
How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First - jarvelov
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-15/how-helsinki-arrived-at-the-future-of-urban-travel-first
======
outime
As a Helsinki resident (and Whim user) it’s important to point out that while
the user base of Whim has grown quite a bit, it’s most likely due to the
introductory price that won’t last forever. For 49 € you get public transport,
public bike (first half an hour free), cheap taxi rides and perhaps slightly
cheaper car renting, whereas to get public transport alone without this app is
around 55 €. So I wouldn’t call it a success just yet.

~~~
nabla9
As a another Helsinki resident, I agree. Whim is nice experiment but not
necessarily a solution with their current business model.

I think that Whim (or another Whim type service) can work if you consider the
the price of the parking space.

Currently Helsinki has zoning regulations for mandatory parking places that is
too high (roughly 0.8 per apartment). The cost of parking place is something
like 30,000 - 70,000 euros or more. Assuming that return of capital is 8%, the
cost of parking space is 100 - 400 euros per month.

If the mandatory zoning requirement is dropped, Whim style services can become
profitable even in the long term.

~~~
lewis500
That is a remarkable cost for a structured parking space! In America the
construction cost is like $20-30k (17-25k EUR). I bet you could find projects
for more than that but nothing like 70k EUR.

~~~
nabla9
If parking space is build underground as it often is in the cities, the
construction is expensive. If you build below sea level, it can be even more.

If you build above the ground, the construction cost can be just $20-30k EUR,
but after you factor in the cost of the land, the cost is similar.

------
mattlondon
Its the availability that is the killer for these sorts of services, as one of
the people interviewed in the article says.

I don't see how these services can compare with a private car without totally
saturating the neighborhood with lots of idle vehicles sitting around to cover
the spikes in demand without suffering infuriating unavailability when you
need to get somewhere. Its already annoying seeing all the dock-less bikes and
stuff left all over the streets - it'll be much worse when they are dumping
cars as well as bikes/scooters.

Having to wait 5+ minutes for Uber to accept your ride and then arrive
(complete with the little car icon doing seemingly pointless loop-the-loops on
the map) while you are left impatiently tapping your foot is fine every now
and then. But having to do that _everytime_ I want to get anywhere? Really?
Its not for me - I _value_ having a car sitting idle just so that it is
immediately ready for me to use at the precise moment I need it so I can just
jump in an go.

Would you sell your car and _rely_ on a service where they might one day just
not have any drivers available? I am sure many of us have been in situations
pre-ride-hailing apps where we'd be on a night out and call someone for a cab
only to be told there is a 2+ hour waiting list. Better start walking home
then I guess ...

One-way trips or if I am drunk is where ride-hailing shines - I dont think
it'll ever replace car ownership for anyone apart from those people living in
the absolute centre of cities who only need to get to work and bars (and in
those situations walking _is_ a viable option if you have the time)

~~~
ihaveajob
On the flip side, consider the time you spend looking for parking. Depending
on where you live, that's also a big time sink. I'd rather be checking Twitter
on the sidewalk than cursing the parking gods looping around, but that's just
me.

~~~
mattlondon
Yeah that is true - it can be useful in those situations where they can just
drop you off (often - at least in the UK - where parking is bad, public
transport is usually fairly functional though so that is an option too - that
said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport - e.g. instead of
going from A->B then B->C on a train, you can just go direct A->C etc)

Of course, a car-sharing application also suffers from the parking issue
though.

Personally for me I use my cars most where parking is not a problem (e.g.
driving to friends & family, to the shops, vacations etc). I fail to see how
ride-hailing is going to make this sort of use of a car obsolete.

~~~
icebraining
_that said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport_

But that's exactly it - when 95% of your transportation needs are better
solved by a tapestry of buses, trains, boats, bicycles, delivery services,
etc, keeping a car just for those 5% becomes an expensive and often
inconvenient luxury. It's like buying an apartment in every place you visit,
rather than using an hotel or equivalent. I don't think ride-hailing/taxis
will ever become a default, but it's an important part of the whole system.

------
skywhopper
I wish the author of the article didn’t repeat the trope about car sharing
reducing carbon emissions. Nothing about this app encourages ride-sharing per
se, so the actual car trips in a shared vehicle will not impact carbon
emissions. However, encouraging alternative forms of transit such as buses,
subways, trams, and bicycles is a big saving. This is a really I,portent
detail to get right. The only thing that’s going to cut back on the energy use
from private car rides is ... fewer private car rides, not shared cars.

~~~
logfromblammo
Shared vehicles don't need to be parked between rides, and sit idle much less
between rides. The former doesn't really impact anything unless shared
vehicles are common enough to impact city design. The latter doesn't impact
anything unless there is a marginal capital improvement to the vehicle that
only pays off if the duty cycle ratio is high enough. I don't know of any such
technology off hand. Bypass oil filters with full-synthetic lubricant,
perhaps? Season-specific tires? Special paint job that reflects all non-
visible light? Hybrid with regenerative brakes? They all seem to me like long
shots at producing an actual effect on emissions under real-world driving
conditions.

If anything, I'd think that shared vehicles could increase emissions, because
the vehicle has to travel between the site of one ride's end and the next
ride's beginning. That travel does not accomplish a goal of getting a rider
from their origin to their destination. The inter-ride travel is minimized in
a denser city, but those cities can make mass transit pay off more easily, for
the same reason. In a dense city, the strongly overlapping trips can be
coerced onto common routes with fixed stops. So the shared vehicle probably
does not save emissions unless the trips of multiple passengers can be easily
combined. And if they can, just put a bus route there.

------
jpatokal
As a former Helsinkian, I'm rather surprised to see the label "future of urban
travel" applied to a city that has banned all forms of Uber-style ride-sharing
due to pressure from the taxi lobby.

~~~
outime
I believe they banned it because they ignored the local laws (and Helsinki
isn’t exactly an isolated case of this behaviour from Uber) and were
unlicensed.

However they’ve recently regained presence in Helsinki since it’s been
legalized [1].

[1]
[https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/anyone_can_be_a_cabbie__n...](https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/anyone_can_be_a_cabbie__new_law_transforms_finnish_taxi_trade/10283444)

~~~
deanclatworthy
Uber black has returned which is basically taxis with the uber UI. I left on
vacation just before the regulations changed. What are the prices for Uber
compared to before with the private cars and drivers?

~~~
swebs
I just checked fares from the central railway station to the Herttoniemi metro
station 7.5km away.

Whim(Taksi Helsinki): €19.72

UberX €12-16:

UberBlack €17-23:

------
sandworm101
A great system for the young and able-bodied, those with no literal or
metaphorical baggage. But try getting on the bus with a disabled child in a
large wheelchair. Or try taking your bleeding dog to the vet in a cab. Or
board a bus carrying a windsurfer. I want to go rock climbing this weekend. No
bus or taxi will take me up a logging road. Must i walk from the nearest town?
Because then i'll have to take time off work. There will always be a place for
personal vehicles.

~~~
m_mueller
Wheelchair: Vote for better politicians who invest in accessible public
transportation. E.g. in Switzerland and I suspect most of Skandinavia this is
not a big deal.

Rock climbing: That's when you rent a car [1]. Although again, Switzerland's
trains, post buses and cablecars bring you there without any big issue, so if
there's the political will there's also a way, as long as you don't want to go
to a place that's too remote from densely populated areas.

Bleeding dog: Again, rent a car [1].

Windsurfer: You got me there, if you have that hobby you probably best have
your own car.

[1] we have a car sharing service here that is ubiquitous and costs you around
40-50 bucks for half a day and 40km or so. Doesn't sound that cheap, but a car
costs you at least 400 a month here (cost of ownership). Renting cars once a
weekend plus public transport subscription (70-250 dollars depending on your
needs) means you never have to care about parking spaces, you can comfortably
work on your way to work and you have a car when it's really the most useful
method.

~~~
sandworm101
Lol. Rent a car? Have you ever seen a car rental agreement that would allow a
rented car to be driven 10/20/30km up a logging road?

Do you know what it means to take an autistic child, or cancer patient, or
dementia sufferer, on public transportation for more than a few minutes? Not
everyone does well in groups or unfamiliar environments. Doctors regularly
tell people with suppressed immune systems to avoid public transportation due
to infection risk. Charities all over the world FLY these people in private
PLANES because they know how difficult even private cars can be when you are
ill.

My point is that there are a great many lifestyles and activities that either
demand or are made vastly simpler by personal vehicles. Not including personal
vehicles in a transportation plans pushes those people away.

Shameless plug for my favorite local charity:
[http://www.angelflight.ca/](http://www.angelflight.ca/) Fyi, these flights
walk on water in BC. Their callsign is given priority for everything. Fees are
waived. 747s and fighter jets will be moved to make room for them.

------
tuukkah
The ticket API and SDK for the greater Helsinki area subway, trains, trams and
busses is here: [https://sales-api.hsl.fi](https://sales-api.hsl.fi)

There's a call for new service pilots:
[https://hsl.fi/idealab](https://hsl.fi/idealab)

The official open data and APIs including GTFS, GraphQL and MQTT here:
[https://hsl.fi/en/opendata](https://hsl.fi/en/opendata)

Disclaimer: I've worked on these at HSL.

------
jpalomaki
There was quite interesting pilot service run by the entity responsible for
the public transportation in the Helsinki region in 2012-2015. It was called
"Kutsu Plus". There is a report available in English [1].

