Tech Insights - Shanghai Launches MaaS App, Showing Market is Gaining Traction

October 2022

Sustainability & Smart Cities

Juniper Research

Analyst House

Last week, the launch of a new MaaS app, the Suishenxing app, was undertaken in Shanghai, China.

Through this service, users can enjoy a universal access system for  different modes of public transport. It can now be used on Shanghai's 1,560 bus lines, 17 ferry lines, and 11 metro lines after registering and opening the payment feature. The MaaS app will also work with Shencheng Travel, a cab-hailing service, and Shanghai Parking, an app that offers access to 890,000 parking spaces and more than 4,300 parking facilities.

The platform promotes the idea of green travel and is the first app in the city to give consumers the choice of choosing environmentally friendly transportation. Every registered user will receive green credits after selecting an environmentally beneficial mode of transportation, such as taking the metro or bus, rather than driving. 

The local transportation agencies will continue adding features to the Suishenxing app, and the service is expected to cover the entire Metro system by the end of 2022. The platform aims to gradually extend its travel services across the entire Yangtze River Delta and other areas.

Timescales: Full roll-out by the end of 2022.  
Region(s): Shanghai, China. 

Juniper Research’s View

This launch is a clear indicator that China, one of the world’s largest transportation markets, is moving quickly towards offering more MaaS-style solutions. This is a positive development, and follows on from the launch of a similar initiative in Beijing in May 2021.

What is interesting about this development is the extent to which it is directly linked to environmental concerns and indeed is incentivising users to access more environmentally friendly transit modes. This is an approach that we expect to be powerful within MaaS, and we expect many more transit authorities to pursue this kind of strategy. 

i. China Leading the Way in MaaS

This development, coupled with previous developments in Beijing, is showing that momentum is building within China and indeed it is emerging as a leader within the MaaS market. 

China is an interesting market, in that its significant challenges in terms of pollution are translating into a strong set of environmentally friendly measures in transport, with China emerging as a leader in both electric mobility; being a leading producer of electric vehicles, and MaaS. 

This is reflected in our forecasts for MaaS user adoption, which show 260% growth in user numbers within China between 2022 and 2027, as can be seen in Figure 1 overleaf. 

Given that MaaS has already rolled out to Beijing and is now rolling out to Shanghai (both cities with population of greater than 20 million), even with this level of service provision, growth will be strong in China. With China having over 600 cities, the potential for MaaS to grow is strong. 

The strength of digital wallets within China taking the super app approach, namely WeChat Pay and Alipay, means that by partnering with these services, there is the potential to reach a significant potential market with minimal effort required. As these super apps have such high user penetration and already boast many different types of services, accessing them is a shortcut to appealing to a much broader user potential user base. 

ii. Incentivisation Key to Increasing MaaS Adoption

One of the main challenges with MaaS is that it fundamentally wants users to do something that is always going to be less convenient than taking their private car directly to a destination. Therefore, driving MaaS adoption is always going to require incentivising use or degrading the quality of the experience in a car.

By offering green credits as part of the app, this solution is taking a positive approach, by rewarding customers with credits that they can use to swap gifts of redeem in various online games. This incentivised approach will appeal more to customers than simply rolling out services, and this approach is one that can be emulated both within and outside of China. Given that MaaS aims to boost ridership of public transport, this can increase the revenue that public transit authorities will receive; potentially covering the cost of incentivising MaaS use. 

Also, MaaS is not just about creating revenue. At its core, MaaS is environmentally focused. Given that public transit is run by the city authorities in many cases, this means that city authorities can use this power to push MaaS for its environmental benefits.