Came to Finland for almost a month, and everything is going really well – I’m in Helsinki.
The first, and probably the only thing I don’t like, that annoys me and honestly feels like hell, is the process of buying a public transport ticket.
These machines just don’t work!!!
On average, it takes me 40 minutes to buy a single-ride ticket. At first, I thought something was wrong with my card, but then a passerby told me that these kiosks often have issues with card payments.
Yes, there are daily passes available, but I only need to travel once per day.
This whole situation seriously ruins part of the experience of what would otherwise be a really awesome trip.
It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered such a problem.

by gariseverus

24 comments

  4. You did use a mobile phone to take this photo, right? Guess what else you can do with your phone? You can buy tickets with the HSL app. Super easy, takes 2 minutes at most.

    Edit: I have now found that this person’s phone doesn’t work with HSL. To the people who have downvoted: my comment may have been overly aggressive, I admit that, the OP certainly should’ve put this information in the post itself, not as a reply to a single comment.

  6. I had the same issue with the small kiosks (the ones that are in some of the tram stations) as well, and I swear they choose card depending on their mood for the day. Worst thing is that if you don’t have a Finnish mobile number you can’t receive the SMS to activate the mobile app, too. I just walk everywhere and refuse the struggle altogether.

  7. They are removing those machines soon.

    Just tap your Debit/credit – card at the card reader in a bus, train, tram or at the metro station if you don’t have season ticket yet.

  10. 40 minutes?! Are you trying to make a payment via smoke signals or something, good lord.

    Get the app, or load money onto a travel card and use that.

  11. Yeah, those machines suck and you’re better off using your payment card on the gates. That machine on the left has been broken for a loong time and they haven’t even bothered to put a sign on it or anything…

  12. They just upgraded the buss/train ticket posts to accept basic bank cards that has the RFID in them

  13. I’ve used the machines at HEL because they’re actually faster than the HSL app.

  14. Pay with NFC chip. In other words, tap your card/phone/watch/whatever you use for contactless quick payments.

  15. You can buy prepaid credit cards or prepaid phone numbers from R-kioski. Cheapest prepaid phone numbers are like 5 euros

  20. If you think these things suck you should have seen one particular generation of green VR ticket machines with a touch screen. The card reader was always spazzing out random internal information into the screen even if it did somehow work and the touch screen seemed to be very sensitive to temperature variations (which in Finland can be plus 30 centigrade to minus 30 and below).

    That or people kept punching the touch screen instictively when it lagged out after painstaking minutes of inputs.

  21. What do you mean by you only need to travel once a day? Because that’s a lot of trips and a monthly pass would be better.

    But like others said… Phone app. If you don’t have data on your phone you should probably get it as it’s very cheap and also useful.

  22. You can also buy tickets in the supermarket. You scan them on the train to activate them.

  23. Hey OP, if the machine is not explicitly saying that card payment is out of order, just keep the card pressed well in while the payment doesn’t go through. I found out that in 90% of cases it’s impossible to pay with my card if i just don’t keep the card pressed inside. if i do that, it works every time immediately. Hope it helps.

Comments are closed.