Can a Blockchain-Based Maas Create Business Value? †
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Background and Key Notions
2.1. MaaS
2.2. Blockchain
2.3. Opportunities and Challenges through the Integration of MaaS and DLT
3. Applying the Business Model Canvas to MaaS
3.1. Business Value
3.2. An Integrated Approach for MaaS
- What is the data in this business ecosystem?
- Who generates data in this business ecosystem?
- Where is data transferred to and from in this business ecosystem?
- How is business ecosystem data used?
- How can data use be transparent to all business ecosystem stakeholders?
- the traffic system by attempting to divert traffic from congested parts of the network;
- the user by offering alternative destinations based on his specific personal preferences;
- commercial partners of the MaaS system (which can be e.g., restaurants, movie theaters, retail stores), by offering them an innovative targeted means of promoting their business.
3.3. Combining Blockchain and MaaS
- Personally identifiable data
- Aggregate data
4. Evaluation & Next Steps
4.1. Imminent
- The major strength offered through a DLT based MaaS is having a more transparent and impartial operation interface, attracting more early adopters. This overcomes barriers faced by existing operators where it is unclear how, when and why options by certain mobility providers are offered to a given user and not to others.
- Identifying the optimal level of incentives by transport mode, socio-economic group or geographic location is an important opportunity to motivate users to offer their journey and preference data. Additional key considerations are also incentive headway and types (e.g., discounts, free services).
- Establishing the required infrastructure for a blockchain based MaaS to be introduced is a key weakness, not only due to the capital needs, but also due to the technological requirements of such an initiative. Conducting small scale trials in the short-term, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sectors, could be an option to build critical mass locally and address fundamental blockchain disadvantages [36].
- Data protection and data management compliance at local, national and international levels are naturally an immediate threat. DLT is currently restricted by GDPR provisions within the EU [20], such as the qualification of the data owner (i.e., data miner) as Data Processor (Article 4), the virtually impossible implementation of the Right to erasure (Article 17) at least for permission based DLT, or the general prohibition of automatic decision making (Article 22), which hampers data processing through smart contracts.
4.2. Long-Term
- The main long-term threat of a blockchain based MaaS is the compliance and compatibility of any public or permission based DLT with data protection regulations e.g., GDPR. It is auspicious that the EU could enact a detailed regulation to specify the criteria of assessment for the ‘compatible purpose’ of data processing provided in Article 6(4) GDPR or, at least, overhaul current ethical guidelines, still based on WP 203, adopted on 2 April 2013 [37].
- An intertwined weakness of the proposed system is the reaction in case of the collapse of an operator of a blockchain based MaaS system. Defining data ownership and liability is crucial, particularly due to previous examples and the yet non-proven business models of emerging transport operators (e.g., Uber, Lyft).
- The ultimate strength of a DLT based MaaS system is the potential to progress from competition to collaboration, at least locally. Utilizing the decentralized and immutable DLT features, would address one of the major challenges of MaaS currently i.e., trusting an intermediary acting as a system operator [38].
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
- Harari, Y.N. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century; Spiegel & Grau: New York, NY, USA, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Rennock, M.J.W.; Cohn, A.; Butcher, J.R. Blockchain Technology and Regulatory Investigations. Pract. Law Litig. 2018, 2, 35–44. [Google Scholar]
- Juniper Research. Smart Citie —What’s in It for Citizens? 2018. Available online: https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/smart-cities-whats-in-it-for-citizens.pdf (accessed on 25 July 2019).
