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Finland's Algorithm-Driven Public Bus
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Where's the Uber-like interactivity for getting a bus to come to you after a tap on your cell phone? In Finland, actually. The Kutsuplus is Helsinki's groundbreaking mass transit hybrid program that lets riders choose their own routes, pay for fares on their phones, and summon their own buses. It's a pretty interesting concept. With a ten-minute lead time, you summon a Kutsuplus bus to a stop using the official app, just as you'd call a livery cab on Uber. Each minibus in the fleet seats at least nine people, and there's room for baby carriages and bikes. You can call your own private Kutsuplus, but if you share the ride, you share the costs — it's about half the price of a cab fare, and a dollar or two more expensive than old school bus transit. You can then pick your own stop, also using the app."
Weapons systems, contractors, aerospace, telco, medical equipment, computer software (with free NSA inside). :)
The USA has basically settled into a top 10% doing engineering work for top $ and having it "made in China" or Laos or Indonesia.
Great if you have a double degree paid off or generational trust fund. So the products are been created, just not from the USA beyond design.
The US has the software, talent and creativity to rule the world but the world is moving on to more fun things
The world dreams of small busses not another export shipment of boondoggled small US tanks for their generals to park at a base.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
point is, it's cheaper than cab.
do you know how much a cab costs in finland?
EUR â 5.9 for first 0Km(that's right just getting into the taxi is 5.9 euros)
and then EUR â 1.52 per Km (1-2 passangers).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Kutsuplus's price is 3.50 € ($4.73) + 0.45 €/km ($0.98/mile). For cabs, base price is 5.90€ ($7.97) € or 9€ ($12.16) depending on the time and the price per km is 1.52 € - 2.13€ depending on number of passengers ($3.31 - $4.63 per mile). The price for single mass transit ticket (inside Helsinki) is 2.80€ ($3.78) when bought from the driver and it's good for 60 minutes (or 80 minutes when bought from certain busses).
I don't know why this is news, you could do this around 15 years ago, with only exception being that you had to call them instead of using a smartphone app (I actually used similar travel to go to school for couple years around 98/99).
With any luck, our government will also tax our gas to the point where paying $10 to wait for a bus in the rain and then ride in it with random strangers for an hour all over the town will make more sense than driving directly there in comfort of your own car in 15 minutes. And who says innovation comes only from the private sector!
Only if you try to get everything wrong wherever you can. Apparently Helsinki is an expensive town regarding mass transit. Mass transit here is available for $2, is faster than by car and all stops have roofs. To summarize:
1) 6:00-21:00 the waiting times are 5min for a single line and less if you can choose from more than one line on your route.
2) Every stop has a roof so you don't need to worry about rain.
3) Most of the time you are faster by feet than car (3 lanes) if you are inside a circle of 5miles radius around the city core and mass transit has their own lanes (one dedicated lane in the middle of the road), too.
4) 3 doesn't include time to search for a free parking lot. You can avoid that be renting your own for 65$/month though (on the cheap end).
5) Running costs, insurance and taxes make a car far more expensive than mass transit's monthly tickets.
6) You can read, play or do other stuff with your smartphone while on the ride.
Just because your government fails at so many levels it doesn't mean the rest of the world needs to follow.
Meanwhile in 80 km southwards, in Tallinn, mass transit is free for registered inhabitants of the city... and nope, you don't summon buses. In former Soviet Estonia, buses summon you. :P
In Tallinn, it makes sense to fund the bus network from general taxes, because only local residents are going to use the bus network: the area that tourists confine themselves to (the port and the Old Town) is so small that they don't really need to use buses.
In Helsinki on the other hand, the tourist attractions are quite spread out, so you get a lot of tourists using public transit, and if you have to keep the army of ticket inspectors working to check up on them, you might as well maintain the fare system as it is.
That said, public transportation is heavily subsidized for those who can prove they are Helsinki residents, and a monthly pass for unlimited use costs only around 40â, which I feel is reasonable.