This service was something between bus and taxi. They were operating small
busses. All the rides started and ended at a bus stop (which you have plenty
in the region). You would use a website/mobile app to tell where you are going
and when. The system would then optimize the requests from multiple people,
determine the routes and tell you when to be at the bus stop, how long the
journey takes and the price.

Eventually the service was shut down as the local municipalities did not want
to put in more money to support it. All the trips were very heavily
subsidized. They would have needed to significantly grow the pilot to see if
could have become economically feasible.

Seems to be the software side of the project is now part of Volkswagen owned
Moia [2].

[1] [https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2016/final-report-kutsuplus-
trial...](https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2016/final-report-kutsuplus-trial-work-
develop-ride-pooling-worth-continuing-8568) [2]
[https://www.moia.io/](https://www.moia.io/)

------
ankit219
I can imagine this to work in a city like Mumbai - with one of the cities with
high population densities.

Context wise: Traffic in Mumbai is really bad at peak times, and has got worse
given the advent of ride hailing services. A lot of people already use the
public transport - the network of local trains and metros to get from Place A
to Place B. However, after you get down from a station/stop, you rely on
taxis, autos, buses, or ride hailing apps to get to final destination which
could be 4-5 miles away. and those options are not always available. This is
one of the reasons that some folks take their own vehicles even to far off
places despite them taking way too much time.

Where I can see this work is: Getting a ride share/bike/(even a scooter) to
get to the final place, instead of hailing a cab or an auto. Also, if more
people are using it, this would reduce the load on the roads, meaning people
might be able to use buses more. (right now, most of us avoid buses due to the
traffic situation here)

We already have really cheap passes for public transport. And the frequency is
already sufficiently high. If the last mile hailing can work, that could
reduce a lot of load, and people will pay for that.

Not too sure about the other cities.

------
yurishimo
The 499 euro price tag for the "all access" seems quite expensive from an
American point of view. I can get a decent car with good gas mileage for about
half that and outright buying a used car will save me a lot more in less than
a year. Most people who would be tempted to go without owning a car in the US
don't do much driving anyway, so they don't spend a lot on gas as is.

While I think this could work in NYC, Seattle, or San Francisco, most other
American cities have plenty of infrastructure and affordable parking to
support a high percentage of car ownership amongst citizens.

Heck, there was even a HN article a day or two ago about how parking spaces in
America outnumber actual cars by a huge margin in most American cities and
towns. I think in one city it was 80 to 1.

Unfortunately, the US is still too spread out for these types of services to
be useful in all but a few cities.

~~~
alistairSH
That's about $580 US. The average monthly payment on a NEW car in the US is
around $500 [0][1]. Add in parking (even "free" parking isn't), depreciation,
gasoline, insurance, and registration fees and that's pretty darn close to
$580.

From my perspective, living the DC suburbs, I would love to have an all-access
app for multi-mode transport. I own two cars (one for me, one for wife). I
walk to work, so my car only gets driven on the weekends, and only if my wife
and I are doing different things. It's a VERY expensive way to maintain my
weekend "freedom". Lyft/Uber would fill much of the gap, except I frequently
go camping 2-4 hours away. If Lyft had a "long term borrow" plan, I could get
rid of my $400/month car payment and all associated costs.

[0][https://www.thebalance.com/average-monthly-car-
payment-41376...](https://www.thebalance.com/average-monthly-car-
payment-4137650) [1]
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06/18/pete-
planner-503-avg-car-payment-too-rich-most-us/85493088/)

~~~
ghaff
Rent a car for the weekend? Though there's obviously some transaction overhead
associated with doing that.

~~~
alistairSH
I've considered it. But, the transaction overhead isn't small. I'd need to
reserve the car in advance, Lyft to the rental agency, etc. Currently, I can
decide to go to the mountains on a whim Friday afternoon.

~~~
ghaff
That makes perfect sense. It also highlights some of the reasons why, a lot of
the time, people own items that they don't use frequently. e.g. you may only
use a lawnmower 15 times a year but most people aren't going to rent one each
time.

~~~
alistairSH
Absolutely.

But, the cost of a car/truck is massive relative to most people's overall
budgets. So, there's probably lots of room for optimization through transit-
as-a-service.

~~~
ghaff
Sure. The cost of a car and, potentially, the cost of garaging a car in a city
definitely merit a harder look at alternatives than other items may. There are
definitely city-dwellers who don't drive a lot and, with increased
transportation options in a lot of cities, the marginal car-owner increasingly
has other options they can consider.

I know a couple in SF who don't own a car that probably wouldn't have been
able to do so prior to Uber/Lyft, Zipcar, food delivery, etc. Of course, they
also don't really do outdoor trips requiring a lot of gear on a regular basis
and their kids are grown up and moved out as well.

