Business Travel March-April-2021

taxis and transfers
says Paul Tilstone, Partner at Festive Road.
He believes that in the current climate TMCs
might not have the right people or platforms
to develop new partnerships, particularly as
they might not be perceived as an immediate
revenue driver.
Those that decide to take the plunge won’t
be short of options, with an ever-growing
number of ‘last mile’ products – many from
well-funded start-ups – aimed at the
corporate market: FREENOW for Business,
Bolt Business, Uber for Business, Ola
Corporate, Rolzo Business, the list goes on.
For corporates, however, the proliferation
of choice is one of the main problems.
“The market is too fragmented,” says Mark
Avery, Global Business Services and Travel
Leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“When you’ve got people travelling globally,
there are so many small, fragmented
companies it’s hard to get a service partner. I
think that’s why many smaller companies
don’t even attempt to touch ground.”
Those that decide to
take the plunge won't
be short of options, with an
ever-growing number of
'last mile' products – many
from well-funded start-ups"
The rise of aggregators – some not only
attempting to bring together taxis and
transfers but also car rental, car share,
e-scooters, and rail – is helping to alleviate
this problem. But while their technology is
impressive, Avery says most still fail to bring
the service support that corporates require.
“For me as a corporate travel manager, one
of the challenges I’ve got is that I don’t want
travellers phoning me because they’ve got a
problem with their invoice or because they’re
querying taxi waiting times,” he explains.
“Many companies will provide back-end
data and there have been improvements in
the technology, but without the service
offering it’s not an end-to-end solution.”
Just before the pandemic hit, PwC
partnered in the UK with an undisclosed
ground transport provider to pilot
technology that not only plugs directly into
the company’s online booking tool but also
comes with the crucial service support.
However, due to the low levels of business
travel it hasn’t yet been fully put to the test.
Even within the UK domestic market the
fragmented sector makes it more difficult for
smaller companies to properly control their
taxi and transfer spend, says Sixt Global
Sales Director Stuart Donnelly.
“If you travel around the UK there are cities
and towns with different taxi operators.
Because of this fragmentation of the spend
and the low transactions involved, many
companies don’t manage it," he explains.
Most payments are still made by credit
card and reimbursed by the employer.
“There’s no real visibility beyond spend, no
management information,” adds Donnelly,
who says the real numbers are "significant".
To tackle these issues, and recognising the
need for a more interconnected approach to
ground transport, two years ago Sixt
launched a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)
platform, offering rental, car sharing and
taxi/ride hailing, all bookable through a TMC,
OBT, or app. It has since also added
e-scooters in Germany, thanks to a
partnership with Tier. Before Covid it was
about to add rail to the mix in Germany and
the Netherlands. “This is currently on hold
but it will happen,” says Donnelly.
Launching this summer is a brand new
player, Jyrney, which claims to be taking the
MaaS concept to a new level. Billing itself
instead as ‘Mobility on Demand’, Jyrney is
promising clients the ability to book a whole
suite of mobility products – even coaches –
through any business travel platform. It uses
algorithms to manage the supply base to
ensure users get the most suitable providers.
The company says it is already in talks with
several TMCs who are looking to offer their
clients a managed ground transport solution,
and with some corporates too.
“We are also prioritising green fleets, such
as hybrid, hydrogen and electric vehicles,”
says Founder and CEO Daniel Price.
Sustainability is an area where the ground
transport sector has previously fallen short.
Almost half of European travel managers
(46%) in the FREENOW poll say sustainability
is one of the greatest pain points with their
ground transportation programme – and the
report predicts Covid will make sustainability
an even greater challenge.
But the sector is responding. At the end of
last year FREE NOW for Business introduced
an electric-only booking option and is also
launching an emissions calculator so clients
can see how much they can lower their
emissions if they switch to EV-only vehicles.
In February, Rolzo launched a fleet of electric
vehicles in more than 100 cities worldwide.
In fact, most of the major players are now
making the switch to electric, ticking yet
another of the boxes and giving corporate
travel managers no excuse not to join the
'last mile' club – however unsexy.
16 THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.com