Finnish app Whim wants to be your one-stop urban mobility solution As the CEO of a high-tech transportation startup, one that?s trying to get rid of private car ownership, Sampo Hietanen has a surprising idol: Henry Ford.
?He introduced the dream of freedom of mobility,? said the Finnish entrepreneur, whose company, Maas Global (short for ?mobility as a service?) is in the midst of rolling out a new app he believes can live up to a long-held vision of seamless urban transportation.
MaaS recently launched Whim, an app which helps knit together different urban transportation networks to create what they?re calling a single solution to urban mobility. Users open Whim, enter their destination, and pick from a number of potential options and routes, including buses, trains, taxis, bikes, and cars (the system currently connects with Sixt, a car-rental company, and is looking at integrating Uber and Lyft in the future). What sets Whim apart is that planning and payment are all taken care of in a single app; via a monthly fee (249 Euros) or per-trip basis, users can chart their path through the city seamlessly without added guesswork, and make their way without payment hassles.

MaaS Global

At a time when many city planners are working on integrating services such as Lyft and Uber to help solve their first mile/last mile problems, and building out bike shares and other sustainable transportation infrastructure to lower carbon emissions, a mobile servic...