The development of a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app platform for tourists arriving at Brussels city. A Business Plan approach

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the business opportunity of launching a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform for tourists in Brussels so they can route-plan, book tickets and explore touristic deals in the same platform. In Chapter 1 , the reader will find an introduction with problem statement, justification, hypothesis, research questions and scope. In Chapter 2, the reader will find a review in the literature related to MaaS concept, Brussels tourism and mobility service providers current initiatives related to MaaS. Also, a review of the MaaS core stakeholders and the main MaaS platform features that should be provided. Then, in Chapter 3 there is an explanation of data collection plan from surveys to tourists in main Brussels arrival hubs, interviews to key stakeholders and the elaboration of a lean start up Business Plan. Chapter 4 contains the main results from costumer and industry feedback that helps, in Chapter 5, to build a lean startup business plan to create SNEL app, the first tourist MaaS operator in Brussels. Finally, in Chapter 6 the reader will find a section with conclusions and recommendations. In conclusion, the business plan proposed here confirms that is indeed feasible to build a Tourist MaaS operator, but it could not be profitable until the 3 year of operations and only internationally scalable until roaming or MaaS standardization is in place.