Passenger Information Programme HEILI

HEILI of Helsinki

Helmi, launched in the year 1999, is the transport telematic system of the City of Helsinki.

It was evaluated as a part of the TETRA – research and development project sponsored by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications in 2001, and found lucrative in the cost-benefit analysis

The Heili project in Helsinki is part of the passenger information project Heili also sponsored by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications. Its main objective is to develop and enlarge the Helmi-system

The project was founded in the fall 2003 and will be finished before the end of 2004. The par-ticipants of the project have been, the Traffic Planning Division of the City Planning Department of the City of Helsinki, Helsinki City Transport, Ajodata Oy, the main contractor of Helmi Thoreb, and the supplier of the radio modems for Helmi, Satel.

The new radio network, based on IT-radio technique, was launched in the summer 2004. It was evaluated capable of handling the whole Helsinki City region. The system can be enlarged with-out the need for additional radio frequencies.

The appearance of the signs at the stops was improved and integrated in the stop shelter con-struction. The costs of the signs were reduced by using changeable fields in the sign lay-out only where necessary. The signs were also equipped with a field for announcing traffic distur-bances.

The functionality of the public transport priorities at traffic lights was approved by the introduc-tion of a stop-detection. A detection indicator lamp was also developed in order to provide easy diagnostic of faulty detections. Reduction in travel times were achieved for the bus lines 14 and 18, recently added to the Helmi-system, to such amount that one block for each line could be omitted and considerable savings achieved.

Helmi produces traffic information which can be utilized by different distribution channels. The practical usage of the different available distribution channels was left for further study. The internet-application will utilize traditional well proven concepts. The development of the user in-terface for mobile telephone services, on the other hand, will be continued within the Virtuail-monitori-project which is part of the AINO-program, sponsored by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications.