018 - 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

154

Booker (possibly via further Mediators). Here, infor-

mation about the Payer and account receivables are

forwarded to a Payment Provider. The Mediator also

mediates service inquiries to the customer service of

the responsible Product Retailer (possibly via further

Mediators).

The organization that acts as a Mediator can ad-

ditionally act as an Informant and/or service retailer

or operate independently. The mediation can occur

across electronic channels or via stationary forms

(e.g., ticket machine, branch ofﬁce).

Product Retailer

The Product Retailer (PR) organizes sales towards

customers under consideration of contractual depen-

dencies between the Application Owner and the Pro-

duct Owner. In particular, the Product Retailer is re-

sponsible for tender preparation, ticketing and billing.

These tasks are distinguished aspects of the task Sa-

les in (KA BOM-SPEC, 2016). In general, he serves

as an instance for the conclusion of contracts. Ad-

ditionally, the Product Retailer provides a customer

service.

Product Owner

The Product Owner (PO) deﬁnes the products, which

are intended to be issued/sold as authorizations and

provides them to the Product Retailer in form of pro-

duct deﬁnitions and templates to be sold (KA BOM-

SPEC, 2016).

A product is as standardized range of services, de-

ﬁned by the characteristics of an entitlement to bene-

ﬁts, type, transport law conditions and price (Associ-

ation of German Transport Companies (VDV), 2015).

The products can be composed of several heterogene-

ous services possibly using the product deﬁnitions of

other Product Owners.

Furthermore, the Product Owner is responsible to

map and to manage the effective costs after the execu-

tion of a travel chain (usage and sales data clearing).

In a follow-up step, he processes the accounts recei-

vables clearing and manages the B2B settlement.

Application Owner

The Application Owner (AO) is responsible for the

management of (participation) permissions, as well as

the identiﬁcation for users of the system. (KA BOM-

SPEC, 2016) provides a detailed speciﬁcation of the

role.

Payment Provider

The Payment Provider (PP) organizes the ﬁnancial

settlements between Payer and Product Retailer. In

addition, he is responsible for the administration of

accounts receivables, including for example dunning

processes. An information exchange with the Booker

is possible via the Mediator.

3.1 Interaction Analysis

In the following, we validate the roles by describing

the interactions between them and the responsibility

assignment during our focus activities.

Preparations Concerning Electronic Fare

Management

The AO registers all actors participating in the electro-

nic fare management (EFM) system in their participa-

ting role, including product deﬁnitions of the Product

Owners. The AO certiﬁes the correctness of imple-

mentations of components and interfaces of the EFM

system. The AO manages the public key infrastruc-

ture (PKI) and serves as certiﬁcate authority for keys

used to sign tickets. The AO manages the certiﬁcate

revocation list as well as the list of blocked tickets and

applications and provides them to the actors participa-

ting at the EFM system.

Travel Information / Travel Assistance

The MSOs record planning and real-time data and

provide them to IMs. POs provide a digitized deﬁ-

nition of their products to IMs. IMs treat this data and

forward it to other IMs as well as INFs. INFs provide

travel information (including price product determi-

nation) to Bookers and travel assistance to Mobility

Service Users.

Booking

Products deﬁned by POs are provided to PRs and ot-

her POs (e.g., to deﬁne other products on their ba-

sis) in digitized format. PRs become induced to sell

by POs. Product Retailers inform MEDs concer-

ning products on offer. Bookers inform MEDs con-

cerning desired products (based on travel informa-

tion by INFs). If necessary, MEDs ask Product Re-

tailers via other MEDs for offers to the desired pro-

ducts and mediate corresponding contracts between

Bookers and Product Retailers. Bookers inform Mo-

bility Service Users concerning concluded contracts

Mobility Service Platforms

155

Table 1: Roles in Mobility Platform Scenarios.

Archetype Reseller Platform Broker Platform Mobility Market Information Portal

Role

Actor Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service

Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service

Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service

Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service

Provider

Informant x x x x

Information

Manager

x x x x x x x x

Mediator x x x x

Product Retailer x x x x x

Product Owner x (x) (x) x x x

Payment

Provider

x x x x

Mobility Service

Operator

(x) x (x) x x x

and Payers about the resulting amounts receivables.