- Floridi, L. Big Data and Their Epistemological Challenge. Philos. Technol. 2012, 25, 435–437. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Thomopoulos, N.; Givoni, M.; Rietveld, P. ICT for Transport: Opportunities and Threats; Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK, 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Zmud, J.; Reed, N. White Paper: Synthesis of the Socio-Economic Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility. In Proceedings of the 6th EU-US Symposium, Brussels, Belgium, 26–27 June 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Higgins, E.T. Making a good decision: Value from fit. Am. Psychol. 2000, 55, 1217–1230. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Hoppe, M.; Christ, A.; Castro, A.; Winter, M.; Seppänen, T.-M. Transformation in transportation? Eur. J. Future Res. 2014, 2. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Rode, P.; Floater, G.; Thomopoulos, N.; Docherty, J.; Schwinger, P.; Mahendra, A.; Fang, W. Accessibility in Cities: Transport and Urban Form. In Disrupting Mobility; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2017; pp. 239–273. [Google Scholar]
- Silva, B.N.; Khan, M.; Han, K. Towards sustainable smart cities: A review of trends, architectures, components, and open challenges in smart cities. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2018, 38, 697–713. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Thomopoulos, N.; Nikitas, A. Smart Urban Mobility Futures: Editorial for Special Issue. Int. J. Automot. Technol. Manag. 2019, 19, 1–9. [Google Scholar]
- Karjalainen, P. Incorporating Autonomous and Connected Transport into MaaS. In Proceedings of the WISE-ACT 2nd Workshop 2018, Budapest, Hungary, 21–22 November 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Costantini, F.; Archetti, E.; Di Ciommo, F.; Ferencz, B. IoT, intelligent transport systems and MaaS (mobility as a service). In Proceedings of the 22nd International Legal Informatics Symposium IRIS 2019, Salzburg, Weblaw, 21–23 February 2019; pp. 245–254. [Google Scholar]
- Sochor, J.; Arby, H.; Karlsson, I.C.M.A.; Sarasini, S. A topological approach to Mobility as a Service: A proposed tool for understanding requirements and effects, and for aiding the integration of societal goals. Res. Transp. Bus. Manag. 2018, 27, 3–14. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- MaaS Alliance. Main Challenges Associated with MaaS & Approaches for Overcoming Them. 2019. Available online: https://maas-alliance.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/02/Main-challenges-pdf.pdf (accessed on 25 July 2019).
- Nowiński, W.; Kozma, M. How Can Blockchain Technology Disrupt the Existing Business Models? Entrep. Bus. Econ. Rev. 2017, 5, 173–188. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Zyskind, G.; Nathan, O.; Pentland, A.S. Decentralizing privacy: Using blockchain to protect personal data. In Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops, San Jose, CA, USA, 21–22 May 2015; pp. 180–184. [Google Scholar]
- De Filippi, P.; Wright, A. Blockchain and the Law. The Rule of Code; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2018; ISBN 9780674976429. [Google Scholar]
- Wiatrowski, A. Blockchain Technology—A Threat or a Solution for Data Protection? Jusletter IT of 22 February, 2018. Available online: https://jusletter-it.weblaw.ch/en/issues/2018/IRIS/blockchain-technolog_96aad6c440.html__ONCE&login=false (accessed on 25 July 2019).
- European Commission. 2018 Reform of EU Data Protection Rules; European Commission: Brussels, Belgium, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Bowman, C.; Ambrosini, V. Value creation versus value capture: Towards a coherent definition of value in strategy. Br. J. Manag. 2000, 11, 1–15. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Stabell, C.B.; Fjeldstad, Ø.D. Configuring value for competitive advantage: on chains, shops, and networks. Strateg. Manag. J. 1998, 19, 413–437. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Porter, M.E. The Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance; Free Press: New York, NY, USA, 1985. [Google Scholar]
- Latif, A.; Saeed, A.U.; Hoefler, P.; Stocker, A.; Wagner, C. The Linked Data Value Chain: A Lightweight Model for Business Engineers. In Proceedings of I-KNOW ’09 and I-SEMANTICS ’09, Graz, Austria, 2–4 September 2009.
- Attard, J.; Orlandi, F.; Auer, S. Exploiting the Value of Data through Data Value Networks. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance—ICEGOV ’17; ACM Press: New York, NY, USA, 2017; pp. 475–484. [Google Scholar]
- Osterwalder, P.& al. Business Model Generation; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2010.
