Most of the people who travel without a ticket do so on Friday-Saturday evenings. Strange because that is when they are out in force checking. At least in the early evenings.

I don’t think they check later at night though. Must be against their union contracts to work late.

I saw two Somlians get booted from busses over the past few weeks—several others throughout the year. Usually, they either try to sneak-in the ‘exit’ door, so the driver doesn’t see them; or they try to use an expired ticket.

The drivers are always wise to their little trickery though.

Helsinki has more expensive transit than most European cities that I’ve seen—that is, in relation to people’s net income. So, maybe I shouldn’t blame the Somalians for attempting to even-out their costs a bit.

I always used to buy “time” on my ticket-card, i.e. 6 months of unlimited travel, but realised a year or so ago that I now cycle so much (I will pass 2000 kms for this year cycling home this evening, and did just over 3000 each of the two last years) that for the days when I don’t fancy cycling it’s better value just to have “money” on your ticket and pay for the journeys you do make.

When you have bought “time” then you don’t really notice the lack of enforcement because you know you’ve done the right thing regardless of whether anyone checks your ticket or not but if you have to make the concious decision to pay then you notice. In the last three years I have never seen ticket checkers on the train, and only once have been checked on a tram: and this is out of thousands of journeys I have made. So I don’t think the tickets are too expensive – although who would complain if they are cheaper – but rather there is so little risk in not paying for the tram or train that it would actually make rational economic sense to not pay and just cough up once every three years if you get caught and fined.

Somewhat off-topic:

The BBC was interviewing Swedes about the upcoming election. One of them was this guy with a not-so Swedish name.

“Get working – Kari Rantanen, 45. Teacher.

There are too many people on welfare in Sweden and the state is too powerful. People must be encouraged to work. Jobs is the main issue, then children and the elderly. The Social Democrats have been in power too long, they offer no new ideas.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/europe_swedish_voters0_views/html/8.stm

This guy is needed back in Finland!

Is this election anything important?

I pay 80-euros/month for unlimited travel within zones Helsinki, Espoo & Vantaa. I’ve been checked several times this year.

I think our transit is expensive considering its sparsity. There are long waits, and I usually can’t even get from Helsinki to Espoo after 1am.

It’s like all that Espoo money could be spent in Helsinki restaurants. Instead, it goes to waste because of the lousy transit connection. It’s this type of constraint that makes everything so expensive here in Finland.

The gates are so much need from Kamppi to Sörkka, but other than that, it would become more expensive. There are like -what- 50 people getting in from Puotila..!

Just hike the penalty fee to 150e or so. That would eliminate me from occasionally travelling without paying. 66e is worth the risk. The best thing is that no one should have anything to say about how high the penalty fee is. Just buy the freaking ticket and it’s completely avoidable.

Without any further investigation I’d say the inceased ticket sales and additional fees collected from stowaways would pay for the extra personnel.

“I think our transit is expensive considering its sparsity. There are long waits, and I usually can’t even get from Helsinki to Espoo after 1am.”

Not only is it expensive, it is also mostly designed with the idea that people are going to and from the center. Trying to get across town can be a very frustrating and time-wasting experience.

That would eliminate me from occasionally travelling without paying. 66e is worth the risk.

“Hello, I am from America, I love your country. It is so beautiful here! I’m so sorry, I don’t read Finnish and didn’t know where to pay. I thought public transportation in Scandinavia is free everywhere. No, sorry I don’t have my ID on me, I promise I’ll pay next time I’m visiting your lovely country.”

I buy more time on my card about monthly, for the Helsinki area. When I was in lukio I used to pay for an year in four parts. That way, on top of the student discount, I also saved about one or two months fees as bonus for buying longer period. And being still a student, the fees are ridiculously low IMO. Gotta see how I feel about them after graduation, but I’m guessing I feel they are justified.

Anyway. Being orginally from a smaller town in Finland, I just love the public transport in Helsinki. There were no such thing as cross-city routes in Jyväskylä – you always have to first ride to the center and switch to bus going to where you wanted to, even when on the map this means making under 90 degrees turn in the center. Plus, you had to pay for another full ticket when you switched! The more freguent buses run every 30 minutes and they could be at the stop for -/+ 7 minutes. In overall, traveling 15 kilometers from my then-boyfriend to home at winter time took me about one and a half hour.

In Helsinki area, I can get easily anywhere with cross-city buses. You just need to learn the fastest routes or trust route finder. The only route tht used to annoy me was being stuck in the traffic jam on Mannerheim street. That meant one extra switch to tram to cruise past the lines.

I heard some other European country (Germany?) having a system where the penalty fee you get after being caught raises after each time the smufs get you. This way it doesn’t hit a person doing it once so badly, but constatly driving without ticket gets expensive.

Well, before everybody begins the risk-profit analysis on penalty fee, it’s good to remember that if they catch you 3 times, the next step is the passenger fraud suit. (That is, if they do their job.) Of course, the resident flowerhat auntie probably sentences you to upstairs with no dessert. However, it doesn’t look good in your CV.

It takes about 0.5g of extra coal to burn in Salmisaari plant every time your average ass is accelerated to 40km/h on tram bench, so keep those miners in bread and do as Phil says, pay the ticket. It’s dangerous work, you know.

Not only is it expensive, it is also mostly designed with the idea that people are going to and from the center.

It’s getting better. Now they have line 550 that goes (mostly) along Kehä I with a 5 minute interval during rush hour. Very handy for suburban slumming without having to go anywhere near the centre.

Alamost all buses with 5 as the first number are cross city lines. The 10-series buses are cross-center buses. The system makes sense after a bit of digging into it.

The system *has* a logic:

One number= tram (in Helsinki)
Two numbers = local city bus (does not cross city borders, Helsinki 77 is totally different from Vantaa 77)
Three numbers = “regional” (crosses city borders)
Three numbers + U = past regional (servers the boonies like Klaukkala or Kirkkonummi)

In principle/practice the bus system used to work with post codes. So bus 42 goes to Haaga 00420 HELSINKI… logic is slightly warped though as 14 goes to Pajamäki (00360, used to be served by the 36 bus, but then again it *leaves* from 00140 HELSINKI

So the 500 series and the 10 series ‘work’ in that logical structure.

Oh, nevermind the trains

In SU-time – and some time after that – students (or people who even remotely looked like students) travelled free in Tallinn public transportation. Couple of times it involved some trolley-pushing, but one could go everywhere in town for free. Not to mention the free phone booths…