The provision of mobility as a service with autonomous vehicles. The necessity of regulatory schemes for a natural monopoly

This paper addresses the provision of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) once autonomous vehicles become available, putting special emphasis on the cost structures of MaaS-providers. The results show the existence of significant economies of scale and, therefore, the market is likely to become a natural monopoly. The difference with the current situation is explained by the absence of a driver and it provides an explanation for the aggressive and deficitary expansion strategies of current TNC providers. Furthermore, given that natural monopolies require regulation in order to avoid losses of social welfare, the paper considers five different regulation scenarios. For this purpose, we also take into account the existence of negative and positive externalities as well as other issues specific to the provision of MaaS, such as spatio-temporal considerations and complementarity/competition with other transport modes.