On-demand bus service Kutsuplus

Location:
Population:
620 715 (2014)
GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP):
47 547.00US$ (2014)

The on-demand bus service Kutsuplus has been designed in response to Helsinki’s aspiration to make car ownership pointless and to transform the city’s existing public transport network into a new form of a “user-centred mobility on demand” system. The service has been implemented by the City of Helsinki together with the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority and the company AJELO as an innovative mobility system that would be able to integrate all public transport routes on a single public transport service in real-time. The Kutsuplus service has been operational between 2013 and 2015. It allowed users to manage their demand on the public transport system directly from their smartphones. The Kutsuplus minibus could be called online or with a smartphone app that gathered a whole range of associated bus, tram, metro and taxi routes. Customers were picked up within a user-selected timeframe (5, 10 or 45min) and could travel on and paying the rate chosen (the specific rate was depending on the speed of transportation chosen). Despite its positive feedback, Kutsuplus service was stopped in December 2015 as to unacceptable costs compared to the number of passengers. However, in being an exceptional on-demand mobility service following dynamic routes and schedules, Kutsuplus set an important mark as regards the future development of innovative public transport systems. Currently, Kutsuplus is searching for new market opportunities and business models which would enable the service to restart operations in 2017-2018.