Estonia and Finland will both benefit from the new cross-border development co-operation for the journey planning service, gaining shared knowledge and an improved passenger experience – a significant outcome of EU-based project FinEst Smart Mobility.
Maanteeamet, the Estonian Road Administration, is starting to use the Finnish-based Digitransit journey planning platform for public transport, cycling and walking. Digitransit has been developed in Finland by HSL, LMJ and Traficom, with all public transport authorities’ journey planners in the major cities in Finland using the Digitransit platform. The technology transfer received funding from the FinEst Smart Mobility project and the work was conducted by Forum Virium Helsinki.
There has been some interest from other countries, but Estonia was the first to truly commit to future cooperation and development of a common platform.
“This is very good news for all Digitransit users. In an open platform all development results will be shared with others, therefore it is to everyone’s benefit to have more partners who can participate in common development,” says Project Manager Jari Honkonen from Forum Virium Helsinki.
A new planner in autumn
Maanteeamet is planning to introduce the new journey planner service in autumn with Digitransit. The open source Digitransit platform offers the same journey planning features that public transport customers have in major Finnish cities.
“We’re delighted to be starting technical and business cooperation, allowing us to benefit from Finnish knowledge and experience to deliver a new journey planner in Estonia with lower costs and a quicker timeframe. We’re looking forward to moving forward together with the Digitransit roadmap to offer our users an excellent customer experience,” says Kaspar Karm from Maanteeamet.
Digitransit is an open source software providing versatile features for smart cities. HSL Helsinki Region Transport authority, LMJ and Traficom have funded development so far and are hoping to see other parties utilise the code too. More information about how to start using it can be found in the project documentation: https://digitransit.fi/en/
Read more about the FinEst Smart Mobility project
Photo: HSL
The objective of the FinEst Smart Mobility project is to reduce emissions, noise and other negative impacts of traffic in the ports and cities of Helsinki and Tallinn. The aim is to tackle these challenges through intelligent traffic solutions. The project will run until autumn 2019.
The FinEst Smart Mobility project has a budget of EUR 1.8 million and it is co-funded by the Interreg Central Baltic programme. The project is being carried out by the City of Helsinki, the City of Tallinn, ITL Digital Lab, the City of Vantaa, Forum Virium Helsinki, and the Estonian Road Administration, with Helsinki Region Transport as associated partner.
Forum Virium Helsinki is the innovation company of the City of Helsinki, which aims to build Helsinki into the most functional smart city in the world in collaboration with companies, the scientific community and residents.
Further information
Jari Honkonen
#smartcity #smartmobility #userexperience
#servicedesign #openinnovations #sohjoa
Mobile: +358 40 501 4528
jari.honkonen(at)forumvirium.fi
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