Factors affecting continuation of Mobility as a Service projects in regional and rural areas: An analysis of 50 projects in Japan

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) projects face issues with continuation in regional and rural areas because of issues that differ from those in large metropolitan areas, and many projects are terminated in the pilot stage. In this study, we developed a database of 50 MaaS projects in Japan, primarily covering regional and rural areas, to summarize their business stages and attributes including service type, evaluation indicators, objectives, and stakeholders. Subsequently, we analyzed the factors associated with project continuity using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, and ordered logit modeling. The results showed that projects that used user satisfaction as an evaluation indicator and improvements in public transportation service qualities as an objective were more likely to continue than those that did not. The evaluation that focused on changes in the number of passengers exhibited a negative relationship with continuity. Moreover, continuity was positively associated with projects incorporating AI-driven demand-responsive transport and/or multimodal services as well as those in target areas with formulated local public transportation plans. These results indicate that the projects had difficulty achieving the target change in the number of passengers and that the satisfaction evaluation might have yielded higher scores; additionally, the projects that focused on key concepts of MaaS continued. Differences in area types, per capita COVID-19 deaths in the target areas, and stakeholders had no significant relationship with continuity.