“Public transport ridership has been steadily increasing year by year. According to the traffic survey published last autumn, also the share of public transport of all transport in the metropolitan area was up for the first time in 50 years. This is a remarkable change that shows that also new customer groups are interested in HSL's services. The new customer acquisition campaign held in spring 2013 brought HSL nearly 30,000 new Travel Card customers,” says HSL’s Executive Director Suvi Rihtniemi.
Improved customer satisfaction is another indication of the popularity of public transport. The customer satisfaction scores given by some 50,000 people have improved on all modes of public transport. The overall score is 4.07 on a scale of 1-5 and the share of satisfied or extremely satisfied passengers is 87.5 per cent. In 2013, HSL area public transport also came out on top in the European BEST survey for the fourth time running.
Effective ticket inspections reduced fare dodging
In 2013, HSL's operating income totaled EUR 586.5 million, of which ticket revenue accounted for 47.4 per cent and municipal contributions for 49.7 per cent. Other operating income, in total EUR 17.2 million, mainly consist of government subsidies, ticket inspection revenue and rental income. HSL received EUR 5.8 million of Government subsidy for public transport in large cities.
With regard to ticket inspection, the aim was to increase the number of inspections by 2.5 per cent from the previous year and to target inspections in particular on the services where fare dodging is common. In 2013, in total four million passengers’ tickets were checked, an increase of about 15 per cent from the previous year. The share of passengers traveling without a ticket was on average 2.7 per cent. Penalty fares issued by HSL totaled EUR 5.3 million.
Increase in the operating costs eased off
HSL’s operating expenses amounted to EUR 569.8 million. Operating costs are the largest item of expenditure at EUR 450.3 or 79 per cent. In 2013, the public transport operating costs increased on average by 1.5 per cent. The increase was smaller than anticipated due to that fuel and lubricant prices went up less than in the previous years. In 2013, HSL ran a surplus of EUR 10.4 million, mainly thanks to the moderate increase in operating costs and low interest rates. HSL paid in total EUR 69.5 million for the use of public transport infrastructure.
Personnel costs amounted to EUR 18.7 million. At the end of 2013, HSL employed 405 people.
HSL’s investments amounted to EUR 13.4 million, of which EUR 10.2 million was related to procurements related to the future ticketing and information system.
The year was successful also in terms of HSL's environmental goals. The historic turn in the modal share of public transport is good news also for the goals of a sustainable transport system. Bus transport emissions have decreased year by year thanks to new vehicles. A total of 130 new buses entered into service in 2013.