"Topping up" a sisäinen ticket [HSL services]

jackbarnard · Post by **jackbarnard** » Wed May 27, 2015 1:13 pm

Hi, I have a question about the ticketing on HSL services that I can't seem to find a definitive answer to and I have been given opposing opinions on by different Finnish friends of mine.

I already have a prepaid Espoo sisäinen ticket on my travel card (which I use for work). But if one day I decide that I want to travel into Helsinki, can I simply buy the Helsinki sisäinen to cover the Helsinki leg of the trip? Or do I need to buy the seutulippu?

It would seem unfair to me to have to buy the region ticket, as then you are paying to travel in Espoo twice, but not all things in life are fair

If anyone can clear this up for me I would appreciate it!

Jack

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Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Wed May 27, 2015 5:54 pm

tummansininen wrote:No - you must pay a regional "2" ticket for crossing the border. I agree with you that it seems unfair, but when I asked the same question my mother-in-law managed to find it written in Finnish (and I'm afraid I can't locate it again - but it's there somewhere on the HSL site).

"You always need to purchase a ticket valid for the entire journey. For example, you cannot buy two internal tickets when traveling across zone boundaries; you need to have a regional or extended regional ticket."
https://www.hsl.fi/en/information/how-u ... -transport

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Wed May 27, 2015 5:59 pm

jackbarnard wrote:I already have a prepaid Espoo sisäinen ticket on my travel card (which I use for work). But if one day I decide that I want to travel into Helsinki, can I simply buy the Helsinki sisäinen to cover the Helsinki leg of the trip? Or do I need to buy the seutulippu?

It would seem unfair to me to have to buy the region ticket, as then you are paying to travel in Espoo twice, but not all things in life are fair ;-)

The answer can be found in the HRT Tickets(/Fares) FAQ:

"I have a Helsinki internal season ticket; can I add to it a value ticket to travel to Espoo or Vantaa?

You always need a ticket valid for the entire journey. This means you cannot combine a season ticket and value ticket to make a journey. For example, if you’re traveling from Helsinki to Espoo or Vantaa, you need a regional ticket purchased by pressing ‘2’ on the card reader. You cannot use your Helsinki internal ticket as “part payment"."

If you want to pinch your pennies, you could board an Espoo bus with your season card, hop off at an Espoo stop closest to the municipal border, walk over to the other side, wait for another bus/line, and hop on again paying a single local fare for the rest of your journey within Helsinki. But that's a bit inconvenient...

Note that HRT is planning to replace the current municipal borders-based system with a zone-based ticket/fares system in a couple of years time.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Wed May 27, 2015 9:21 pm

Jukka Aho wrote:Note that HRT is planning to replace the current municipal borders-based system with a zone-based ticket/fares system in a couple of years time.

I don't see that the new system which supposedly is better is much better than what exists now. the main difference being that the zones become more concentric rather than fixed on the municipal borders.

here are the new zones. There are only three covering the helsinki/espoo/vantaa area, it's quite similar to merging espoo/vantaa + having a new helsinki central zone.

https://www.hsl.fi/sites/default/files/ ... ykkeet.pdf

but unless they introduce the concept of a short trip ticket like in germany (where they also have this concentric zone type system) then you have exactly the same problem as we are discussing. Suppose you have a monthly ticket for zone A+B and want to visit tikkurila (about 1km north of zone B boundary). You will (like now) end up paying for a complete ticket (perhaps you can get away with B+C and not have to pay A+B+C).

And similar with travelling one stop on the bus from the edge of B into zone C. For what might be a 200m bus trip you will pay the same (B+C) as the 60km or so from the western edge of espoo to Korso in the north of Vantaa (and yes you can get there by train without going through zone A).

I didn't understand the logic that you cannot buy tickets for just one zone in ABC region. You can only buy AB or BC or ABC tickets. No ticket for just one of those zones.

For some real challenges with the transport system

a) try to work out what a "two hour" ticket is and what it might look like (the phrase "disposable travelcard" was beyond them)
b) try to understand this map https://www.vr.fi/cs/vr/en/paakaupunkis ... vyohykk_en it bears very little relationship to geography (all lines go directly north). there are two parallel routes from helsinki to kerava! meaning two tikkurula stations (east tikkurila and west tikkurila perhaps?). and there are two HSL areas: the "HSL area" and the "HSL area as a so called third zone". what's all that about?

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Wed May 27, 2015 10:36 pm

I think for plenty of people the new zones mean a more expensive ticket. If you work in Keilaniemi and live in Espoo then currently it's a one zone (espoo) ticket. Under the new system if you live in western espoo then it's two zones B+C.

it will be interesting to see how they sign these new zones. currently it's obvious on any map (since it's aligned with the municipal boundaries). Will the bus stops show the zone letter? And the ticket machine on the bus/train.. with four zones A/B/C/D there are a lot more combinations and I doubt they will implement tap in-tap out so you will have a lot more thinking to do (and will have memorized the zone boundaries).

I much prefer the London system. There are zones for the tube/train since it's easy to look at a zone map and know which station is in which zone. but for buses there are no zones. There is a flat fee for any bus journey. No worrying about zones. No stress if you are not sure which stop to get off at and you bought a ticket for two zones when you realise you're going to travel through three zones. and no inconsistencies when the bus zig-zags in and out of zone boundaries (Makkyla area take a bow).

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Thu May 28, 2015 9:02 pm

riku2 wrote:I think for plenty of people the new zones mean a more expensive ticket. If you work in Keilaniemi and live in Espoo then currently it's a one zone (espoo) ticket. Under the new system if you live in western espoo then it's two zones B+C.