PRs inform POs about sales.

Utilization

Mobility Service Users use the services provided by

MSOs. MSOs record this utilization and forward the

resulting data to POs. POs calculate the distribu-

tion of earnings by reference to the usage and sales

data. For products invoiced depending on utilization,

MSOs record the individual utilization by the Mobi-

lity Service Users and provide this to the POs. POs

calculate consumption data on basis of individual uti-

lization data and the resulting amounts of receivables.

These are provided to PRs. PRs inform Bookers via

MEDs. Bookers inform Payers concerning amounts

receivables. Bookers and Mobility Service Users ma-

tch consumption data with each other.

Payment

Payers authorize Bookers to legitimize themselves as

Payers concerning conclusions of contracts with PRs.

During bookings, Bookers inform MEDs about corre-

sponding Payers. MEDs forward this information to

PPs. PRs inform PPs concerning resulting amounts

receivables. These can occur by conclusions of con-

tracts between PRs and Bookers as well as by conclu-

sions of contracts in combination with consumption

data. The PP responsible for the receivables settle-

ment for a contract is determined already at conclu-

sion of contract. PPs execute the settlement between

Payers and PRs as well as corresponding receivables

management.

Ticketing (Including Inspection)

PRs provide tickets to Mobility Service Users, using

the PKI of the AO. For blocking of tickets, the

AO gets informed correspondingly. Tickets become

forwarded via MEDs and Bookers to Mobility Ser-

vice Users. For inspection purposes, Mobility Ser-

vice Users show their service authorization towards

MSOs. During inspection, they use the PKI of the

AO and consider his lists of blockings.

Service

All roles with contact to Payers, Bookers or Mobi-

lity Service Users provide customer service concer-

ning their speciﬁc services. The customer service of

PRs is provided to Bookers via MEDs.

4 COOPERATION SCENARIOS

Based on the experts workshops, we can deﬁne four

archetypes of platform scenarios. Table 1 depicts the

conﬁguration of roles in these scenarios. The role of

Application Owner is not listed because it can be as-

signed to an independent instance. These scenarios

are intended to describe possible options. In princi-

ple, several mixed forms and modiﬁcations can occur

in a real life setting.

The information portal is restricted to the mere

provision of information for the user. Therefore, only

the roles of the Informant and the Information Mana-

ger can be assigned to the platform provider. Other

roles and tasks lie with cooperating service providers.

The mobility market platform is a mobility plat-

form that focuses especially on a centralized media-

tion of services. Hence, the role of the Mediator is

assigned to the platform provider deviating from the

setup of the information portal.

A broker platform aims to provide combined mo-

bility oriented services and a correspondingly optimi-

zed travel assistance as a higher-level instance. In ge-

ICEIS 2018 - 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

156

Table 2: Morphological Box: Characteristics and Values.

Platform

Actor

Provided Services Bus, Train, Carsharing, Bikesharing, Rideselling, . . .

Transaction Phases

Information

Travel Information

Description

Price Information

Agreement

Registration

Booking

Cancellation

Completion

Unlocking

Ticketing

Payment

Accounting

Service

Travel Assistance

Customer Care

Pricing Policy

Price Formation Separated Prices, Aggregated Prices, Price Bundles

Product Deﬁnition Actor

Business Model

Revenue Model

Description

Value Proposition Platform

Platform Customer Segments

Platform Financial Flows

Structure

Customer Interaction (UI) Actor

Market Side Sell Side, Buy Side, Third-Party

Coordination Hierarchy, Market, Mediator

Type of Platform Mandator One Provider, Many Providers, Independent Instance

Geographic Focus Local, Regional, Supraregional, Nationwide, Cross-

Country

Access Open, Limited

neral, all market transaction phases are supported. In

this scenario, it is possible that cooperating service

providers deﬁne their own products and a platform

provider can combine them and form his own pro-

ducts by supplementing them with additional servi-

ces. Therefore, both actors can serve as Product Ow-

ners as well as Mobility Service Operators.

