(un)popular opinion: hsl should not have a monopoly if they want to just make profit
edit: this is my opinion as a full-time student who already struggles financically and is very dependent on public transport
Actually very few countries have free transportation, not many for sure. Despite this the price of public transport in Finland is very high. It’s one of the main reasons why I keep my car…
”In many other eu countries are giving their Transport free whereas HSL getting higher every year?”
But quality of public transportation is very different in many other EU countries
Good quality of service but it’s getting too expensive
Having lived in various countries, HSL value for money is super good. Their network and overall punctuality are great, at least if you live within zones AB. Paying 72 EUR for a monthly AB ticket is something a happily do.
For the size of the city, it honestly offers a crazy amount of connections and coverage. Pretty much no other city has as intense and connected of a tram network for its size and the connections are pretty simple. That being said it is costly and the ABCD zone system, in my opinion, works against more people riding the system to more places. If there were no zones I’d almost bet you’d see more ridership overall.
This price raise is very mild in comparison to how they raised prices before. 3.1% is fine.
They should really implement the system where you check in on entry and check out on exit.
HSL works well, but paying nearly €8.80 (4.40 + 4.40) just to hang around the city center for a bit feels kinda ridiculous. There were talks about introducing short-time tickets (like 15-minute ones), but with how underfunded they are right now, that’s probably never gonna happen.
Prices are way too high. Its not accessible to everyone anymore. Personally I’d choose trashier and shittier busses with cheaper tickets anyday.
Coming from London, the quality and price here is so much better than the tube service. I don’t mind the price increase, it’s not great, but it’s not bad
Wow…their last excuses were 1. People can afford to pay more 2. People need to cover for those who travel without a ticket.
Their last excuses for raising the fine 1. It stopped being high enough to sting the wallet
I don’t know if it hsl to blame, but I’ve been looking worryingly on the massive investments on infrastructure and most recently the new trams, where they spend billions of euros on. Some might not be worth it, like raide-jokeri and kruunusilta tram, and it’s we who pay for all of it in the end. I just think it’s too ambitious and doesn’t reflect on the state Finland is at the moment.
HSL stands for “Hiton Surkee Liikenne”
HSL is a treasure in terms of its service. But damn the price is getting high. But I love it and coming from American city with typically completely shit transport aside from cars, I will pay whatever they ask.
I’ve recently learned that annual pass in Prague cost almost the same as the monthly pass in Helsinki. I assume Prague is heavily subsidising the tickets, but Helsinki does not (and the comparison is not only about the purchasing power)
I’d prefer a tap in tap out like London. At the very least they could at least cap fares for people using the app. For example, if you buy 10 singles over 2 days you should be paying the 2 day travel ticket cost, they have the data in the app, so they know. Not everybody knows in advance how much they will travel in a week, month, year.
HSL is the (one of the biggest) reason I moved to Tampere.
I use the orange buses mostly so I’ve just stopped paying the ticket because the prices are getting ridiculous.
I don’t know. Like having afaik limitless access to public transportation for 80 min in 3-4 euros isn’t that expensive compared to going between Helsinki and Lohja or around Lohja.
Excellent service but expensive.
I would not mind half the frequency of rides if the price went down by 25%.
Also, I hope people with low income could get free HSL cards.
I love the free park and rides, a day ticket is much cheaper than trying to park anywhere downtown. That said I make it all the way downtown maybe 0-4 times per year, depending on the year.
They need more funding.
I’m happy with their service but the prices are getting out of hand. I don’t travel enough to justify the monthly ticket so I pay per ride – either with the 20x ticket or singles – but when I have to do that I often end up going with a car instead, especially if I’m traveling together with my partner. Paying ~18 euros for two people to visit a friend, sitting in public transportation for an hour vs taking a 25 minute trip by car – easy choice. Raising the costs will not help that. If the ticket prices increase 3% I’ll probably end up using HSL maybe 5-10% less than now.
The prices are already ridiculous, and it’s not uncommon that the app just…doesn’t load. The other day it would not load, so I used one of the ticket machines on the tram for the first time, and found out they add 20 cents to the price 🙃 so that was just poetic
Otherwise, yeah, the vehicles are nice and clean, metro is great (wish the network of it was bigger tho). I don’t think it is justifying the prices at all. Also they need to offer discounted single tickets for students too..
