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Photo: City of Vantaa

The Last Mile project piloted new market-oriented, smart and sustainable mobility solutions for facilitating the mobility of tourists, residents and employees in the Helsinki region. The aim was to supplement the current transport system with the piloted solutions.

Pilots were carried out at Rantaraitti coastline route and Nuuksio National Park in Espoo, Jätkäsaari area in Helsinki and Aviapolis district in Vantaa. 200 parties were involved in cocreating the services. Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab will continue developing smart mobility solutions in Helsinki.

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Results of the Last Mile project

  • The Last Mile project carried out twenty pilots, including the following examples:
    • In Espoo, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland piloted the Parkkihaukka service. The service’s cameras collected real-time information on the parking situation in Haukkalammi and Kattila at Nuuksio National Park. During the pilot, the service’s website was visited approximately 50,000 times. Metsähallitus has stated that Parkkihaukka eased traffic congestion in Nuuksio. VTT is continuing the development of the service, and Metsähallitus is also interested in preserving the service and implementing it at other national parks as well.
    • ZoneAtlas (previously known as Tietotemput) piloted the Nuuksioon.fi service, which combines public transport connections and local hiking trails to provide hiking trip suggestion to people visiting the national park. The service remained in use after the project, and there has also been interest in expanding it to other areas. Based on the same idea, ZoneAtlas also developed the Stopoverguide.fi service aimed at stopover flight passengers, which was piloted in Vantaa under this project.
    • In Espoo, the project also piloted the Skipperi city boat service, which is based on the sharing economy. The service includes both rowboats and motorboats. During the pilot, the service recorded approximately 1,000 trips by rowboat and approximately 730 trips by motorboat from Espoo. The company’s operations expanded from Espoo to Helsinki, and in the future they also aim to expand to other cities in Finland (including Tampere, Turku, Jyväskylä, Lappeenranta and Joensuu) and Sweden (Stockholm).

    • In cooperation with Pallo-Pojat Juniorit ry (PPJ), the project tested the Pelikyyti model for organising rides to sports practice and games for children in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki. Lower stage comprehensive school pupils were transported to the sports club’s practice after the school day by carpooling. Approximately 200 children took part in the pilot. 84% of the families that participated in the pilot considered the resulting increase in shared family time very important. The children transported via the service were also happy with the service. The project prepared a model and a publication based on the pilot, which other hobby groups can utilise to plan and carry out transports. PPJ is continuing the development of the model. The pilot involved a total of 11 schools in Helsinki and organised approximately 650 rides a week.
    • The project also piloted Bout, a service that has also been touted as ‘Uber for boats.’ The service is used via a smartphone application, which was used to order rides from owners of small boats to 50 pre-defined destinations on the shores and in the archipelago of Helsinki and Espoo.

    • In Vantaa, the project piloted the PiggyBaggy ridesharing service for commuters in the Aviapolis area in collaboration with four companies. During the pilot, it was noted that while ridesharing raised interest among commuters, the service still needs further development. As a result of the pilot, CoReorient is establishing cooperation with Turku, Jyväskylä, Lahti and a few smaller municipalities. The City of Vantaa has also expressed interest in the ridesharing service.
  • Metropolia University of Applied Sciences also carried out studies on the accessibility of tourist destinations, expectations regarding mobility and mobility service business models. As part of these efforts, the university carried out two international benchmarking studies to collect ideas on approximately 50 different mobility services and their applicability to the target areas of the Last Mile project. Furthermore, the Metropolia project team carried out user surveys related to the pilots and generated ideas on new service concepts in innovation projects. Aalto University tested their own TrafficSense application, which was used to collect and analyse data on mobility behaviour, and Demos Helsinki published a pilot guide.

The objective of the Last Mile project was to improve the mobility of residents, employees, customers and international visitors in the Helsinki region and supplement the existing transport system. The aim was to find quickly scalable solutions that could be expanded to new segments in the Helsinki region and other cities. The project was coordinated by the Business Development Services of the City of Vantaa, with the other project partners being Espoo Marketing, Forum Virium Helsinki, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Aalto University and Demos Helsinki. The Last Mile project ran from 1 September 2017 to 31 March 2020 and had a budget of EUR 1,858,238.

Further information:
Mira Rajalakso
Project Manager
City of Vantaa, Business Development Services
mira.rajalakso(at)vantaa.fi

Karoliina Korpela
Project Manager
Espoo Marketing
karoliina.korpela(at)espoo.fi

Heli Ponto
Project Manager
Forum Virium Helsinki

heli.ponto(at)forumvirium.fi
Kaija Haapasalo
Project Manager
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
kaija.haapasalo(at)metropolia.fi