Helsinki public transport question

wolf80 · Post by **wolf80** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:15 pm

Maybe a stupid question, but even after several years in the country I haven't figured i hisout as I rarely need it. How does it work when you go between the different zones and have a time-ticket and travel in multiple zones with HSL.

Let's say you have a one-month time-ticket for Espoo, and you go from Espoo to Helsinki. Do you have to pay for a two-zone trip even though you have Espoo covered? Or do you only buy the ticket for Helsinki? And if, when do you book it from your travel card, at the beginning of the trip, or when you cross the zones?

I've heard that some time ago the machines recognized that you have a time-ticket on your travel card and only booked the difference, but that nowadays they can't do that anymore. Still seems silly paying for a zone for which you already have a monthly ticket.

cheers!

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tavastia · Post by **tavastia** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:28 pm

You will need a two zone ticket even you have a monthly, or even a single, ticket for one zone.

leisl · Post by **leisl** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:10 am

wolf80 wrote:Maybe a stupid question, but even after several years in the country I haven't figured i hisout as I rarely need it. How does it work when you go between the different zones and have a time-ticket and travel in multiple zones with HSL.

Let's say you have a one-month time-ticket for Espoo, and you go from Espoo to Helsinki. Do you have to pay for a two-zone trip even though you have Espoo covered? Or do you only buy the ticket for Helsinki? And if, when do you book it from your travel card, at the beginning of the trip, or when you cross the zones?

I've heard that some time ago the machines recognized that you have a time-ticket on your travel card and only booked the difference, but that nowadays they can't do that anymore. Still seems silly paying for a zone for which you already have a monthly ticket.

cheers!

You have to pay the whole two zones even if you already have "time" for Espoo. Sucks but true. Even the old machines charged you the whole amount, so I am not sure where that idea comes from, unless we're talking a long, long time ago.

And you must pay for it before you cross the zone line (since you have a time ticket for the zone you're in, you can do this at the last stop/station before you cross, if for example you want as many minutes as you can get for the free transfers).

mois_2012 · Post by **mois_2012** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:43 pm

wolf80 wrote:
Let's say you have a one-month time-ticket for Espoo, and you go from Espoo to Helsinki. Do you have to pay for a two-zone trip even though you have Espoo covered? Or do you only buy the ticket for Helsinki? And if, when do you book it from your travel card, at the beginning of the trip, or when you cross the zones?

cheers!

I think, you are talking about the same bus (being in the same bus whole time) you are taking from Espoo to Helsinki. In that case, it does not matter where in Espoo you get in, you must use 2-region ticket or punch your travel card for 2 regions before you cross the last station of the region you get in.

However, there is a kind of uncomfortable way to save your money. As you have monthly card for Espoo, you can come to the last station of Espoo region, get down from the bus and walk to the first station of the Helsinki region and get into another bus and press your card for one region. However, the distance between these two stations is usually close to 1 km or more. Therefore, it will take about 10-12 minutes walk.

wolf80 · Post by **wolf80** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:22 pm

Thank you guys for your answers. That's unfortunate and does not really invite people to use public transportation, but that's how it is. Let's hope they change that at some point. cheers!

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:25 pm

roger_roger wrote: Good thing is this is somehow changing coming year.

Or maybe not. Someone told me the new zoning/pricing system has been postponed while they re-think. Huge opposition from people in places in Espoon keskus, for example. Good news as I am right on the boundary and the "cheap" bus will only run every 30 mins whereas the buses in the next zone turn up every 5-10 minutes and are no further away from where I live.

Piet · Post by **Piet** » Thu Oct 20, 2016 10:22 pm

wolf80 wrote:Thank you guys for your answers. That's unfortunate and does not really invite people to use public transportation, but that's how it is. Let's hope they change that at some point. cheers!

Public transport is not inviting period!!

I really do never take any public transport if it is not really necessary, and even then....