Föli (Turku) is better tbh
Haven’t checked the prices, nor do I need to. I know it’s too much for those that really need it. I stopped caring when they decided my travel card wouldn’t be useful anymore and they kept the 24.7 euros that were on it.
Too expensive. ABC single ticket 4.40 already. Are you mad?
As others said, prices are getting out of hand.
I have taken a Bolt 2 times this week just for a “Kallio to Punavuori” type of trip (me and 1-2 friends) because it was cheaper than paying single tickets for 2-3 people. That says a lot.
There really should be a more affordable A zone ticket for shorter trips in downtown area. It’s crazy that I have to pay for a ticket that covers pretty much all of Helsinki + most of Espoo / Vantaa just to get from Kallio to Töölö.
In Melbourne and the whole of Victoria, Australia is a day fare. You only pay $10.90 (6.18€) and can travel anywhere in the city and state for that price all day long.
HSL is majorly ripping you off. That said, the whole of Finland is ripping it’s citizens off.. I’m glad I left.
If you are two and going somewhere in “central” Helsinki. Bolt is already cheaper than HSL, because you get discounts all the time.
Hsl be like:
Tampere clears
Make it free to flex on Oslo
This year they decided to change the payment system for travel cards, but instead of doing a normal switch, they stopped the old one for months before activating the new one preventing me to top up my kids cards when needed, and it is still not as good as before, as I can’t see their balance anymore, just mine.
They want to force people using the app but I’d rather have kids use the card, so I don’t have to worry about batteries running out, and tap to pay is ok-ish, if you have a payment card.
Maybe they could invest into some security portal in metro and train stations instead of that (I call it honor – maybe worked in the past-) system if so many people are dodging fare (I am not surprised when you have to pay full AB price for a jump between two inner stations tbh)
Ok kids have a discount, some workers have benefits, and tourists will always get robbed, but for more casual users, especially those with cars, public transport is not getting any better.
I wish they would at least make the transport benefit universal, and have a social price for unemployed for instance. But if there is so much dodging that they use it to justify price increase, and maybe the new zoning is not working as good as they thought it would (I welcomed it at first being on the edge of AB, but I’d rather have a distance option) maybe they need to rethink a bit.
cheaper than the bay area (Cali). I like it
Hsl is the worst public transport company in europe
38 comments
It’s good.
(un)popular opinion: hsl should not have a monopoly if they want to just make profit
edit: this is my opinion as a full-time student who already struggles financically and is very dependent on public transport
Actually very few countries have free transportation, not many for sure. Despite this the price of public transport in Finland is very high. It’s one of the main reasons why I keep my car…
”In many other eu countries are giving their Transport free whereas HSL getting higher every year?”
But quality of public transportation is very different in many other EU countries
Good quality of service but it’s getting too expensive
Having lived in various countries, HSL value for money is super good. Their network and overall punctuality are great, at least if you live within zones AB. Paying 72 EUR for a monthly AB ticket is something a happily do.
For the size of the city, it honestly offers a crazy amount of connections and coverage. Pretty much no other city has as intense and connected of a tram network for its size and the connections are pretty simple. That being said it is costly and the ABCD zone system, in my opinion, works against more people riding the system to more places. If there were no zones I’d almost bet you’d see more ridership overall.
This price raise is very mild in comparison to how they raised prices before. 3.1% is fine.
They should really implement the system where you check in on entry and check out on exit.
HSL works well, but paying nearly €8.80 (4.40 + 4.40) just to hang around the city center for a bit feels kinda ridiculous. There were talks about introducing short-time tickets (like 15-minute ones), but with how underfunded they are right now, that’s probably never gonna happen.
Prices are way too high. Its not accessible to everyone anymore. Personally I’d choose trashier and shittier busses with cheaper tickets anyday.
Coming from London, the quality and price here is so much better than the tube service. I don’t mind the price increase, it’s not great, but it’s not bad
Wow…their last excuses were 1. People can afford to pay more 2. People need to cover for those who travel without a ticket.
Their last excuses for raising the fine 1. It stopped being high enough to sting the wallet
I don’t know if it hsl to blame, but I’ve been looking worryingly on the massive investments on infrastructure and most recently the new trams, where they spend billions of euros on. Some might not be worth it, like raide-jokeri and kruunusilta tram, and it’s we who pay for all of it in the end. I just think it’s too ambitious and doesn’t reflect on the state Finland is at the moment.
