Across rural transportation networks, widening inequalities and limited public transit options mean that even minor disruptions, whether planned or unplanned, often lead to severe delays or make essential trips entirely unattainable. Besides the low population densities and long distances that dictate satisfactory transit service provision, rural settings often confront the irony where essential trips are patchy across agencies and accessibility benefits and burdens assessed in isolation. Research highlights that even where transit options exist, mobility providers are often unable or unwilling to cross county or state lines due to service area restrictions or reimbursement policies. The situation has compounded existing socio-economic barriers that impede travel for most non-drivers, and important for this research, limiting researchers’ understanding of the collective accessibility gains of integrating individual mobility schemes.
Public Transportation Authorities (PTAs) are turning to the idea of Mobility-as-a-Service to blur this gap. Essentially, MaaS is conceptualized as a user-centered, digitally supported integrated mobility ecosystem that combines variety of mobility schemes and non-mobility services into a single platform. Such initiatives have allowed PTAs to make visible hidden transit agencies that hitherto are not visible to the public. For instance, while at present, people can log into Google Maps app or other apps and readily discover transit services in their area, such apps only support trip planning on a regional or rural level if the service is a traditional fixed route such as a train or bus line that has a set of routes and timetable. In rural Minnesota (the selected area for this research: Austin-Mower County, Albert Lea -Freeborn County, Owatonna -Steele County, and Waseca -Waseca County), the operational agreements between the MnDOT and mobility providers do not allow rural mobility service providers to operate solely fixed-route services. Consequently, all such services are not viewable on Google Maps or Apple Maps.
While debates regarding the organization of MaaS continue to unfold, existing transport literature has rather focused predominantly on how rural MaaS pilots perform, usually to substantiate prior criticism that bundling modes in low-density areas may not be economically viable. What is often overlooked is whether such systems can influence the hundreds of social assistance mobility programs that offer some travel support or allow agencies administering such programs to fulfill their mandates. These programs are more than administrative instruments; they carry the imprint of various identities and spatial priorities. They reflect who is seen, who is served, and what forms of access matter in a place. Just as Google Maps does not show specific services, most social ride programs are hidden in spreadsheets and eligibility portals, making valuable services disconnected from integrated mobility ecosystems and inaccessible to those outside specific network.
Consequently, this study questions how rural MaaS initiatives ripples through broader network of social assistance mobility programs in optimizing access to health care and basic social needs. Using a mixed method design, the study adopts institutional-ethnography, field observation, case studies, and interviews to unravel this position. It also seeks to adopt Text-Network Analysis, Mobility Energy Productivity metric, in addition to Foster-Greer-Thorbecke index and Spatial Propensity-Matched Gradient Analysis (SPM-GA) to make meaning of data obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The study is guided by the theory of social practice, in an effort to shift conversion of rural MaaS from simply documenting trip failures to uncovering disjointed meanings, mismatched competencies, and missing materials that make successful trip fulfilment rare. Overall, the research will support PTAs and social actors in co-designing frameworks that prioritize user needs and broaden rural service delivery systems. The research will provide insights into where institutional pathways fragment and delay trips, where rural mobility ecosystems face barriers, and how MnDOT and similar agencies can strengthen service coordination to promote uptake of its Transit App.