As a Helsinki resident (and Whim user) it’s important to point out that while the user base of Whim has grown quite a bit, it’s most likely due to the introductory price that won’t last forever. For 49 € you get public transport, public bike (first half an hour free), cheap taxi rides and perhaps slightly cheaper car renting, whereas to get public transport alone without this app is around 55 €. So I wouldn’t call it a success just yet.
As a another Helsinki resident, I agree. Whim is nice experiment but not necessarily a solution with their current business model.
I think that Whim (or another Whim type service) can work if you consider the the price of the parking space.
Currently Helsinki has zoning regulations for mandatory parking places that is too high (roughly 0.8 per apartment). The cost of parking place is something like 30,000 - 70,000 euros or more. Assuming that return of capital is 8%, the cost of parking space is 100 - 400 euros per month.
If the mandatory zoning requirement is dropped, Whim style services can become profitable even in the long term.
That is a remarkable cost for a structured parking space! In America the construction cost is like $20-30k (17-25k EUR). I bet you could find projects for more than that but nothing like 70k EUR.
It's noted in the article that once they reach 60k subscribing monthly users they can start buying wholesale from the transportation markets which will allow them to turn a profit.
They are probably running at big loss. As per the contract, resellers have to pay the retail price 2.20€ per ticket. So they start running at a loss after around 22 tickets per month. And that's just for the public transportation.
The 55€/month is only for Helsinki area residents and subsidized from municipal taxes. Without the subsidy it's over 130€/month.
Does it cover the greater Helsinki area? As a Vantaa resident, I spend over 100 euros a month on public transport. This app sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?
Yes it does (internal Vantaa) although I don’t recall if city bikes have arrived there yet (unlike Espoo). For cross-region tickets (Helsinki + Vantaa for instance) you need to pay around 100 € with the app.
I contacted them at launch to ask about the price. They didn’t even mention publicly that it was an introductory offer at the time. They replied to me prices will go up eventually so I’m expecting it any day now.
HSL are also working on a monthly API I believe so I suspect the hassle of having to buy a ticket each time through Whim will soon disappear.
The car rental is not particularly cheap. Have you had any experience with that yet?
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-less bikes and stuff left all over the streets - it'll be much worse when they are dumping cars as well as bikes/scooters.
Having to wait 5+ minutes for Uber to accept your ride and then arrive (complete with the little car icon doing seemingly pointless loop-the-loops on the map) while you are left impatiently tapping your foot is fine every now and then. But having to do that everytime I want to get anywhere? Really? Its not for me - I value having a car sitting idle just so that it is immediately ready for me to use at the precise moment I need it so I can just jump in an go.
Would you sell your car and rely on a service where they might one day just not have any drivers available? I am sure many of us have been in situations pre-ride-hailing apps where we'd be on a night out and call someone for a cab only to be told there is a 2+ hour waiting list. Better start walking home then I guess ...
One-way trips or if I am drunk is where ride-hailing shines - I dont think it'll ever replace car ownership for anyone apart from those people living in the absolute centre of cities who only need to get to work and bars (and in those situations walking is a viable option if you have the time)
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.
Yeah that is true - it can be useful in those situations where they can just drop you off (often - at least in the UK - where parking is bad, public transport is usually fairly functional though so that is an option too - that said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport - e.g. instead of going from A->B then B->C on a train, you can just go direct A->C etc)
Of course, a car-sharing application also suffers from the parking issue though.
Personally for me I use my cars most where parking is not a problem (e.g. driving to friends & family, to the shops, vacations etc). I fail to see how ride-hailing is going to make this sort of use of a car obsolete.
that said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport
But that's exactly it - when 95% of your transportation needs are better solved by a tapestry of buses, trains, boats, bicycles, delivery services, etc, keeping a car just for those 5% becomes an expensive and often inconvenient luxury. It's like buying an apartment in every place you visit, rather than using an hotel or equivalent. I don't think ride-hailing/taxis will ever become a default, but it's an important part of the whole system.
>> 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.
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
Are there not giant parking lots and over-capacity street parking in your city? I live in the US suburbs, own a car, and it sits idle the vast majority of the time. Individual car ownership literally leads to the problem you claim MaaS creates.
Absolute opposite - minimal parking lots and severe under-capacity for street parking. Off-street parking for 1 maybe 2 cars can reach prices of over £600,000 (approx $1 million) [1] in central areas.
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.
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.
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.
While I think that's an essential point, one question:
Car sharing does reduce the total number of cars. What is the greenhouse gas impact of a car independent of its use, including manufacturing it and disposing of it?
As a former Helsinkian, I'm rather surprised to see the label "future of urban travel" applied to a city that has banned all forms of Uber-style ride-sharing due to pressure from the taxi lobby.
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].
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?
A great system for the young and able-bodied, those with no literal or metaphorical baggage. But try getting on the bus with a disabled child in a large wheelchair. Or try taking your bleeding dog to the vet in a cab. Or board a bus carrying a windsurfer. I want to go rock climbing this weekend. No bus or taxi will take me up a logging road. Must i walk from the nearest town? Because then i'll have to take time off work. There will always be a place for personal vehicles.