"In the zone model, [...] Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa are located in the three innermost zones. In this ABC area, season, value and single tickets are always valid for at least two zones (AB or BC)."

https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2013/hsls-ex ... ystem-4244

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Thu May 28, 2015 9:20 pm

Jukka Aho wrote: In this ABC area, season, value and single tickets are always valid for at least two zones (AB or BC)

That's correct. so in my example of western espoo -> keilaniemi commuting the season ticket will change from espoo internal -> BC ticket. Which is more expensive (according to the explanations on the website). The AB ticket seems to be the same price as the existing single city ticket. But BC is more expensive.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Thu May 28, 2015 10:34 pm

riku2 wrote:
Jukka Aho wrote:That's correct. so in my example of western espoo -> keilaniemi commuting the season ticket will change from espoo internal -> BC ticket. Which is more expensive (according to the explanations on the website). The AB ticket seems to be the same price as the existing single city ticket. But BC is more expensive.

Ah. I skimmed through the lead paragraph and assumed the two-zone tickets AB and BC are going to be priced the same... a bit like the current single-city tickets, which they will effectually replace. Not so.

However, they are going to introduce a single fare ticket (cheaper than the normal single fare ticket) you can buy on top of your two-zone season ticket if you need to cross over to a third zone. Which I guess what the OP originally asked about. So there's that, at least. Doesn't help with commuting, though.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Thu May 28, 2015 10:56 pm

Jukka Aho wrote:However, they are going to introduce a single fare ticket (cheaper than the normal single fare ticket) you can buy on top of your two-zone season ticket if you need to cross over to a third zone. Which I guess what the OP originally asked about. So there's that, at least. Doesn't help with commuting, though.

I didn't know that. it will be interesting to see what name they come up for it since HSL is generally hopeless in naming their ticketing products.
"personal travelcard" really says nothing about what it really is - residents travelcard more accurately describes it since it's only available to those resident in certain parts of the country. "personal" implies dedicated to one person (which it is but the important thing is where that one person lives).
same for "two hour ticket" which is not actually a ticket but a kind of travelcard, not that the website reveals that it's actually a kind of travelcard.
and the names in finnish are the equivalent. so equally hopeless. have they not realised that if you name the products well people can work out from the name what they are. obviously not.

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Fri May 29, 2015 9:09 am

tummansininen wrote:... the new system will be MUCH better for people who travel very short distances yet have to go over a border. The present system means if you go one stop on the train, from Tikkurila to Puistola, it costs you a regional ticket! The new system won't have that problem.

Won't it????

I have the same confusion as riku2:

I don't see that the new system which supposedly is better is much better than what exists now. The main difference being that the zones become more concentric rather than fixed on the municipal borders ...here are the new zones. There are only three covering the helsinki/espoo/vantaa area, it's quite similar to merging espoo/vantaa + having a new helsinki central zone. https://www.hsl.fi/sites/default/files/ ... ykkeet.pdf

And similar with travelling one stop on the bus from the edge of B into zone C. For what might be a 200m bus trip you will pay the same (B+C) as the 60km or so from the western edge of Espoo to Korso in the north of Vantaa...

Exactly what is so different with the new system?

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Fri May 29, 2015 10:05 am

tummansininen wrote:... the new system will be MUCH better for people who travel very short distances yet have to go over a border. The present system means if you go one stop on the train, from Tikkurila to Puistola, it costs you a regional ticket! The new system won't have that problem.

The issue with this statement is that it's mixing up two benefits of the new system.

The new system has
1) different boundaries
2) the concept of what we might call an "add on ticket" if you have zone A/B ticket and want to go into zone C. You only pay the extra part you don't already have, not a ticket for the complete route like now.

The Tikkurila -> Puistola benefit comes from the zone boundaries changing but for every trip where you can say the new zones are better you can find examples when they are worse. Trips completely inside espoo might go from one zone now -> two zones in the future (and two zones in some circumstances are more expensive than current one zone tickets).
Two zone trips are also not as expensive as for the current regional ticket . Since regional in the future maps to A/B/C (three zones). I have not seen details of the single ticket prices for the new system though. They only mentioned that approximately
A/B season ticket = current single city price
B/C season ticket = single city price + 10euro
A/B/C season ticket = regional ticket price

Benefit 2 in no way relates to the zone boundaries changing. they could implement it now if they wanted. but I suppose the ticketing machines would need changing, so they are doing 1 and 2 a the same time.

Perhaps they will change the ticket machines so that you have a choice of zone buttons (A/B/C/D). You tap the zone of your final destination. If the machine in the bus/train knows where it currently is then it can calculate what kind of ticket you need, including the logic that if you have an A/B season ticket and you enter C as your final destination then you're only charged a single ticket for travel in zone C (and not A/B/C like currently).

tuttu · Post by **tuttu** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:27 pm

there will always be border cases where the prices seem to be too high (or too low, but nobody ever complains about that).

i feel with the original poster; it has happened to me at least once that i bought an espoo "sisäinen" ticket and realized in hanasaari that i have to go to helsinki anyway - nothing doing, i had to buy another "seutu" ticket.
on the other hand, it has also happened that i bought a "sisäinen" ticket and forgot about it and stayed on the bus until kamppi.

there's another alternative: you can leave a bicycle at the last bus stop (often hanasaari) and cycle the rest of the journey to helsinki.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Sat May 30, 2015 9:11 pm

tuttu wrote:there will always be border cases where the prices seem to be too high (or too low, but nobody ever complains about that).

In the new system there will be no case where a 200m travel from one bus stop to the next will cost twice as much as going miles to the other direction. That is a clear benefit.

jackbarnard · Post by **jackbarnard** » Sun May 31, 2015 9:40 pm

Thanks for all the detailed replies guys

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