Skip to main content

MaaS Finland aims to revolutionise the global transportation market

Mobility-as-a-service company MaaS Finland commenced operations on 1 February with funding from private investors and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes. Other investors are Transdev, a French transportation organisation, Karsan Otomotiv Sanayii and Ticaret, a Turkish car-industry company. Other shareholders include InMob Holdings of Cyprus; Neocard; Korsisaari; GoSwift; MaaS Australia; Goodsign; IQ Payments; and Delta Capital Force. MaaS Finland founder Sampo Hietanen holds a
February 9, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Mobility-as-a-service company MaaS Finland commenced operations on 1 February with funding from private investors and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes.

Other investors are Transdev, a French transportation organisation, Karsan Otomotiv Sanayii and Ticaret, a Turkish car-industry company. Other shareholders include InMob Holdings of Cyprus; Neocard; Korsisaari; GoSwift; MaaS Australia; Goodsign; IQ Payments; and Delta Capital Force. MaaS Finland founder Sampo Hietanen holds a ten percent stake in the company.

Sampo Hietanen, MaaS Finland’s CEO and the original developer of the concept, has set himself the goal of reshaping the world’s transportation markets.

He says MaaS Finland intends to serve as an operator between transport services providers, users and third parties. It will combine all the existing transport services into a single mobile application on the ‘single-ticket principle’ and offer personalised transport plans tailored to customer needs.

“Digitisation will reshape the transportation industry. Our goal is to form a ‘Finnish Netflix’ in transportation and change the way people use transport services. In a couple of years, MaaS will either be Finland’s new Nokia and a major employer or I’ll be out of work,” remarks Hietanen.

The Government’s ambition is to turn Finland into a pioneer of smart digitized transportation and make it a major export product.

“We need to seize this opportunity and move ahead quickly before somebody else beats us to it with a competing concept,” warns Hietanen.

ITS Finland estimates that by 2020, the new transport services could give work to 20,000 people in Finland.

Related Content

  • IBTTA Summit: satellite tolling is the future
    August 15, 2019
    IBTTA members met in Florida to consider the technological changes that will impact their businesses – including satellite tolling. Colin Sowman reports from Orlando Over decades, the technology employed in toll collection has been honed to near perfection – automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are easily within a couple of per cent of infallibility even at highway speeds. However, technical innovations beyond the confines of the toll road cannot b
  • Toyota invests in MaaS Global to develop integrated mobility solutions
    June 21, 2017
    Toyota Financial Services (TFS) and its insurance partner have announced a significant investment in the Finnish company MaaS Global, which was established in April 2016 to provide multi-modal transportation services.
  • MaaS Market London takes practical view of MaaS technology
    March 1, 2019
    Practical applications of new and developing technologies in the transport sector will dominate the agenda at the fourth MaaS Market conference taking place in London on March 20-21. City authorities, transport operators and senior tech industry presenters will discuss their direct experience of participating in Mobility as a Service (MaaS) projects while addressing issues such as data exchange, payment systems, interoperability and political accountability. These will include Lauri Suokannas of Taksi
  • Trust is the key, says Cubic’s Crissy Ditmore
    August 7, 2019
    Trust is the key to encouraging people to take up shared mobility and MaaS services, thinks Cubic Transportation Systems’ Crissy Ditmore. She tells Adam Hill why sharing must be the way forward Crissy Ditmore is on the move. Director of strategy at Cubic Transportation Systems since September last year, she lives in Boise, Idaho, but doesn’t see a great deal of the city as she is “90% of the time on the road”. This is appropriate for someone whose business is working out how to get people from place to p