A reseller platform aims at selling services in a

combined way to the end user that were bought by

the reseller platform beforehand. A reseller platform

is able to support all phases of market transaction (in-

formation, agreement, settlement, service).

The product formation for the end user is done by

the reseller platform (based upon a previously bought

quota/ products of other providers). Again, platform

as well as cooperating service providers can serve as

Product Owners and Mobility Service Operators. In

contrast to the broker scenario, the platform provider

of a reseller platform is the only Product Retailer to-

wards the customer.

5 MORPHOLOGICAL BOX TO

CHARACTERIZE MOBILITY

SERVICE PLATFORMS

For further research concerning platform (coopera-

tion) scenarios we developed a morphological box

to characterize mobility service platforms (see Ta-

ble 2). The described morphological box is based on

approaches concerning electronic marketplaces (Fis-

cher, 2008; Clement and Schreiber, 2016) and has

been extend due to the research context. This work is

also intended to be published in a document of the as-

sociation of German trafﬁc companies (VDV-Schrift-

series).

Before explaining the characteristics of the mor-

phological box, we shortly describe the way the mor-

phological box is depicted. On the left hand side of

the table, the identiﬁed characteristics of mobility ser-

vice platforms are listed. The right hand side lists me-

aningful values for the corresponding characteristics.

In the applications of the morphological box in this

Mobility Service Platforms

157

paper, we depict several columns per platform, one

for each relevant Actor bearing the actor names in the

second row from the top. Using these columns, we

describe which actor provides which of the characte-

ristics to what extent. This is especially the case for

the rows that just contain Description as value and

can be done using check marks for the rows contai-

ning Actor.

Transaction Phase

In (Fischer, 2008), the author identiﬁes four tran-

saction phases for virtual marketplaces: information,

agreement, settlement, and service. During the infor-

mation phase, market participants procure informa-

tion about goods and services, potential providers and

consumers as well as about their terms and conditions.

Especially in the area of mobility platforms the infor-

mation phase is of special importance. Depending on

the way the user interface is designed, the functiona-

lity of travel information systems has to be incorpo-

rated. Here, we distinguish between the services tra-

vel information and (product and) price information.

The travel information service can support the plan-

ning of intermodal journeys or of multimodal mobi-

lity behaviour, but can also be restricted to unimodal

transportation. When considering the price informa-

tion, we can differentiate – as with many services –

whether the information and offers of the various mo-

bility providers are provided in a combined (in terms

of integration) or in a separated way.

During the agreement phase, the relevant provi-

ders and consumers are selected and concrete condi-

tions are agreed upon. In the mobility context, the

services registration, blocking, booking, and cancel-

lation of services can be ascribed to the agreement

phase. Blocking describes the temporary reservation

of services for a user. Among other things, this pre-

vents situations, in which, during a combined booking

of several products, only some of the products can be

bought, while others cannot, leaving the user without

a continuous mobility service chain.

The settlement phase comprises of the services

unlocking (e.g. shared vehicles), ticketing, and ac-

counting. Travel assistance and customer care belong

to the service phase. In contrast to travel information,

which provides information before the journey, travel

assistance offers information during the journey and

supports the user in using the mobility services. In the

context of classiﬁcation, the services identiﬁed serve

as attributes.

Moreover, we added the payment phase to the box.

Pricing Policy

The category pricing policy comprises of the attri-

butes price formation and product deﬁnition. Price

formation refers to the methodology of generating a

price between provider and consumer.

In general, this can occur via auction, aggrega-

ted prices, unit prices, or price bundles. Additionally,

in the context of aggregated prices, there are further

forms as the ﬂexible best price method, which deter-

mines an (approximately) cheapest price for an (inter-

modal) journey with the possibility of ex-post adjus-

tments, e.g., by transforming individual coupons into

day tickets. On the other hand, price bundles are un-

derstood as tariffs for previously determined (and ti-

mely bound) service combinations possibly including

a variable component, e.g., for sharing services.

