FINLAND: Helsinki regional transport authority HSL is creating an open retail platform for single tickets intended to allow anyone in Finland or abroad to purchase single tickets for retail sale.
The interface will be available at sales-api.hsl.fi. ‘We are building a highly innovative and advanced digital retail API’, explained Mari Flink, director of Customer Experience & Sales. ‘We are confident that we will have many types of businesses and innovative pilot projects generating creative value-added services using the interface. We also aim to actively contact transport operators both in Finland and abroad.’
HSL’s Reittiopas journey planner has been using open interfaces for 15 years, but the introduction of an open sales API makes information security and business risk more critical. ‘Opening interfaces for accessing data is considerably easier than opening a public sales interface, which moves plenty of money and high transaction volumes’, said Hannu Heikkinen, director of HSL’s Technology Solutions Department. ‘We want to ensure that the interface poses no information security or credit risks. Some 370 million journeys are made annually on HSL’s transport services, and there are dozens of millions of sales transactions. We are talking about a huge volume’.
HSL has also invited operators in Finland and abroad to participate in a two-year Idea Lab programme which would develop multi-modal integration and mobility as a service pilot projects. ‘Ideas can apply to physical mobility services, ticketing and marketing collaboration, combination and relaying services for travel chains, or experimenting with automated transport’, said Flink.