Wheelchair: Vote for better politicians who invest in accessible public transportation. E.g. in Switzerland and I suspect most of Skandinavia this is not a big deal.
Rock climbing: That's when you rent a car [1]. Although again, Switzerland's trains, post buses and cablecars bring you there without any big issue, so if there's the political will there's also a way, as long as you don't want to go to a place that's too remote from densely populated areas.
Bleeding dog: Again, rent a car [1].
Windsurfer: You got me there, if you have that hobby you probably best have your own car.
[1] we have a car sharing service here that is ubiquitous and costs you around 40-50 bucks for half a day and 40km or so. Doesn't sound that cheap, but a car costs you at least 400 a month here (cost of ownership). Renting cars once a weekend plus public transport subscription (70-250 dollars depending on your needs) means you never have to care about parking spaces, you can comfortably work on your way to work and you have a car when it's really the most useful method.
Lol. Rent a car? Have you ever seen a car rental agreement that would allow a rented car to be driven 10/20/30km up a logging road?
Do you know what it means to take an autistic child, or cancer patient, or dementia sufferer, on public transportation for more than a few minutes? Not everyone does well in groups or unfamiliar environments. Doctors regularly tell people with suppressed immune systems to avoid public transportation due to infection risk.
Charities all over the world FLY these people in private PLANES because they know how difficult even private cars can be when you are ill.
My point is that there are a great many lifestyles and activities that either demand or are made vastly simpler by personal vehicles. Not including personal vehicles in a transportation plans pushes those people away.
Shameless plug for my favorite local charity: http://www.angelflight.ca/
Fyi, these flights walk on water in BC. Their callsign is given priority for everything. Fees are waived. 747s and fighter jets will be moved to make room for them.
There was quite interesting pilot service run by the entity responsible for the public transportation in the Helsinki region in 2012-2015. It was called "Kutsu Plus". There is a report available in English [1].
This service was something between bus and taxi. They were operating small busses. All the rides started and ended at a bus stop (which you have plenty in the region). You would use a website/mobile app to tell where you are going and when. The system would then optimize the requests from multiple people, determine the routes and tell you when to be at the bus stop, how long the journey takes and the price.
Eventually the service was shut down as the local municipalities did not want to put in more money to support it. All the trips were very heavily subsidized. They would have needed to significantly grow the pilot to see if could have become economically feasible.
Seems to be the software side of the project is now part of Volkswagen owned Moia [2].
I can imagine this to work in a city like Mumbai - with one of the cities with high population densities.
Context wise: Traffic in Mumbai is really bad at peak times, and has got worse given the advent of ride hailing services. A lot of people already use the public transport - the network of local trains and metros to get from Place A to Place B. However, after you get down from a station/stop, you rely on taxis, autos, buses, or ride hailing apps to get to final destination which could be 4-5 miles away. and those options are not always available. This is one of the reasons that some folks take their own vehicles even to far off places despite them taking way too much time.
Where I can see this work is: Getting a ride share/bike/(even a scooter) to get to the final place, instead of hailing a cab or an auto.
Also, if more people are using it, this would reduce the load on the roads, meaning people might be able to use buses more. (right now, most of us avoid buses due to the traffic situation here)
We already have really cheap passes for public transport. And the frequency is already sufficiently high. If the last mile hailing can work, that could reduce a lot of load, and people will pay for that.
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, Seattle, or San Francisco, most other American cities have plenty of infrastructure and affordable parking to support a high percentage of car ownership amongst citizens.
Heck, there was even a HN article a day or two ago about how parking spaces in America outnumber actual cars by a huge margin in most American cities and towns. I think in one city it was 80 to 1.
Unfortunately, the US is still too spread out for these types of services to be useful in all but a few cities.
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 gets driven on the weekends, and only if my wife and I are doing different things. It's a VERY expensive way to maintain my weekend "freedom". Lyft/Uber would fill much of the gap, except I frequently go camping 2-4 hours away. If Lyft had a "long term borrow" plan, I could get rid of my $400/month car payment and all associated costs.
> 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.
You should compare the monthly price to leasing, which is around $250/month for a decent new car. Using your "other costs" the total goes up to $330/month. (However, I think the other costs would be higher).
I've considered it. But, the transaction overhead isn't small. I'd need to reserve the car in advance, Lyft to the rental agency, etc. Currently, I can decide to go to the mountains on a whim Friday afternoon.
That makes perfect sense. It also highlights some of the reasons why, a lot of the time, people own items that they don't use frequently. e.g. you may only use a lawnmower 15 times a year but most people aren't going to rent one each time.
But, the cost of a car/truck is massive relative to most people's overall budgets. So, there's probably lots of room for optimization through transit-as-a-service.
Sure. The cost of a car and, potentially, the cost of garaging a car in a city definitely merit a harder look at alternatives than other items may. There are city-dwellers who don't drive a lot and, with increased transportation options in a lot of cities, the marginal car-owner increasingly has other options they can consider.
