The Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA) situated on the southern coast of Finland consists of four cities: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen totalling 0.95 million inhabitants, some 19% of the population of Finland. It is one of the fastest growing areas in the Europe. The Helsinki region has a strong reputation as a centre of advanced technology. It is also the country's leading business and industrial centre, a place where many new jobs are being created, especially in the information technology sector.

Helsinki's activities in PRoGR€SS

Helsinki will not carry out a physical demonstration, but will carry through an extensive modelling exercise to prove the potential as a demand management tool. Also the acceptability of pricing and expected behavioural impacts will be studied by organising a SP survey and interviews with various stakeholder groups. In this phase special emphasis will be put on to find out the opinions of the "key" authorities, in order to be able to define the way forward from the procedural point of view. All these activities, as well as the co-operation with the other PRoGR€SS sites, aim at raising the awareness of the potential of the road pricing.

The following main objectives & pre-requisites have been defined for Urban Pricing Schemes in the Helsinki Region:

The pricing system shall clearly include demand management and environmental aspects in order to be a tool for affecting the travelling behaviour, modal split, congestion, use of energy, pollution etc. All these aspects are especially important regarding the traffic towards the city centre of Helsinki and they are expected to increase both the general and the political acceptability of an urban pricing scheme.

Special consideration will be given to the question, how the money raised by the system shall be used: investments (road tolling), lower taxes (road pricing), or other.

The pricing system shall support and be integrated with the Regional Traffic Management System (traffic information and control for network optimisation) and the Public Transport Smart Card Payment System (implementation already underway) to allow integrated tariffs for travel chains (private car - P+R - PT).

The pricing system shall be more comprehensive than the earlier proposed simple toll cordon (evaluated in the TRANSPRICE-project regarding car drivers only) in order to be more fair to different users and activities in different areas of the region.

Traficon Ltd is a private and independent consulting company in the field of Traffic Planning and Transportation founded in 1989. The company is market leader in Finland in Transport Telematics. Main areas of competence are Traffic Planning and Engineering, Planning of Traffic Control and Information Systems, Transport Research, Systems and User Response Evaluation and Project Management. Traficon Ltd is responsible for the site co-ordination and management of PRoGR€SS at the local level.

The City of Helsinki is represented by the Traffic Planning Department, which is responsible for all traffic planning within the City of Helsinki, the Capital of Finland. The City of Helsinki as a local authority is participating and contributing to the transport policy discussion at the regional level. The City has been involved in all previous activities concerning road pricing in the region. Any future step towards implementation of road pricing requires co-operation with the City of Helsinki.

The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (HMAC) is responsible for co-ordination of regional traffic planning in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. It is also responsible for the regional Public Transport Management and the regional Waste Management. HMAC is also the responsible body for regional traffic modelling and they maintain the regional traffic modelling system by collecting traffic behaviour data frequently as well as keeping the network description up to date. The new (1998) Transport Infrastructure Plan of the Region made up by HMAC includes road pricing as a future method of transport demand management.

The Finnish Road Administration is represented by the Uusimaa District. The Finnish Road Administration is responsible for planning, building and maintenance of public roads in Finland. The Uusimaa District is responsible for the area of the southern coastland including the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Most urban motorways in the region are public roads. Uusimaa District as a regional authority has been involved in all previous activities concerning road pricing in the region. Any future step towards implementation requires co-operation with the Finnish Road Administration. In addition to this it is the responsible organisation to collect traffic data and disseminate traffic information for the users of the public roads.

The inhabitants of the HMA make approximately 2.6 million trips per average weekday. Almost half of the trips are made by passenger car. The share of public transport is approximately one third. The rest of the trips are made by foot and bicycle. The public transport share is significantly higher (44%) for the trips of which the destination is Helsinki city centre.

The main routes are partly congested during peak hours in the morning and the afternoon. The situation is worst on Ring Road I and on the radial main streets close to the city centre. The transport network is also relatively sensitive to incidents and poor weather conditions.

The transport strategy

HMAC, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, has approved a transportation system as an objective for the year 2020 (Helsinki Metropolitan Area Transport System Plan - PLJ 1998 (PDF: 5196 Kb / 27 pages)). Its major aim is to develop public transport as a competitive transportation alternative. Such a development will also help to attain the environmental goals which have been set. The structure of urban communities will be unified with the help of land-use planning. The functionality of private vehicular traffic can still be maintained, provided that the increase in the numbers of cars remains reasonable. Development of the facilities for walking and cycling, route connections, conditions and safety, will be continued.

Rail transportation will form the backbone of the public transport system. The most important new rail system projects are the Vuosaari metro, additional tracks for the main railway line and the coastal line, and the totally new Marja line.

Development projects for road-based traffic are mainly focused on improving ring road connections.

The following nine objectives have been agreed upon:

Land use
Densify the city structure in order to reduce the need for travelling, and increase possibilities for public transport as well as for walking and cycling.

Public Transport
Develop public transport so that it is a competitive mode of travel. Improve public transport economics by improving the efficiency of the network and by tendering the entire public transport system.

Car traffic
Maintain operating conditions for car traffic outside peak hours and peak areas at the present level.

Walking and cycling
Forcefully develop walking and cycling connections, conditions, and safety.

Commercial traffic
Provide a high level of service for commercial traffic.

Traffic safety
Guarantee a high level of traffic safety in accordance with Nordic level.

Environmental issues
Reduce traffic related local environmental impacts and fulfil national and international objectives for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Develop and support pro-environmental travel habits.

Economy
The Metropolitan Helsinki will receive a fair share of state financing in relation to its traffic volumes and the special traffic fees and taxes collected in the area.

Implementation
Carry out the transportation system development measures in a coordinated and democratic manner.

Implementation of the transportation development projects will require a funding of about ten thousand million Finnish marks (approximately 1.7 billion Euros) by the year 2020.

The history of road user charging in Helsinki

For the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA), some road toll proposals have been made in the past (late 1980's and early 1990's). None of them reached the final political decision makers before they were doomed by the media, motorist organisations and political parties as well.

Since that this issue has been studied mainly from the theoretical point of view in order to provide the political discussion with facts and to keep this topic alive. Just recently The Ministry of Transport and Communications has taken the initiative to launch the discussion concerning alternative possibilities to finance infrastructure investments. The user pays principle and its applications form one part of the issues to be discussed.

Other European projects

The bodies within the Helsinki Metropolitan Area have been involved in many European supported projects concerning the road pricing over a number of years. These include:

CESARE II

PRESS

TRANSPRICE

CARDME

Move-It

ADEPT II