To include a variable component means that the

price depends, e.g., on the actual duration of usage

or comparable metrics such as kilometers driven. In

any case, the user is informed about the price schema

beforehand.

Furthermore, this category describes where in the

mobility platform the product deﬁnition is taking

place.

Business Model

We supplemented the revenue model (Clement and

Schreiber, 2016) by additional factors of business mo-

del concepts (Osterwalder et al., 2005; Osterwalder

and Pigneur, 2011) to cover more important aspects.

Hence, we identiﬁed the value proposition, customer

segments and ﬁnancial ﬂows as important factors to

characterize mobility service platforms.

Structure

The structural description of mobility platforms was

performed using the attributes product retailer, cu-

stomer interaction, market side, coordination, type

of platform mandator, geographic focus, and access.

One of the main aspects here is the question, who

acts on the role of the product retailer from a user’s

perspective. On the one hand, this can be the plat-

form mandator selling his own products. On the other

hand, this can be every single mobility provider for

himself. Even the entity that interacts with the custo-

mer does not exclusively have to be the mobility plat-

form. There are forms, in which a platform forwards

the user to the web site of the mobility provider to

book a service, such that further customer interaction

changes over to this provider.

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6 APPLICATION

For evaluation and validation purposes we conducted

an online survey, intended for domain experts with

the following structure: In the ﬁrst part, we asked for

demographic details and domain expertise. The main

part was structured correspondingly to the morpholo-

gical box. We asked one question per platform cha-

racteristic subsequently.

The following section describes the sample and

presents the qualitative evaluation results.

6.1 Sample

The questionnaire took place from October until No-

vember of 2017. It was provided especially to experts

of the urban transportation sector who were working

on research and development projects funded by or re-

lated to the German Federal Ministry of Transport and

Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). In total, we received

12 responses, ﬁve responses were usable for further

analysis. The group of experts consisted of speciﬁc

project employees and project leaders with responsi-

bilities such as app development or project manage-

ment.

6.2 Results

Table 3 presents the evaluation results. In the sur-

vey, ﬁve experts characterized four individual mobi-

lity service platforms. These platforms might have a

different development status (from (conceptual) pro-

totypes to deployed systems). All platforms covered a

broad range of transportation services, including pu-

blic transportation and sharing services. One plat-

form was characterized by two different experts. Be-

cause some of the answers were complementing or

even contradicting each other, we decided to present

both answers in the table. We consolidated evaluation

results with the same or similar meaning. In case of

empty parts of the table, respective questions were not

answered or the answers did not ﬁt the topic/question.

Concerning the transaction phases, the platforms

showed a different degree and design of integration.

More remarkable differences could be shown concer-

ning underlying business models. Platform I operates

with brokerage fees. In contrast, Platform II uses a

reseller business model where a major provider buys

services from cooperating providers for reselling pur-

poses. One concept relies on an independent instance

without having a proﬁt intention.

7 CONCLUSIONS

By means of the role relationship model on the one

hand and the morphological box on the other hand,

different platform (cooperation) scenarios can be des-

cribed. To show organizational dependencies and re-

sponsibilities, we described an fundamental role rela-

tionship model. Based on (ISO 24014-1, 2015) and

(KA BOM-SPEC, 2016) we extended the model es-

pecially on the information side by adding respective

role deﬁnitions and descriptions. Our role relations-

hip model is intended for an organizational view and

maybe needs to be speciﬁed even further for software

development purposes.

For further analysis, we created the morphological

box to characterize mobility service platforms. The-

refore, we combined characteristics of electronic mar-

ketplaces and travel information systems. Moreover

we supplemented them with additional characteristics

that are relevant in the ﬁeld of interest. The applica-

tion of the morphological box in a survey showed in-

teresting results by comparing the sample platforms.

Whereas platform value propositions are similar, dif-

ferences in degree and design of service integration

as well as concerning the business models could be

shown.

An integrated provision of heterogeneous trans-

portation services offers synergy potentials on de-

mand and supply side. Through an increase of service

interoperability of complementing services, obstacles

regarding intermodal travel chains might be reduced.