I know a couple in SF who don't own a car and probably would have been forced to do so prior to Uber/Lyft, Zipcar, food delivery, etc. Of course, they also don't really do outdoor trips requiring a lot of gear on a regular basis and their kids are grown up and moved out as well.
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.
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.
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
While you could use the Whim app and a Total Freedom subscription to get 30 days of private care usage, we encourage people to use multiple modes of transport that are best suited for varying needs.
Mobility as a Service is based on the idea of multi-modality and the premise that private car ownership shouldn't be a requirement for freedom and spontaneity. We are learning, in many cities worldwide, that private car ownership is leading towards a congested and wasteful (in terms of space and material resources) urban center.
As the MaaS concept and ecosystem are much bigger than one company, I recommend checking out how other people, journalists, researchers, companies, cities, and regions are exploring the concept :-)
As a person living in (or rather very near) Helsinki, I can tell you already that in many cases public transport is just better than having a car. I can take the train from my home to work in 20 minutes, whereas it would take at least 30 minutes (with the additional bonus of stress) with car.
The only reason I can imagine needing a car would be if I had children.
Wonder if they ever going to come up with some sort of personal mobility solution for winter. Bikes don’t work too well in summer. Perhaps some sort of version of electric scooter or e-snowmobile.
Yeah it's abit of a fluff piece, but compared to stuff that comes out in the US scene everyday it's nothing.
Can't we just once be positive? The app works, there are no lies in the article. Maybe if people in Finland were a bit more optimistic there would be more successful companies
There is a fine difference between being positive and self-deception. There are no direct lies, but like often in today's media they only focus on one side of the story and leave important information out.
For example what was already meantioned here that this whole thing is just initial offer subsidized with VC fund and that it will not last forever.
Second, the cheaper taxi's argument was true in a way few weeks ago when Finland still had the old taxi monopoly regulation going on. Now that the market is open, there are a lot of options and some probably even cheaper than this. Also the article doesn¨t mention that you need to use special Whim-supported taxi's which are very limited. In reality you are most likely not going to get your "cheap taxi ride" when ever you need it.
Third, Whim has some kind of contract and/or legal problem with the Helsinki Public Transit Authority and while regular users can just use the public transit and keep the traffic card in their pocket, Whim users have to buy individual tickets each time.
And the list goes on...
I like the idea of the company and idea of revolutionising public transit, but these kind of BS advertisement which are made to look like news is not the way to go.
Yes, it's not a comprehensive overview of everything the app and concept has. It's just an article exploring a cool new concept, and being positive about it.
Yes, the price might change. But that also mean the service might change.
The reason whim taxis were only through a certain taxi company was because that was the situation then. The app itself is aiming to be open for any ride-sharing platform, so Uber or Taxify could easily integrate.
I'm sorry but your comment just feels like you're trying your best to be pessimistic. It's healthy at times, but sometimes (especially with new concepts), you should let things grow and evolve before squandering it's opportunities.
Yeah, I agree completely. Especially as the parent company is named after a concept that they are trying to push as a general concept and not a brand.(MaaS, mobility as a service.)
This is the part where I write some tone deaf response that is obviously based on the assumption that SillyValley(TM) is the center of the universe and suggest that European companies should pay their devs more. /s
I generally agree with you. This is an obvious fluff piece but that's most articles around here. People just seem to turn a blind eye when it's a company from wherever they're from.
> The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car is used only 4 percent of the time.
Sounds like a great opportunity indeed. Former car owners save money and the car rental companies can still make a profit. Everyone (including the environment) wins.
That is an invalid comparison. All we know is that the 4% of time those people spend in their car is to them worth a lot of money to them.
The costs of a car need to be paid. Rental cars need to pay the same costs. (probably more because rental cars tend to be newer cars, and also because people tend to abuse rental cars knowing that the cost will not be theirs.
Yes, if you rarely drive renting a car becomes cost effective. However we already have car rental companies and car sharing companies. The economics of them are something you can research if you are interested. It might or might not pay off in any given situation.
Can Whim do trip planning using all transportation options? Having a few apps doesn't bother me, what I'm missing is something that says "hail a car to the train station A, then take a train to station B and then a bicycle to point C".
Yes, that's the whole point - combining transportation methods. Taxicabs, trains and bike sharing are all available via different apps and APIs. Whim aims to work as type of an aggregator who offers them all in the same app.
EDIT: Tried the web UI, doesn't seem to do that; it shows the separate PT/Cycling/Taxi routes, but none actually integrated. Plus the taxi route went over the river! (there was a car ferry once, but not for years)
The app definitely does (it can even do combos with public transport and uber), but the quality of the map might depend on the city.
It is great for the Paris/Barcelona area at least
"The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car is used only 4 percent of the time."
This figure is a bit silly - you don't drive your car while you're sleeping, or indeed when you're already where you want to be. Doesn't mean it's not a useful thing to own.
The vast, vast bulk of things that people own they use a small percentage of the time. To be sure, cars are expensive, their storage may be expensive in some locations, and at least some people are fine with just renting a generic car. But just observing that something isn't in use a high percentage of the time doesn't really tell you anything about whether it makes sense to own vs. short-term rent.
