iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

EU only mandates competitive tendering if production is not in house or the authority does not have a controlling interest in the operator. Most German cities still have city transport companies running all their services for example. Mainline rail is a bit more complicated.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The language you want first and foremost in Europe for public transport would be German. Luckily most of them can speak English these days.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Last time I looked at the UITP World Congress they still had a partner's program clearly aimed at the wives of presumed male participants. Admittedly it's been a few years.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Our authority says 3,9% of inspected passengers have not paid. Last year their total revenues were about 390 million and they claim to have "lost" 40 million due to fare evasion. I do not understand how.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Do they actually start their shifts there? Our bus drivers start at a depot and usually take a small car to the swapping point. The other driver brings it back.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If the trams are parked overnight, the first and last operator will need to clock in and out at the shed though. No previous/next driver.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Our vehicle maintenance people say they need x persons minimum at each location for daily maintenance and to guarantee the trams will start in the morning. That being said, our metro used to store some trains overnight at stations. Now has depots close to both ends.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We had a local BEB research spinoff (Linkker) for a while. Turned out that the hard part was not the electric drivechain, but manufacturing and supporting a good bus. And plenty of companies do that already.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

In my experience public transport professionals on excursions are the worst. Delaying vehicles by holding the doors, blocking corridors, talking loudly, etc. 😆

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Stuttgart is the heaviest stadtbahn of them all tbf. The only successors to the Stadbahnwagen A.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Does anyone have contacts in the TramCamp (Tramvia del Camp de Tarragona) area? I will be in Salou/Cambrils in two weeks (25th to 29th) and might have time for some tramway construction spotting.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

On passenger comfort: rail vehicles have much lower lateral acceleration limits than buses. This increases comfort, but makes them slow around corners.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Around half of the population, depending on the definition. We are 700 000 now. The capital region of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen is 1,3 million and the metro is about 1,6 million. Some of the metro municipalities have not joined HSL.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I assume the Södra Station area used to be an open railway cutting which formed the basis of that break. But as you have said: one can choose to (re) connect the street network or choose not to.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

HSL indeed. Helsinki is their biggest member / owner. HSL being a "joint municipal authority" (kuntayhtymä in Finnish).

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A used to be less frequent outside the weekday peaks but our PTA finally changed that to provide a consistent service pattern.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I was mostly referring to the Helsinki region, but yes, our greens do have the most progressive urban transport policies. It's just that you also need housing if you want to afford all these nice things.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

We've had a good run with the greens supporting urbanism and housing (along with the other parties) . Unfortunately they have been succumbing to the alt-left recently because housing means cutting down some trees and there is no immediate shortage due to past construction and high interest rates.

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Reposted by Lauri Kangas

Niko Setälä @nikosetala.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Vietimme päivän katsomalla elokuvaryhmämme Ihmiskunnan ainoan toivon kaikki elokuvat, taukoineen noin kymmenen tuntia. Samalla muistelimme ystäväämme ja ryhmän päävisionääriä Ismo Kiesiläistä. Kaikenlaista hienoa sitä on viimeisen 27 vuoden aikana tehty! Katsokaa tekin: mystinenportaali.com/iat

mystinenportaali.com

Ihmiskunnan ainoa toivo - lyhytelokuvia vuodesta 1999

Hienostuneita lyhytelokuvia verkossa

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Why horns and not bells? Our trams do have horns, but will mostly use bells. Other road users immediately know that a tram is signalling.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Probably the same source. City buses vs. all buses and coaches.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

The stop spacing seems to be 615 m. 21 km/h with 500 m would be sus. Especially for a French system.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Depends on your tolerances and vehicles, but usually no. Something like 0 to +5 cm vertical should be possible. Might need to add shims to the bogies as the wheels wear though. We chose 0 to +6 cm. IIRC this meant slightly tigher track wear tolerances at stops and shimming max. once a year per tram.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Zürich might not be the best example though. They have folding step plates integrated with the doors. But there are others. German low floor systems for instance. Melbourne might also be interesting. They built "superstops" and rebalanced stops in the process. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Z%...

commons.wikimedia.org

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

What is the claimed purpose of year of expenditure estimation/budgeting? People think in current values.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Aligns with my recollection of about a quarter million for diesel and half a million for battery. I'll try to check with our PTA when I return from vacation. Private operators buy the buses, but the PTA does know the approximate prices.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I think there is a lot of variation by country. For instance, in Finland current helmets, boots, safety goggles and high-vis are required, but head to toe is not unless the task requires it. Most actual workers will wear head to toe because work clothes get dirty.

