On December 22nd, KDDI and WILLER announced “mobi,” an all-you-can-ride ride-hailing service for a flat-rate area. At the same time, KDDI has also launched the "au Moves" service, which allows transportation service reservations and payments to be completed using the au PAY app.
On the day of the announcement, Makoto Takahashi, President and CEO of KDDI, and Shigetaka Murase, CEO of WILLER, took the stage to explain the outline, and talent Misako Yasuda and Tsutomu Sekine appeared as guests.
Misako Yasuda and Tsutomu Sekine taking pictures in front of the "mobi" vehicleAt the beginning, Mr. Takahashi took the stage and talked about how he started mobi. KDDI has been providing telecommunications services under the catchphrase "Let's connect more and more. au." He explained that even in the current situation where online services are increasing due to this corona disaster, people are constantly moving in their daily lives, so they have been considering providing new mobile services through communication. In recent years, social issues such as the anxiety of moving elderly people in rural areas, the diversification of mobility needs, and the decision to start mobi as a means of solving and providing new encounters that are a little ahead of normal transportation. matter.
Mr. Takahashi says, ``With the theme of 'changing movement into excitement.' I would like to continue," he said. In addition, it announced that it will establish a joint venture with WILLER, "Community Mobility Co., Ltd." (President: Shigetaka Murase, voting rights ratio: WILLER 51%, KDDI 49%). The joint venture will start operations on April 1, 2022.
Mr. Takahashi said about the collaboration, "We have been able to connect people through telecommunications, but in mobile services, we can provide the best service for users by partnering with professionals in the field. Mr. WILLER was a company with a passion for it, so the talk progressed quickly."
Mr. Makoto Takahashi, President of KDDI CorporationMr. Murase explained about mobi. As "mobi aims for new community mobility", it is a new short ride service that picks up needs that are not met by current transportation methods.
A vehicle circulating as a shared taxi in an area with a radius of about 2 km is called by setting the nearest point of departure and destination with the smartphone app at hand. With AI routing, the optimal route is dispatched, so you can get on and go to your destination with a short waiting time. Since multiple people are in charge of the driver, it is said that it also functions as a watching role. As a result, it is expected to be used for a wide range of purposes, such as comfortable pick-up and drop-off of children, shopping in places that are difficult to reach on foot, pick-up and drop-off of family members who do not have a driver's license, dining out with family members, and free going out for the elderly. there is There is a 30-day flat-rate plan and a one-time ride plan available.
Since it is an area service, the number of districts to be provided is important. It can be used in the Chikusa Ward area (from December 6, 2021), and in addition, the service will start as soon as the application for the Toshima Ward area in Tokyo (scheduled to start in 2022) is approved and preparations are complete.
From now on, "Because the needs and environments are different for each region, we would like to start the service all over the country from Hokkaido to Kyushu, and carefully nurture it one by one while cooperating with local governments and related parties." explained Murase.
Mr. Shigetaka Murase, Representative Director of WILLER Co., Ltd. Slide explanation about mobi. As previously reported in this magazine, WILLER will collaborate with KDDI on services that WILLER has been working on through demonstration experiments, and will expand the area where it can be used nationwide. )Mr. Hiromichi Matsuda, KDDI Executive Officer and General Manager of Business Creation Headquarters, explained about the formulation of areas suitable for mobi. As a network with the region, we have concluded regional cooperation agreements with more than 60 local governments nationwide, and we have 2,300 au shops, so we would like to pick up the needs from there.
Actually, the flow of people (location information of au mobile phones) is observed on a map at a fixed point, and the range and flow line derived from that are set as boarding and alighting spots. Currently, we are extracting the amount of movement as a parameter, but we are thinking about providing a new movement experience by introducing it in areas where there are many vectors in the direction of movement, such as east and west, but not north and south. bottom.
Mr. Hiromichi Matsuda, Executive Officer, General Manager of Business Creation Headquarters, KDDI Co., Ltd. Identify areas with a large amount of movement from data and set boarding and alighting spots. There are more than 200 boarding and alighting spots within the red frame of the screen aloneMr. Matsuda also announced the details of "au Moves" as the second part of "Movement will be moved." . au Moves is a transportation payment service that uses au PAY, and the advantage is that search, reservation, and payment can be completed within one app, and Ponta points can be accumulated and used.
The service will start on December 22nd, the day of the presentation, but WILLER's highway bus will handle it first. At the same time, we will start a campaign that offers up to 7 to 8 discounts on more than 1,200 flights between Tokyo and Osaka and Tokyo and Nagoya until January 23, 2022.
Misako Yasuda and Tsutomu Sekine talked about mobi in the guest talk, which is also developing a special campaign in conjunction with the start of the merit service of the transportation payment service "au Moves" using au PAY. Ms. Yasuda looked back at the video of her actually riding the mobi, and she said that from the standpoint of a mother of two, it would be convenient for her to travel with her children. Mr. Sekine touched on the return of driver's licenses by elderly people, and promoted that mobi would be useful as a convenient means of transportation when one day they return their licenses.