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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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