Two track inspection workers (foremen) wearing high-vis and helmets.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

My recollection of the Vienna convention is that rail vehicles shall have priority over all other road users. Zebras are the only allowed national exception. Of course the convention is not law. Our trams used to have to give way to parallel traffic when turning right. I got that changed.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This is what we do a lot now. Zebras across the general traffic lanes, refuges and no zebra across the tracks. For secondary crossings sometimes even no zebra at all. If we can't fit proper refuges, then the zebra will also cross the tracks. And on mixed lanes.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Good to know. Traffic light control isn't always practical and all of our pedestrian crossings are normally zebras. With line 15 we returned to using tram ped crossings that are not zebras and have recently been able to convert many of the legacy system crossings (back) as well.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Sign of the times? Finland (VR) had ambitious plans for travel time savings with tilting trains in the 90's (late 80's?) and the WCML Pendolinos were ordered in the late 90's. VR later switched to conventional double deck coaches when the benefits failed to materialise (reliably).

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Ours are also under the road code, although not classified as vehicles. Do trams in Italy yield to zebra crossings? Ours do.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

We get the argument that urban streets must be continuous because "cul-de-sacs are suburban".

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Wind and solar have almost zero opex and are not controllable at will, so they are really baseload. You just have to manage the fluctuations in production via demand and supply side methods.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

SelTrac being Hitachi ex-Thales(-ex-Alcatel) as opposed to Hitachi ex-Ansaldo STS.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

With typical (city) tram stop spacing you will get a continuous corridor though. But yes, width is preferable if possible. A challenge for our arterials to boulevards tram projects. We have ended up with rather narrow development mainly to preserve part of the green buffers around the arterials.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Our Ministry of the Environment has a silly metric of metres from a rail line, not from a stop. I would still claim that corridors can be useful for intensifying surface level public transport streets like this. The orbital tram line offers transfers to trains. Complementary, not a replacement.

New buildings along Käskynhaltijantie in Oulunkylä, Helsinki, Finland.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Long-ish sections in Santa Cruz de Tenerife are managed with intermittent roundabouts.

An aerial view of Avenida Ángel Romero and Avenida Islas Canarias in Santa Cruz de Tenerife showing no left turns across the tramway except for two roundabouts.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

"Now that we have opened this light rail line we need to fine tune it and maintain the priority." was a rather difficult concept for management. "Can't we just concentrate on the next one?"

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Reposted by Lauri Kangas

Katri Hämeenniemi @katrihameenniemi.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Tähän aloitteeseen kertyy nyt nimiä vähän huolestuttavan hitaasti. Vielä 3382 allekirjoitusta tarvitaan! www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/16...

kansalaisaloite.fi

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

This page lists the most and least punctual lines over the last 7 days. Trams are green. Separate lists for "on departure", "on the way", "at the end of the line". bussitutka.fi/statistics

bussitutka.fi

Bussitutka - Tilastot

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

T3 serves a different role in the system than Finch West though. Paris has separate rail lines for different trip lengths. See e.g. Andy Nash's presentation on network levels. www.spur.org/sites/defaul...

spur.org

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

At the western end of our line 15 we didn't have room for this, so we added a powered crossover two stops before. In a pinch, some trams can be turned back there to avoid overloading the terminus. Demand is much lower past this stop and there is a metro connection, so we can afford to lose capacity.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Indeed. Public transport is mobility as a service. The customer interface is with the service, not the infrastructure. So one level higher up in network engineering terms. This is one of @humantransit.bsky.social key points that I also preach in my lectures.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

And not great data at that. The EPOMM database happily mixed city and metropolitan/urban area data last I checked.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

The majority of the impacts are probably related to changes in urban/city structure which are long term with muddy causation. Our modeled modal share changes with static land use are modest. @alonlevy.bsky.social has a good post about this for Berlin.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Seems to mostly show that larger cities have higher public transport shares.

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Lauri Kangas @lcpitkan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Layovers are designed (by the PTA) so that 95% of services make the next departure on time. Along the lines they aim for max. 1 min ahead and 2 min behind. I think every line reaches at least 70% punctuality.

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