Understanding consumer preferences for integration between mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) and tourism transport in China

Abstract

Mobility-as-a-Service can be customized in various forms depending on the regional and activity travel contexts. Unlike the previous studies dealing with the daily trip and general characteristics of MaaS, this study focuses on more specific contexts like MaaS in tourism transport. An online survey and stated preference experiments were conducted for the first time in China to evaluate consumer preference for different MaaS packages bundled with tourism service, and six discrete choice models were constructed which reflects the interaction of propensity to consume with other attributes. Survey results indicate that MaaS in tourism will find a promising market in China, and more than 50 percent of respondents would choose to use MaaS packages. MaaS consumers can be divided into three categories based on average propensity to consume that conservative consumer group has the highest proportion of the sample, followed by moderate consumer group and aggressive consumer group. Model estimations illustrate those factors affecting whether to subscribe to the MaaS package mainly include MaaS app-related attributes, social environment, and the living location of the respondents; individual socio-demographics, tour preference, and daily travel habits have influences on their choice behaviors of MaaS service pattern. It also reveals that the interaction items of propensity to consume and package-related attributes (i.e., subscription price, period of validity, and tourism preferential price) play significant and heterogeneous roles to consumer interests and preferences for MaaS in tourism.