A new-era, open Journey Planner is available for testing

In June, the Finnish Transport Agency published a beta version of the nationwide journey.fi service, which is now being renewed. The nationwide Journey Planner will offer comprehensive services for those travelling from city to city and locally.

The Finnish Transport Agency and HSL are working in collaboration to overhaul the Journey Planner under a project named Digitransit. Once the project is complete, travellers will have a modern timetable and route planner covering all forms of public transport and featuring a number of new features. The data and application code are open, enabling service providers to develop new services for travellers.

Both HSL’s route search and the nationwide journey.fi service have been available for years. The Digitransit project will make the services more homogeneous and better suited for mobile devices.

You can familiarise yourself with the nationwide journey.fi service at http://beta.matka.fi/. The project is seeking to cover all municipalities and cities in Finland in the service, making all public transport timetables available at a single site. Service design for the nationwide Journey Planner is now under development; the new journey.fi service will be made available to the public in early 2017. The aim is to open HSL’s route search in a new environment by the end of 2016.

“To put it in a nutshell, we will enable a navigator for public transport passengers,” says Martin Johansson, Public Transport Expert at the Finnish Transport Agency. “Public transport passengers are increasingly using smart phones to search for information while they travel. It would therefore make sense to make services directly compatible with mobile devices,“ Johansson adds.

The Digitranit project of the Finnish Transport Agency seeks to ensure that route and timetable data gathered from various sources are comprehensive and of high-quality.

The new services will also be increasingly available in real time. The beta version of the Journey Planner already displays real-time data on certain buses, trains and trams. From autumn 2016, all HSL public transport in the Helsinki metropolitan area will be included in the real-time data provision system. The new open Journey Planner will enable the user to take advantage of the fact that mobile devices can pinpoint his or her location. Based on the user’s location, the Journey Planner will suggest the most advantageous route. If there are disturbances on the route, the Journey Planner redirects the user to a new route.

“We aim to be open in many ways. Our data and source code are open, including the actual development work,” Johansson comments.

About The Finnish Transport Agency

The Finnish Transport Agency is an expert organisation responsible for Finland’s roads, railways and waterways and for the overall development of Finland's transport system. FTA operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. FTA acts in a responsible, effective and innovative way to optimise the effectiveness of the transport system, improve traffic safety and enhance sustainable development in all regions. The Agency was created on 1 January 2010 and has its origins partly in the Finnish Rail Administration (RHK) and partly in the previous Finnish Maritime Administration and the Finnish Road Administration. The Finnish Railway Administration (RHK) was previously responsible for the management of rail transport infrastructures and currently is responsible for the design, construction, maintenance and traffic control on the Finnish rail network. The main user of the Finnish rail network is the VR Group.