Creation of the interoperability between the electronic ticketing systems in Estonia and Finland

Programme Priority: P3 Well-connected region

Programme Specific Objective: 3.1. Improved transport flows of people and goods

Sub-programme: Southern Finland - Estonia

Duration: 01.05.2018 - 30.04.2022

Total budget: €2 079 872

ERDF: €1 656 280

Project Summary:

Estonia and Finland are one of the most closely connected countries in Europe. Finland is the biggest foreign labour market for Estonians and Estonia is one of the most popular tourism destinations for Finns. The influx of people and goods have constantly been growing during the last decade. Projections show that these numbers are going to increaseA great deal of these passengers (approx. 60%) use public transportation, both for work and leisure. This means purchasing at least three different types of tickets – local tickets in either Helsinki, Tallinn or Tartu, and a ferry ticket. This is time-consuming.

The journey will get even more fragmented if the passengers need to travel outside the capital regions: urther destinations, such as Tartu have their local ticketing systems, which means another purchase. The e-ticketing project aims at connecting ticketing systems in Tallinn, Tartu, and Helsinki to enable seamless travelling. The project aims at talking this challenge with three interconnected actions: Firstly, the conceptual business model will to be sorted out. Secondly, the developing the system and testing it takes place. Thirdly, project partners will pilot the joint ticketing system in Tallinn, Tartu, and Helsinki.

As a result, it is expected that the time spent on travelling can be reduced approximately by 5%.

View this project in

Lead Partner

Tallinna linn

Country: EE

www.tallinn.ee

Partner budget: 974.553 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 818.624 EUR ERDF

Project Partners

Helsingin seudun liikenne

Country: FI

www.hsl.fi

Partner budget: 959.140 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 709.284 EUR ERDF

Tartu Linnavalitsus

Country: EE

www.tartu.ee

Partner budget: 187.394 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 159.004 EUR ERDF

Expected results

The project will directly contribute to the fulfilment of the programme result indicator as it is directly oriented in saving passengers’ travel time. It is expected that the time spent on travelling can be reduced approximately by 5%. An example: a person starts the journey from Tallinn. S/he firstly needs a local ticket (can be bought online as well as in kiosks), this will take some 5-15 minutes. Secondly, s/he buys the ferry ticket (another 5-10 minutes) and checks in. After arriving at Helsinki, s/he needs to buy another local ticket (e.g. tram no 9 from Helsinki West Harbour). The ticket queues are long (and outside!) – another 10-20 minutes spent. The same description applies for the journey from Helsinki to Tallinn, too. If these tickets can be purchased in one web page, the total time saved reaches up to 40 minutes. So, the proposed project will create a basis for one-stop-shop for international tickets.

Three different ticketing solutions will be created. First stage (the interoperable mobile ticket) means that people travelling to Tallinn (or Tartu) from Helsinki (and vice versa) can buy Tallinn (and Tartu) public transport mobile ticket from Helsinki's mobile application (and vice versa). The second stage (interoperability for contactless EMV cards) will be created by integrating customer portals in a way, that passenger can see its trips and payments for all cities in the same interface. The third stage (the interoperability with existing travel cards) means that Finnish travellers do not have to purchase an Estonian travel card, but can buy the online ticket to their already existing travel cards (Matkakortti of HSL). This will be done in an account based principle, meaning that no actual ticket information will be written on the travel card itself, but the card will act as a token only. The vica versa version for Estonian travellers will be created when the ID based ticketing system in Helsinki is carried out.