EMTA has appointed Johannes Laitila as Communications Officer from 1 February 2024. Johannes is seconded to EMTA from HSL, the public transport authority of Helsinki Region in Finland. Johannes is a Finnish national with a Master of Social Sciences in Communication from the University of Helsinki. He has worked as a communications professional at HSL

In Helsinki this week, an EMTA delegation met with the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications together with HSL, the public transport authority for the Helsinki region. Open ticketing was central to the conversation, which coincides with the preparation of a European regulation on multimodal digital moblity services (MDMS) and with the evaluation of the

Some 30 scooter stations will be built in Vuosaari, East Helsinki, allowing residents to rent a scooter for short-time use. The scooter sharing service pilot run by HSL (Helsinki Region Transport) and Samocat Sharing will include both regular and electric scooters. HSL’s aim is to test scooters both as an independent means of travel and

This year, HSL (Helsinki Region Transport) will pay 1.7 million euros in environmental bonuses to bus operators who cut their particulate and carbon emissions. HSL awards bonuses for using biodiesel, bioethanol and biogas as well as for exhaust gas after-treatment. HSL awarded the bonuses through a bidding process held in 2018. The measures taken by

During spring 2019, HSL (Helsinki Region Transport) will be implementing a new zone system which will fundamentally change public transport ticket pricing in the Helsinki region. In the new system, the HSL area will be divided into four zones (A, B, C and D) independent of municipal boundaries, spreading out from Helsinki center. Ticket prices

The first light-rail line in the Helsinki region will be completed in the 2020s between Itäkeskus, Helsinki and Keilaniemi, Espoo. The first design concept for the Artic XL cars to run on the line has been created. The design particularly addresses the needs of families with children and people with slow mobility. To ensure accessibility,

Since August, 52 brand new buses have been operating on HSL bus routes. This is an unusually high number of new buses to introduce at the same time. New vehicles allow bus companies to give up older buses. The new buses are diesel vehicles that meet the Euro 6 emissions standards with a particular focus

City bikes were rolled out in the streets of Helsinki in May and they immediately gained huge popularity. This year, there were 500 bikes at 49 bike stations. Next year the number of bikes will increase to 1,500 and that of stations to 150. City bikes are shared-use bikes available for people moving around the

In June, the Cities of Espoo and Helsinki approved the project plan for the first light-rail link in the Helsinki region called Raide-Jokeri. The light-rail line has been planned to mainly run in a dedicated lane separate from other traffic to ensure fast and disruption-free running of the trams. In addition, the line will have

According to Forbes, customer experience is the “cumulative impact of multiple touchpoints” over the course of a customer’s interaction with an organization. In public transport, a typical path is: passenger deciding to make a journey, planning of this journey, travelling to a stop or station, acquisition of a ticket, waiting, boarding a vehicle, possible changes