Real estate developers and operators should embrace Mobility as a Service as a core capability in their offering.
Real estate developers are slowly but steadily moving away from seeing buildings as their core strategic asset. They see that buildings are merely the physical stage on which the lives of residents and tenants unfold. Providing services to tenants and residents – and the community that surrounds them- proves to be profitable, scalable and relevant. Not easy, but worth it.
Now, in the quest for services to provide to residential customers, it’s logical to start with those services that are close to the developer’s core business: smart home services, financing services, furnishing services, and shared facility services (and please provide me with more than a 12m2 gym without windows or a laptop socket in the lobby called the co-working space).
But when you look at living as a service, and you consider the lives of residents and tenants and imagine a service ecology to truly cater to their lives’ needs, you start to think broader than that. People work, shop, eat, drink, play, socialize, sport, care for their health, their community, they learn, rear children, hold pets, have hobbies, go on holiday and move about.
So the possibilities to zoom out from pure housing services are endless. But where to start? What service is relatively easy to operate, makes a lot of sense to customers, and can be credibly delivered by the building operator? My answer in a number of projects has been: mobility. Especially in larger mixed use developments, Mobility as a Service makes a lot of sense in the service portfolio. Here’s why:
1. Getting people to and from your development is crucial for its succes, especially in dense urban areas, remote developments and mixed use developments, like the ones I have been working on in Pattaya, South East Bangkok and Ayutthaya in Thailand.
2. For your customers mobility is a number one priority. Having access to a good quality car, bike, scooter or boat and not having to own the asset is just really good service. (Of course access to public transport is crucial too).
3. Managing assets for predictive maintenance and utilization is what you’re already good at. Mobility assets are not very different. Do partner with the providers of digital access, because that’s a different ballgame. If you can white label their solution into your app, all the better.
4. Mobility as a Service can provide the backbone to a whole service ecology that stretches far beyond the scope of your real estate. Think partnering with events, nearby employers, schools, attractions etc etc. In most projects, mobility is way to build ecosystems of relevant experiences.
5. The MaaS you provide to your residents and tenants is of equal value to the existing community around your development. As a matter of fact, it provides a great way to connect your development to this community, give back to them, and maybe even provide them with jobs. The boat shuttle we envision for a project in Pattaya, Thailand, will be run and staffed by the local community.
6. you already own the real estate. So parking that car and charging it, or storing that bike in a dry place, or docking that boat safely and with good pedestrian access are finally a problem of the past.