Exploring tourist preference for Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) – A latent class choice approach

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) provides travelers with a single digital travel platform that integrates information, booking, and payment with considerable discounts. Existing MaaS studies mainly focus on commuters’ daily mobility instead of tourists’ mobility during their stay at destinations. However, the tourist market is a potential but neglected MaaS market. To explore tourist preference for MaaS bundled services, this research examines the preference heterogeneity of tourist-specific MaaS bundles among 491 Taiwanese tourists by using the latent class choice model. The choice experiments are designed by seven MaaS bundle attributes, including public transport, shared bike, shared e-moped, shared car, shopping discount, attraction ticket discount and price. Three tourist classes, namely, MaaS Skeptics, MaaS Supporters, and MaaS Enthusiasts, are identified based upon three attitudinal latent variables (hedonic motivation, Attitude toward MaaS and mobile application factor) as well as socioeconomic characteristics. The results provided evidence of a tourist-specific MaaS market and preference heterogeneity among various tourist classes in Taiwan. Class profiles and scenario analyses of pro-MaaS propensity for three classes were conducted to provide deeper insights into preference variations. Implications and recommendations for developing more customized MaaS bundles for tourists are provided herein.