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How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

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Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#61
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me, 499e per month is really steep from Finnish perspective too. Not really sure what's the target customer demographic here. Maybe companies, as an alternative to leasing a car.

You can get a very good lease for 500e in Finland (I have many friends who do this)

I think the nice thing about this is you can adjust usage/payments - like if you travel a lot, just stop paying for a month or two. Not sure you can do that with regular leased cars? I also like the free <5km taxi and free public transport rides with this

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#62
I wish the author of the article didn’t repeat the trope about car sharing reducing carbon emissions. Nothing about this app encourages ride-sharing per se, so the actual car trips in a shared vehicle will not impact carbon emissions. However, encouraging alternative forms of transit such as buses, subways, trams, and bicycles is a big saving. This is a really I,portent detail to get right. The only thing that’s going to cut back on the energy use from private car rides is ... fewer private car rides, not shared cars.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#63

Its the availability that is the killer for these sorts of services, as one of the people interviewed in the article says. I don't see how these services can compare with a private car without totally saturating the neighborhood with lots of idle vehicles sitting around to cover the spikes in demand without suffering infuriating unavailability when you need to get somewhere. Its already annoying seeing all the dock-l…

On the flip side, consider the time you spend looking for parking. Depending on where you live, that's also a big time sink. I'd rather be checking Twitter on the sidewalk than cursing the parking gods looping around, but that's just me.

>> On the flip side, consider the time you spend looking for parking.

A short-term problem. By the end of this year I will own a driverless car. It can just drive around in circles until I'm ready. Or go home for a quick recharge before heading back to pick me up.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#64

I wish the author of the article didn’t repeat the trope about car sharing reducing carbon emissions. Nothing about this app encourages ride-sharing per se, so the actual car trips in a shared vehicle will not impact carbon emissions. However, encouraging alternative forms of transit such as buses, subways, trams, and bicycles is a big saving. This is a really I,portent detail to get right. The only thing that’s goin…

Haven't tested this, and it's a true concern. But I would hope there's some truth to emission reductions as having a comprehensive pass (includes bikes, buses, and Helsinkis good subway system) should entice people to use these options as well. One incentive to use these other options is not needing to search for a parking spot. To make a real difference, people need to be willing to not rely on car sharing 100%, though. So maybe more incentives would be needed for this to reduce emissions in other cities.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#65
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a very good lease for 500e in Finland (I have many friends who do this)

I think the nice thing about this is you can adjust usage/payments - like if you travel a lot, just stop paying for a month or two. Not sure you can do that with regular leased cars? I also like the free <5km taxi and free public transport rides with this

Plus you don't have to worry about parking. Or gasoline.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#66

The 499 euro price tag for the "all access" seems quite expensive from an American point of view. I can get a decent car with good gas mileage for about half that and outright buying a used car will save me a lot more in less than a year. Most people who would be tempted to go without owning a car in the US don't do much driving anyway, so they don't spend a lot on gas as is. While I think this could work in NYC, Sea…

That's about $580 US. The average monthly payment on a NEW car in the US is around $500 [0][1]. Add in parking (even "free" parking isn't), depreciation, gasoline, insurance, and registration fees and that's pretty darn close to $580. From my perspective, living the DC suburbs, I would love to have an all-access app for multi-mode transport. I own two cars (one for me, one for wife). I walk to work, so my car only ge…

> The average monthly payment on a NEW car in the US is...pretty darn close to $580.

True. However, car long-term ownership also can reduce the overall cost substantially, a possible benefit you lose with services like this.

My 2002 Sierra cost me $15K when I bought it in 2007, and it's still my daily driver. That's roughly $113 per month. Maintenance has been infrequent and inexpensive, and I do the work myself. I'm WAY below $580 per month.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#67
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a very good lease for 500e in Finland (I have many friends who do this)

I think the nice thing about this is you can adjust usage/payments - like if you travel a lot, just stop paying for a month or two. Not sure you can do that with regular leased cars? I also like the free <5km taxi and free public transport rides with this

It's not free for less than 5km. If it was I'd sign up tomorrow. It's a 10e flat fee for < 5km.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#68

I wish the author of the article didn’t repeat the trope about car sharing reducing carbon emissions. Nothing about this app encourages ride-sharing per se, so the actual car trips in a shared vehicle will not impact carbon emissions. However, encouraging alternative forms of transit such as buses, subways, trams, and bicycles is a big saving. This is a really I,portent detail to get right. The only thing that’s goin…

Shared vehicles don't need to be parked between rides, and sit idle much less between rides. The former doesn't really impact anything unless shared vehicles are common enough to impact city design. The latter doesn't impact anything unless there is a marginal capital improvement to the vehicle that only pays off if the duty cycle ratio is high enough. I don't know of any such technology off hand. Bypass oil filters with full-synthetic lubricant, perhaps? Season-specific tires? Special paint job that reflects all non-visible light? Hybrid with regenerative brakes? They all seem to me like long shots at producing an actual effect on emissions under real-world driving conditions.

If anything, I'd think that shared vehicles could increase emissions, because the vehicle has to travel between the site of one ride's end and the next ride's beginning. That travel does not accomplish a goal of getting a rider from their origin to their destination. The inter-ride travel is minimized in a denser city, but those cities can make mass transit pay off more easily, for the same reason. In a dense city, the strongly overlapping trips can be coerced onto common routes with fixed stops. So the shared vehicle probably does not save emissions unless the trips of multiple passengers can be easily combined. And if they can, just put a bus route there.

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#69
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they banned it because they ignored the local laws (and Helsinki isn’t exactly an isolated case of this behaviour from Uber) and were unlicensed. However they’ve recently regained presence in Helsinki since it’s been legalized [1]. [1] https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/anyone_can_be_a_cabbie__n...

Uber black has returned which is basically taxis with the uber UI. I left on vacation just before the regulations changed. What are the prices for Uber compared to before with the private cars and drivers?

I just checked fares from the central railway station to the Herttoniemi metro station 7.5km away.

Whim(Taksi Helsinki): €19.72

UberX €12-16:

UberBlack €17-23:

Re: How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First

#70

The 499 euro price tag for the "all access" seems quite expensive from an American point of view. I can get a decent car with good gas mileage for about half that and outright buying a used car will save me a lot more in less than a year. Most people who would be tempted to go without owning a car in the US don't do much driving anyway, so they don't spend a lot on gas as is. While I think this could work in NYC, Sea…

The value of not worrying about buying/selling/maintaining a car is different to different people but I’m definitely ready to pay $100-200/mo for that convenience.

Next up is parking. If some car sharing service also includes parking near me, and that would otherwise be $200/mo then it’s suddenly very interesting.

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