The Helsinki Model aspires to create a seamless, demand-based and compelling travel experience for people
The key idea is to increase freedom of choice in road transport, enabled by increasing digitalisation
Twenty-three key organisations in Finland have partnered to cooperate in the establishment of the first Mobility-as-a-Service operator in traffic. The goal of the new entity is to offer tailor-made traffic services to consumers based on their individual needs. The operator will be the first full ecosystem service provider in the world in the field of Mobility-as-a-Service. Thereby, the operator has substantial export potential.
The term Mobility as a Service (MaaS) stands for buying mobility services based on consumer needs, instead of buying the means of mobility. In the present model the user may either buy means (a car or a bike) or tickets for transport (bus ticket, train ticket etc.)
The chairman of the project and CEO of ITS Finland, Sampo Hietanen describes the concept as revolutionary:
– With the MaaS concept, the user may buy transport from the place of departure to the destination. An essential part of the concept is thinking in terms of service level. The price of transport may vary for instance based on time or comfort level. The new service offers freedom of choice for traffic users, combining mass transport, demand-based traffic and private vehicles.
– The basis for this new way of thinking is that different forms of transport may be combined in the future. For users not to be forced to create their own combination solution, it makes sense to create one or more traffic operators, who take the responsibility for the ecosystem structure.
The service will be developed based on an open market model with broad co-operation. Creating unambiguous rules and standards is the prerequisite for numerous actors to be able to join the service network. In turn, this is the prerequisite for international expansion.
The following organisations have partnered to cooperate in establishing the operator company:
- Delta, Elisa Corporation, Ericsson, Goodsign, GoSwift, Helsinki region transport HSL, IQ Payments, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute FGI – National Land Survey, Neocard, OP Financial Group, Ramboll, Secto, Semel, Siemens, Sito, Skedgo, Stratax, Finnish Growth Corridor Network, Corporate Services of the Finnish Taxi Federation (Taksiliiton yrityspalvelu), City of Tampere, Sonera, Uber.
Business consultancy Eera is in charge of the business planning process.
For further information please contact:
Sampo Hietanen, CEO, ITS Finland, sampo.hietanen@its-finland.fi, tel. +358 40 565 7688
Elias Pöyry, development of MaaS operator business, Eera Oy, elias.poyry@eera.fi +358 500 426 125
