Platform: Reittiopas
Coverage area: seven municipalities of Helsinki Metropolitan Area
Stakeholders:
- HSL (Helsinki Regional Transport Authority)
- Transport operators
Organisation and management: HSL now owns the platform – it acquired it from a private vendor – however the technological development of Reittiopas depends on the vendor.
Source of funding: Funding for the projects comes from HSL. The authority’s budget is composed by funds from the seven member municipalities (50%) and from user tariffs (50%)
Initial investment: N/A
Development history: Reittiopas was developed by a start-up company (made up of 3 students) in 2001. Currently the company is CGI. HSL, Public Transit Authority for Helsinki Metropolitan Region (7 communities), bought the services of this tech company. This beginning caused some problems to HSL (vendor lock-in).
Modes of transport included: Public transport modes – bus, tram, metro, commuter train, ferry. A separate link offers advice for walking and cycling.
Service Features: Reittiopas offers itinerary information including different modes of transport within HSL member municipalities, however it is essentially a service to provide info on how to move from point A to point B. There is no real-time information and the data uploaded to the platform is merely based on ‘static data’, i.e. the transit timetables defined by HSL. It was identified that 65% of users are accessing Reittiopas from mobile devices, however the platform is not optimal for mobile devices as it was developed for desktop use.
Source of data: transport operators API.
Data flow: data originated from transport operators is used to feed the platform
Open data policy: HSL offers access right to Reittiopas interface for applications and services that support public transport usage and transport information availability. The use of these interfaces is free of charge. Access to the downloads and interfaces is granted an account registration form. HSL has the right to inspect applications and services before granting access to the interface and may revoke access rights whenever necessary, for example in case of excessive traffic to the interface or misuse of the service.
Continuity: Current Reittiopas service has high satisfaction rates with users however the platform is already technologically obsolete Digitransit is the newer initiative from HSL in the field of travel demand management through digital journey planning platforms. Digitransit is already active and coexists with Reittiopas. There are still considerable more people using Reittiopas (160.000 users per day), but one expects that this will change by the end of 2016. By then it is expected that Reittiopas will no longer be online. Digitransit will be fully owned by HSL. This solves the ‘vendor lock in’ that marked the Reittiopas- arrangement. HSL had to invest in something a private party owned and developed.
Miscellaneous: Digitransit brings important changes in relation to Reittiopas:
- HSL ownership
- Real-time information where available
- Mobile devices friendly platform
- User responsive / user oriented
- Easier to use open data
- Covers all Finland and not only Helsinki metropolitan area
Digitransit will go beyond public transport modes and offer information on bikes (including city bikes), private cars and also provide information on availability of parking spaces in case one wants to switch modalities. Digitransit will have more nudges to direct users towards public values: for environmentally friendly options as well as cost-efficiency goals. Two examples. 1. Digitransit prefers the train over the bus and will advise users to take the train if the travel time would be comparable (not equal; it even advises the train if the bus would be slightly faster). 2. The app advises central places to change rather than more peripheral, because it is safer to change there.