But I guess parking in the center of Helsinki is no fun either for 1 euro/ 12 minutes

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Fri Oct 21, 2016 12:41 am

Silly whingers. Public transport is excellent and great in Finland! You save so much money and get to just about anywhere in metropolitan and cities close to the capital. Even when I lived in Vaasa, I actually lived outside of it, by about 15km. Mustasaari (It was over 20 years ago, I can't even remember the name of the place anymore. It was that tiny!). We had buses in both the morning and afternoons. It was great!

Live in much bigger countries, spread out. Where public transport is !"#¤% and heaps more costly.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:23 pm

Piet wrote:Public transport is not inviting period!!

What is equally annoying is that with the time based system, if your journey is delayed say by a late running train then your time can run out and you have to buy ANOTHER ticket to complete your journey. In the UK travel delays can mean a refund of your ticket, not having to pay extra for another ticket!

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:41 pm

riku2 wrote: In the UK travel delays can mean a refund of your ticket, not having to pay extra for another ticket!

Therefore, public transport in the UK has got to be way better than in Finland, right?

Bavarian · Post by **Bavarian** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 2:37 pm

The obvious solution would be to have overlapping zones, say, having the last stop of all those commuter lines in Espoo and Vantaa be part of both their zones and the Helsinki zone, and have the first stop in Helsinki be part of the Helsinki zone as well as the Espoo or Vantaa zone as the case may be.

That, or special zones for commuting to downtown from outside Ring I/Ring III (depending on where they want to configure the zones) where you can buy the daily commute along a particular line and then pay separately for other stuff.

leisl · Post by **leisl** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 3:29 pm

Gobsmacked that people think Helsinki's public transport is bad. It's beyond fantastic. And yes, try living in the UK or Australia or most of the USA, you will learn what "garbage" and "expensive" mean.

If you really think the Helsinki public transport is expensive compared with driving then you truly have no concept of what owning a car really costs you. ie fuel, tyres, oil, maintenance, parking, registration, and depreciation (that's the big one). The answers is thousands per year.

Oombongo · Post by **Oombongo** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:01 pm

Helsinki transport is all good till:
some idiot decides to show up with food and/or coffee
some moron listening to music in his/her cheap ass earbuds, and you enjoy bottom 10 music tracks.
some drunk shows up and the whole seat row starts to smell like public toilet
some stupid mama can't control her screaming brat.
some nincompoop decides to open the beer can.

seriously though, trouble makers and people with food shouldn't be allowed in public transportation at all.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 12:15 am

leisl wrote:Gobsmacked that people think Helsinki's public transport is bad. It's beyond fantastic.

I don't see that it's that fantastic compared to somewhere like Munich or Frankfurt. Where is the integration between the metro and the central train station? or at ruoholahti where everyone transferring from metro to tram must come up and cross the street at a pedestrian crossing to catch a tram or enter the ruoholahti shopping mall (there should be a sub street level permitting access to trams and shopping mall without going up the street level first).
Prices in those cities are much lower with more sensible zone systems (that might finally arrive in the helsinki area).

On the other hand Helsinki is equal to Munich in some respects. They both have train connections to the airport that stop at about a dozen commuter stations on the way, so Helsinki is equal on those terms.

wolf80 · Post by **wolf80** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:28 pm

How public transportation is for you in the greater Helsinki area depends a lot on where you live, some areas are incredibly well connected, while others are completely neglected. In general it is rather easy to go most places in that area without having to change bus/metro/tram more than one time, which is my personal definition for a well planned transportation system. The more routes there are for getting from any point A to any any point B where you have to change more often than one time, the worse the transportation net is. I think for that Helsinki is rather good, but improvements are definitely possible.

The other important factor is to make public transportation attractive financially. If it's cheaper to got by car then less people will use public transportation. Like, having to pay for more than 8 Euro to go to the inner city and back from ouside of the Helsinki core zone is rather harsh in my opinion. If I already have a monthly ticket for one of the two zones I see it as plain robbery, as I'm paying double for one zone. So I end up not going that often, or will take the car to a station within the Helsinki zone and only pay one zone then. I think when it comes to pricing Helsinki has still lots to do to make public transport more attractive!

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