Taking crucial questions of market transparency and

competitor neutrality on provider side into considera-

tion, sustainable market and business models are of

essential importance.

7.1 Limitations and Future Work

In principal, the level of detail varies in the presented

approaches, because we tried to describe important

aspects explicitly. For speciﬁc cases, another degree

of detail might be suitable as well and future work

could focus on aligning these descriptions.

In addition, performing a study with such complex

and interdisciplinary questions via an online survey

hold some limitations, such as the explicitness of wor-

ding. In the survey, we provided various explanations

to support test persons, but at some parts there might

still be room for interpretation. For future studies, ex-

pert interviews with an direct interaction could be a

promising research setup.

These approaches might need to be adjusted due

to special or future technological and regulatory con-

ditions as well.

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Table 3: Survey Results: Platform Characteristics.

Platform I Platform II Platform III Platform IV

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service Provider

Platform

Provider

Cooperating

Service Provider

Provided Services

Bus, Train, Carsharing, Bikesharing,

Taxi, Flying, Ridesharing,

Additional Services, . . .

Bus, Train, Carsharing, Bikesharing

Bus, Train, Carsharing, Bikesharing,

Rideselling/Ridesharing

Bus, Train, Carsharing,

Bikesharing, Taxi

Transaction Phases

Information

Travel Intermodal Multimodal Intermodal Intermodal

Price Combined per Mode Separated per Mode

Agreement

Registration Centralized Centralized

Public Transport:

Centralized

Sharing Services:

via Provider

Centralized

Booking Combined Separated

Public Transport:

Centralized

Sharing Services:

via Provider

Combined

Cancellation Combined Separated per Service Separated per Service Separated per Service

Completion

Unlocking Combined Combined

Separated /

not supported

Separated

Ticketing Combined Combined Combined Combined

Payment Centralized Centralized

Public Transport:

Centralized

Sharing Services:

Directly

Combined

Accounting Combined Combined

Public Transport:

Combined

Sharing Services:

Separated

Combined

Service

Travel Assistance Combined Partly

Separated /

not supported

Partly

Customer Care x x x x x x

Pricing Policy

Price Formation

Aggregated

(best price)

Aggregated

Separated

(best price)

Sharing Services:

Separated

Aggregated

Product Deﬁnition x x x x

(additional actors)

Business Model

Revenue Model Brokerage Brokerage

Margin Reselling

Bundling

Growing

Customer Base

- Brokerage / Own Margin Brokerage Brokerage

Platform Value Proposition

“One travel chain in Germany from

one hand and optimized

corresponding to guidelines.”

“One solution for all ways -

one registration, one app, one

booking platform, one invoice”

“Inform, price and sell intermodal

and inoperable travel chains”

“Extension of the mobility service spectrum”

Platform Customer Segment All Customer Segments Occasional Users, Students Occasional Users All Customer Segments

Platform Financial Flows

Customer →

Local Transport Company →

Service Provider

Public Transport:

Customer → Payment Provider →

Product Retailer → Operator.

Sharing services: Customer → Operator.

Single Payment Service Provider

Organizes Accounting.

Structure

Customer Interaction (UI) x x x x

Market Side

Sell-Side Third-Party Third-Party

Coordination

Hierarchy Mediator Mediator

Type of Platform Mandator Various Service Providers One Service Provider Task-carrier without Proﬁt Intention

Instance 1: Service provider

Instance 2: Independent

Geographic Focus Supraregional Supraregional Supraregional/Regional

Regional

Access Limited Depending on Cooperation Open/Limited

Open

Participant answers were contradicting.

Not answered.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was funded by German Federal Ministry of

Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) for the

project Digitalisierte Mobilit

at – Die Offene Mobi-

lit

atsplattform (DiMo-OMP) (19E16007B).

Special thanks to Sjef Janssen, Elke Fischer, Claus

Dohmen, Peter Kehren, Johan van Ieperen, Dirk

Weißer, Tobias Steinert as well as all related contri-

butors and project partners.

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