------
dharma1
I'm gonna be in Helsinki for a month from next week. Can I buy the €499
monthly deal and get a car for a month?

~~~
brylie
Disclosure: I work at MaaS Global.

While you could use the Whim app and a Total Freedom subscription to get 30
days of private care usage, we encourage people to use multiple modes of
transport that are best suited for varying needs.

Mobility as a Service is based on the idea of multi-modality and the premise
that private car ownership shouldn't be a requirement for freedom and
spontaneity. We are learning, in many cities worldwide, that private car
ownership is leading towards a congested and wasteful (in terms of space and
material resources) urban center.

As the MaaS concept and ecosystem are much bigger than one company, I
recommend checking out how other people, journalists, researchers, companies,
cities, and regions are exploring the concept :-)

------
dzhiurgis
Wonder if they ever going to come up with some sort of personal mobility
solution for winter. Bikes don’t work too well in summer. Perhaps some sort of
version of electric scooter or e-snowmobile.

------
illuminati1911
It’s amazing how this slimy advertisement hasn’t been flagged already.

I’m a former Helsinki resident at this is just overhyped bs ad for another
startup.

~~~
Jommi
Yeah it's abit of a fluff piece, but compared to stuff that comes out in the
US scene everyday it's nothing.

Can't we just once be positive? The app works, there are no lies in the
article. Maybe if people in Finland were a bit more optimistic there would be
more successful companies

~~~
illuminati1911
There is a fine difference between being positive and self-deception. There
are no direct lies, but like often in today's media they only focus on one
side of the story and leave important information out.

For example what was already meantioned here that this whole thing is just
initial offer subsidized with VC fund and that it will not last forever.

Second, the cheaper taxi's argument was true in a way few weeks ago when
Finland still had the old taxi monopoly regulation going on. Now that the
market is open, there are a lot of options and some probably even cheaper than
this. Also the article doesn¨t mention that you need to use special Whim-
supported taxi's which are very limited. In reality you are most likely not
going to get your "cheap taxi ride" when ever you need it.

Third, Whim has some kind of contract and/or legal problem with the Helsinki
Public Transit Authority and while regular users can just use the public
transit and keep the traffic card in their pocket, Whim users have to buy
individual tickets each time.

And the list goes on...

I like the idea of the company and idea of revolutionising public transit, but
these kind of BS advertisement which are made to look like news is not the way
to go.

~~~
Jommi
Yes, it's not a comprehensive overview of everything the app and concept has.
It's just an article exploring a cool new concept, and being positive about
it.

Yes, the price might change. But that also mean the service might change.

The reason whim taxis were only through a certain taxi company was because
that was the situation then. The app itself is aiming to be open for any ride-
sharing platform, so Uber or Taxify could easily integrate.

I'm sorry but your comment just feels like you're trying your best to be
pessimistic. It's healthy at times, but sometimes (especially with new
concepts), you should let things grow and evolve before squandering it's
opportunities.

------
Tepix
From TFA:

> The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal
> transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car
> is used only 4 percent of the time.

Sounds like a great opportunity indeed. Former car owners save money and the
car rental companies can still make a profit. Everyone (including the
environment) wins.

~~~
bluGill
That is an invalid comparison. All we know is that the 4% of time those people
spend in their car is to them worth a lot of money to them.

The costs of a car need to be paid. Rental cars need to pay the same costs.
(probably more because rental cars tend to be newer cars, and also because
people tend to abuse rental cars knowing that the cost will not be theirs.

Yes, if you rarely drive renting a car becomes cost effective. However we
already have car rental companies and car sharing companies. The economics of
them are something you can research if you are interested. It might or might
not pay off in any given situation.

------
icebraining
Can Whim do trip planning using all transportation options? Having a few apps
doesn't bother me, what I'm missing is something that says "hail a car to the
train station A, then take a train to station B and then a bicycle to point
C".

~~~
vesinisa
Yes, that's the whole point - combining transportation methods. Taxicabs,
trains and bike sharing are all available via different apps and APIs. Whim
aims to work as type of an aggregator who offers them all in the same app.

~~~
icebraining
Aggregating is one thing; Google Maps also aggregates ride-sharing and public
transport, but can't route using both at once.

------
nmeofthestate
"The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal
transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car is
used only 4 percent of the time."

This figure is a bit silly - you don't drive your car while you're sleeping,
or indeed when you're already where you want to be. Doesn't mean it's not a
useful thing to own.

~~~
alistairSH
4% of 24 hours is about 58 minutes.

So, 6% of the 16 hours/day you're awake. 9% of the 11 hours/day you aren't
sleeping or working.

Sure, owning a car is useful. But, private car ownership is highly
inefficient.

~~~
ghaff
The vast, vast bulk of things that people own they use a small percentage of
the time. To be sure, cars are expensive, their storage may be expensive in
some locations, and at least some people are fine with just renting a generic
car. But just observing that something isn't in use a high percentage of the
time doesn't really tell you anything about whether it makes sense to own vs.
short-term rent.