HSL stands for “Hiton Surkee Liikenne”
HSL is a treasure in terms of its service. But damn the price is getting high. But I love it and coming from American city with typically completely shit transport aside from cars, I will pay whatever they ask.
I’ve recently learned that annual pass in Prague cost almost the same as the monthly pass in Helsinki. I assume Prague is heavily subsidising the tickets, but Helsinki does not (and the comparison is not only about the purchasing power)
I’d prefer a tap in tap out like London. At the very least they could at least cap fares for people using the app. For example, if you buy 10 singles over 2 days you should be paying the 2 day travel ticket cost, they have the data in the app, so they know. Not everybody knows in advance how much they will travel in a week, month, year.
HSL is the (one of the biggest) reason I moved to Tampere.
I use the orange buses mostly so I’ve just stopped paying the ticket because the prices are getting ridiculous.
I don’t know. Like having afaik limitless access to public transportation for 80 min in 3-4 euros isn’t that expensive compared to going between Helsinki and Lohja or around Lohja.
Excellent service but expensive.
I would not mind half the frequency of rides if the price went down by 25%.
Also, I hope people with low income could get free HSL cards.
I love the free park and rides, a day ticket is much cheaper than trying to park anywhere downtown. That said I make it all the way downtown maybe 0-4 times per year, depending on the year.
They need more funding.
I’m happy with their service but the prices are getting out of hand. I don’t travel enough to justify the monthly ticket so I pay per ride – either with the 20x ticket or singles – but when I have to do that I often end up going with a car instead, especially if I’m traveling together with my partner. Paying ~18 euros for two people to visit a friend, sitting in public transportation for an hour vs taking a 25 minute trip by car – easy choice. Raising the costs will not help that. If the ticket prices increase 3% I’ll probably end up using HSL maybe 5-10% less than now.
The prices are already ridiculous, and it’s not uncommon that the app just…doesn’t load. The other day it would not load, so I used one of the ticket machines on the tram for the first time, and found out they add 20 cents to the price 🙃 so that was just poetic
Otherwise, yeah, the vehicles are nice and clean, metro is great (wish the network of it was bigger tho). I don’t think it is justifying the prices at all. Also they need to offer discounted single tickets for students too..
Föli (Turku) is better tbh
Haven’t checked the prices, nor do I need to. I know it’s too much for those that really need it. I stopped caring when they decided my travel card wouldn’t be useful anymore and they kept the 24.7 euros that were on it.
Too expensive. ABC single ticket 4.40 already. Are you mad?
As others said, prices are getting out of hand.
I have taken a Bolt 2 times this week just for a “Kallio to Punavuori” type of trip (me and 1-2 friends) because it was cheaper than paying single tickets for 2-3 people. That says a lot.
There really should be a more affordable A zone ticket for shorter trips in downtown area. It’s crazy that I have to pay for a ticket that covers pretty much all of Helsinki + most of Espoo / Vantaa just to get from Kallio to Töölö.
In Melbourne and the whole of Victoria, Australia is a day fare. You only pay $10.90 (6.18€) and can travel anywhere in the city and state for that price all day long.
HSL is majorly ripping you off. That said, the whole of Finland is ripping it’s citizens off.. I’m glad I left.
If you are two and going somewhere in “central” Helsinki. Bolt is already cheaper than HSL, because you get discounts all the time.
Hsl be like:
Tampere clears
Make it free to flex on Oslo
This year they decided to change the payment system for travel cards, but instead of doing a normal switch, they stopped the old one for months before activating the new one preventing me to top up my kids cards when needed, and it is still not as good as before, as I can’t see their balance anymore, just mine.
They want to force people using the app but I’d rather have kids use the card, so I don’t have to worry about batteries running out, and tap to pay is ok-ish, if you have a payment card.
Maybe they could invest into some security portal in metro and train stations instead of that (I call it honor – maybe worked in the past-) system if so many people are dodging fare (I am not surprised when you have to pay full AB price for a jump between two inner stations tbh)
Ok kids have a discount, some workers have benefits, and tourists will always get robbed, but for more casual users, especially those with cars, public transport is not getting any better.
I wish they would at least make the transport benefit universal, and have a social price for unemployed for instance. But if there is so much dodging that they use it to justify price increase, and maybe the new zoning is not working as good as they thought it would (I welcomed it at first being on the edge of AB, but I’d rather have a distance option) maybe they need to rethink a bit.
cheaper than the bay area (Cali). I like it
Hsl is the worst public transport company in europe
Comments are closed.