1. Regulations and laws before DRT in Finland
Regulations and laws before DRT in Finland
The basic idea of Finnish public transport in private. Except Helsinki region and in two other cities, all the other bus transport is private and run mostly by fare-box revenue. There is no direct subsidy, but the state provincial offices and local municipalities (including towns) buy service, some 20% of all public transport. The railways are sparse and have a significant role on some long distance connections and in Helsinki region's local traffic, only.
The buses have a licence, on departures on certain line.
In Finland the preparation on joining to European Union caused quite drastic effects in public transport legislation, when there is question of services in rural areas. Before the licence on profitable line included service obligation on non-profitable lines and departures. After 1995 this was no more possible, an it caused a service loss on more rural areas, even quite near big population agglomerations.
Because of the receding PT, and increasing car traffic causing the classification of rods to unsafe for children, the school transport needs more and more transport capacity.
At the same time the special transport legislation, already some years old, took its full effect. The law enforces municipalities to arrange transport services for disabled, and for social reasons. The passenger pays the normal PT fee, regardless existing PT or not, and the local municipality pays the real costs of transport.
A special case in personal transport subsidy in Finland is National Social Insurance Institution (KELA). KELA subsidies health care trips, and in this role KELA is the biggest single personal trip payer in country.
There was no legislation of "between" modes in public transportation.
2. Pilots
The pilots of DRT started in December 1995 the Ministry of Transport and Communication (MINTC) in the leadership an funded by EU-Commission, MINTC and state provincial authorities.
SAMPO and SAMPLUS are quite well documented in EU reports, but there were in Finland several others. For open-for-all trips in Finland the Kuopio pilot was very successfull, and its present DRTS transports some 200 000 passengers in a year.
In Health care trips the Rovaniemi central hospital based DRT system covers some 90 000 sqkm:s.
There were several other larger pilots in the country and many minor enterprises.
3. Committee (working group) , and the signed co-operation agreement
In November 2003 the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communication appointed a working group to investigate the organization and financing of trips paid by society.
In working group there were nominated members from Ministry of Transport and Communications in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of Education, the Social Insurance Institution (KELA) and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities.
The report presents the proposals of the working group on the management and financing of travel dispatch operations and the measures for introducing such schemes.
With the aid of a management model, the objective is to establish a common mode of operation throughout the country.
The aim is to create sufficiently large travel dispatch districts, i.e. with a minimum of 250,000 inhabitants. Management would be divided into three levels: guidance, coordination and operations.
As a result of committee, the mentioned parties signed 2004 a contract to promote the development of travel dispatch centres in Finland.
Essential in working group's idea was, that no change in legislation is needed. This includes that it is voluntary for all organisations to join in TDC operations.
However, there were two essential changes in lower legislation, i.e. in statutory orders.
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The definition of DRT |
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The subsidy of health care trip can be paid by the tariff of DRT, if there is a local decision on it. |
4. Development after the signed contract of DRT promotion
In the development of TDC:s the state provincial offices started preliminary studies, how to proceed, using consultants.
The studies covering most of country finished 2005 and work to put up quite many new TDCs started.
However, now the putting up new TDCs is in some suspension phase, mostly because KELA has found that there is some risks that were not clearly mapped in working group's report.
The real cause of many of those risks is that there is no real legislation of DRT and its relations to other transport modes, especially to taxi-industry, and on payer side, where KELA is afraid, that it must pay costs, that earlier are paid by municipalities.
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Interventi |
Speakers |
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Moderatore: A. Ferrari, SITA |
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15.00 |
Welcome and opening |
V. Del Bolgia, SITA |
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15:05 |
Introduction to the workshop |
A. Ferrari, SITA |
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15:10 |
The role of flexible services in the overall public transport chain |
D. Engels, University of Gent |
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15:30 |
Flexible transport services in the metropolitan area of Florence |
N. di Volo, C. Binazzi |
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15:50 |
The implementation of new flexible services in the rural area of Massa Carrara |
D. Ceccarelli, CAT, A. Liberato, MemEx |
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16.10 |
The experience of flexible services in the rural area of Angus |
B. Masson, ATF |
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Coffee Break |
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16.50 |
Transport Initiatives in Ireland: purposes, schemes and new perspectives |
B. Finn, ETTS |
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17.00 |
Demand responsive transport in the region of Gyor (HUN): needs, barriers and solutions |
I. Prileszky, B. Horváth, Szechenyi Istvan University |
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17.20 |
Flexible services in Finland: regulation and laws |
A. Kalliomaki, Municipality of Tuusula |
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17.40 |
Final Discussion
Closing |
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