Institute of Transportation, MOTC

• Date：2022-12-14
• Update：2024-01-31
• Department：Transportation Technology and Information Division

       The Institute of Transportation, MOTC (IOT) held the APEC Conference on Exploring the New Age for Mobility Integration at the Fullon Hotel Taipei on December 14 (Wednesday). The conference was proposed by IOT on behalf of Taiwan at the Transportation Working Group (TPTWG) Intermodal and Intelligent Transportation Systems Experts Group (IIEG). Member states from within the APEC regions were invited to attend, including the United States, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan and non-APEC regions such as the EU MaaS Alliance and other Mobility as a Service (MaaS) field related government agencies, experts, scholars, and industrial representatives. In the post-pandemic era, members exchange the challenges they may face and their contributions to cross-border mobility and connectivity in the region through MaaS by sharing best practices and policy outcomes. The conference brought together over 100 industry-government-academia-research representatives with active involvement. The conclusions were concrete and fruitful. The conference came to a close at noon.

        IOT pointed out that MaaS refers to integrating multiple transportation services through a single platform to improve the convenience of transport mobility, which has become a trend. In order to understand the transport needs of the APEC economies, transformation confronting MaaS, development trends, and innovative applications in the post-pandemic era, the following people were specially invited to the APEC Conference on Exploring the New Age for Mobility Integration to share their experiences on the post-pandemic MaaS challenges and opportunities, the evolution, promotion, and application of MaaS, and how MaaS has changed public viewpoints on mobility: Jason Hill, lead shepherd of TPTWG, Audrey Denis, a representative of the EU MaaS Alliance and the strategic manager of Cubic Transportation Systems, Do Van Manh, a lecturer at the University of Transport and Communications, and Nami Sato, Director of Transportation Policy International Strategy Division, Policy Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan. They shared their experiences regarding the challenges and opportunities of MaaS in the post-pandemic era, the evolution and promotion of MaaS, how MaaS can change individuals' perceptions of mobile, etc.

       In addition, with the opening up of the borders, the demand for cross-border mobility has increased. Creating a friendlier mobility experience paves the way for new opportunities and challenges facing global MaaS services. In particular, cooperation among public and private sectors are also needed. In view of this, the IOT specially invited Hsu Min-Lun, the head of the Transportation Bureau of Kaohsiung City Government, Nobuaki Osawa, the MaaS project manager of the All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., Gwo-Wei Torng, the director of United States Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Innovative Mobile Office, and Po-Lin Lai, a professor at Chung-Ang University, Korea. Pertinent recommendations and promotion experiences have been shared regarding the provision of cross-border transport services, taking into account accessibility and inclusiveness, energy conservation, carbon reduction in the post-pandemic era, and other discussion foci. By holding this conference, it is hoped that the wisdom and experience of various professional fields, as well as the industry-government-academia-research related recommendations, will provide new impetus and inspiration for the development and promotion of MaaS in Taiwan.

        According to IOT, Taiwan has won the support of respective APEC member states to host the current APEC Conference on Exploring the New Age for Mobility Integration, signifying recognition for Taiwan's advancement of MaaS. Moreover, numerous consensuses have been reached through meeting discussions. They include the APEC Transportation Work Group encouraging member states to continue promoting MaaS-related applications and supporting related follow-up research programs, promoting MaaS system links between APEC member states. This will be future opportunities for bilateral or multilateral cooperation among members and will further revitalize cross-border transportation in the post-pandemic era.

Photograph 1    Group photograph with domestic and foreign lecturers and participants onsite

Photograph 2    APEC Conference on Exploring the New Age for Mobility Integration held at Fullon Hotel Taipei, Taiwan