Scientific literature pertaining to Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is growing fast. According to G. Smith et al. (2018), 'the term has rapidly gone from nowhere to nearly everywhere in the personal transport sector' since 2014. In June 2017, Utriainen and Pöllänen (2017) searched 'Mobility as a Service' in a large scientific database (Scopus) and found 37 peer-reviewed journals and conference papers mentioning the term in either their titles, abstracts or keywords. By June 2018 this number had more than doubled to 76 citations. Nonetheless, much of this available literature focuses on defining what MaaS is and on its organisational challenges (ecosystem, technologies, integration of modes), rather than using in-depth analysis to quantify how MaaS may impact travel preferences and behaviour, as already emphasised by Matyas and Kamargianni (2017).

Although multiple pilots and schemes have been initiated around the world in recent years, empirical knowledge of MaaS’s expected impacts on people’s travel preferences and travel behaviour remains limited, as highlighted by Ho et al. (2017). Consequently, the frequent claims about the positive contributions MaaS will make towards achieving sustainability goals rely on a scattering of limited yet insightful research findings.