Helsinki Uses Smartphones to Make Cars Obsolete

July 17, 2014 by

Image credit: Lauri Rantala

Imagine this: you’re at home and you want to see a movie, but the only theater where it’s playing is across town. Nowadays you might open up your Maps app, find out how to get there, and then decide if you want to take your car, get a cab, use Uber, or take a train. With all these options, it’s actually a pretty tough decision.

Now imagine an app that will show you the fastest way to get there based on real-time conditions, whether it’s by subway, train, bus, taxi, or bicycle. Also, you can pay for any of these options inside the app, and the app will summon a car or show you how to walk to the nearest bus stop or subway station—or it’ll show you the closest available city bicycle. Also, it’s all run by the city.

It sounds impossible, but it may soon be a reality in Europe. In Finland, the City of Helsinki is working on such a product. The idea is that the municipal government itself will offer an app where people can choose any transportation option in one place, whether it’s a carpool, a taxi, or a train ticket.

The city commissioned Sonja Heikkilä, a transportation engineer, to study how such a project could be developed and implemented, and now the City is planning to start the project by the end of 2014 in a test neighborhood. If successful, the city expects to extend the program to the entire city and beyond by 2025.

Heikkilä believes that such a project could render private ownership of cars obsolete—which is absolutely fine with Finland’s youth. “A car is no longer a status symbol for young people,” Heikkilä said in an interview on the project. While the city has no plans to ban car ownership, Heikkilä expects that a one-stop shop for all transportation needs would result in less cars on the road and less demand for cars in the future.

The Finnish project is a sharp contrast to recent developments in America, where city officials have aggressively resisted transportation alternatives like ride sharing networks and taxi apps such as Lyft and Uber. Recently, New York City’s taxi drivers have united to ask city officials and New York state to investigate Uber, while the state’s attorney general has launched an investigation about Uber’s alleged price gouging during Hurricane Sandy.

 

Related Articles