- Hjalmarsson, A.; Thomopoulos, N.; Hodgson, F.; Klok, E.; Bjilsma, M.; Dethmers, V. D5.3 Business Aspects, Sustainable Social Networking Services for Transport (SUNSET) Deliverable, FP7 No. 270228. 2012. Available online: http://www.sunset-project.eu/pdf/SUNSET_D5.3_Business_Aspects.pdf (accessed on accessed on 31 July 2012).
- Maurya, A. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works; 2nd ed.; O’Reilly Media: Newton, MA, USA, 2012; ISBN 1449305172. [Google Scholar]
- Reijers, W.; Koidl, K.; Lewis, D.; Pandit, H.J.; Gordijn, B. Discussing Ethical Impacts in Research and Innovation: The Ethics Canvas. In Proceedings of the IFIP International Conference on Human Choice and Computers, Poznan, Poland, 19–21 September 2018; pp. 299–313. [Google Scholar]
- Lebo, T.; Sahoo, S.; McGuinness, D.; Belhajjame, K.; Cheney, J.; Corsar, D.; Garijo, D.; Soiland-Reyes, S.; Zednik, S.; Zhao, J. PROV-O: The PROV Ontology; W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium: Geneva, Switzerland, 2013; Available online: https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/ (accessed on 25 July 2019).
- Chowdhury, M.J.M.; Colman, A.; Kabir, M.A.; Han, J.; Sarda, P. Blockchain Versus Database: A Critical Analysis. In Proceedings of the 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE), New York, NY, USA, 1–2 August 2018; pp. 1348–1353. [Google Scholar]
- Contentos. The Decentralized Global Content Ecosystem—White Paper. 2019. Available online: https://www.contentos.io/subject/home/pdfs/white_paper_en.pdf (accessed on 18 September 2019).
- Zheng, Z.; Xie, S.; Dai, H.-N.; Chen, X.; Wang, H. Blockchain Challenges and Opportunities : A Survey Shaoan Xie Hong-Ning Dai Huaimin Wang. Int. J. Web Grid Serv. 2017, 14, 1–24. [Google Scholar]
- Cohen, S.A.; Hopkins, D. Autonomous vehicles and the future of urban tourism. Ann. Tour. Res. 2019, 74, 33–42. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Thomopoulos, N.; Givoni, M. The autonomous car—A blessing or a curse for the future of low carbon mobility? An exploration of likely vs. desirable outcomes. Eur. J. Futur. Res. 2015, 3, 14. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gatteschi, V.; Lamberti, F.; Demartini, C.; Pranteda, C.; Santamaria, V. To Blockchain or Not to Blockchain: That Is the Question. IT Prof. 2018, 20, 62–74. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- European Commission Opinion 03/2013 on Purpose Limitation; European Commission: Brussels, Belgium, 2013. Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2013/wp203_en.pdf (accessed on 25 July 2019).
- Nguyen, T.H.; Partala, J.; Pirttikangas, S. Blockchain-based Mobility-as-a-Service. In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2019), Valencia, Spain, 29 July 29–1 August 2019. [Google Scholar]
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Hogan, G.; Dolins, S.; Senturk, I.F.; Fyrogenis, I.; Fu, Q.; Murati, E.; Costantini, F.; Thomopoulos, N. Can a Blockchain-Based Maas Create Business Value? Proceedings 2019, 28, 8001. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019028001
Hogan G, Dolins S, Senturk IF, Fyrogenis I, Fu Q, Murati E, Costantini F, Thomopoulos N. Can a Blockchain-Based Maas Create Business Value? Proceedings. 2019; 28(1):8001. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019028001
Chicago/Turabian StyleHogan, Gabriel, Sigma Dolins, Izzet Fatih Senturk, Ioannis Fyrogenis, Qian Fu, Erion Murati, Federico Costantini, and Nikolas Thomopoulos. 2019. "Can a Blockchain-Based Maas Create Business Value?" Proceedings 28, no. 1: 8001. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019028001