Features
27 Jul 21

Pittsburgh first city in U.S. to get MaaS platform

In July, Pittsburgh piloted Move PGH, a comprehensive Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app. Move PGH is the first community-wide MaaS platform in the United States. This means that Pittsburgh residents can reliably and affordably ditch their cars and provide for their mobility needs via the app. 

Via Move PGH, Pittsburghers can pay for bus fares; rent e-bikes, scooters, and other micromobility vehicles; find carpool opportunities; and as a last resort, rent a car for a few hours. Users can combine multiple transport modes without leaving the app or having to re-enter their payment details. 

Transit app

Move PGH operates as part of the Transit app, which is used by 40,000 Pittsburghers, almost 80% of whom don’t have the use of a private car. Pittsburgh is not the first metro area to tailor-make its own MaaS platform, but it does seem the first to have worked out how to charge users a single fee for a trip that involves multiple modes and operators – many of whom are competitors. 

In all, the pilot phase of Move PGH involves five micromobility providers: scooter company Spin, bike company Healthy Ride, car rental company Zipcar, carpool app Waze and moped company Scoobi. They have all agreed to integrate their services with local public transport and parking authorities, in exchange for exclusive rights to operate their respective modes of transport in the city for a period of two years. 

Mobility hubs

They will also maintain 50 new mobility hubs, where riders can grab charged e-bikes and e-scooters for the first and last miles of their journeys (with chargers provided by docking company Swiftmile).  

The pilot aims to resolve some of the city’s persistent mobility gaps. While only 20% of residents don’t have access to a private car, over 65% of low-income households fall into that category. For the city of Pittsburgh itself, the pilot is cost-neutral.

Authored by: Frank Jacobs