Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council's Journey Planner services have won this year's Communications Sector Customer Service Award.
The award was presented by Communications Minister Suvi Lindén at the Ministry's Viestintäfoorumi (Communications Forum) on 21 January. It was received by Director of Transport Niilo Järviluoma and Head of Information Systems Kimmo Sinisalo.
In the opinion of the Awards Committee, it is very easy to use the Council's public transport and cycling journey planners, and the options offered are clear and easy to understand. The public transport journey planner has been available since 2001 and the journey planner for cycling since spring 2007.
The committee wants to reward the journey planners not just because they are easy to use but because they encourage both those who live in the capital area and those visiting from outside to opt for a more climate-friendly means of getting about than by car. The journey planners are in Finnish, Swedish and English and there is also the 'Reissugaidi' version - in Helsinki slang.
There are also text versions of the journey planners that can be used with a mobile phone and also using devices for the visually impaired. The Awards Committee is also suggesting that Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council invests in its development work to improve usability of the mobile versions of the journey planners in particular.
The Council has furthermore tested a journey planner program that uses speech recognition. This would benefit not only the visually impaired but other travellers too.
The journey planners are available at the Council's homepage at www.ytv.fi, but they can also be found at www.reittiopas.fi.
The Communications Sector Customer Service Award has now been presented three times. The award is an attempt to encourage communications operators to improve their customer service. The award is made on the basis of a proposal by a committee set up by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The committee consists of representatives of companies in the industry, organisations and officials.
Further information:
Ms Liisa Ero, Director General, Ministry of Transport and Communications,
tel. +358 9 160 28461, +358 50 555 0072
Mr Sakari Eränen, Chairman of the Awards Committee, tel. +358 9 8562 1231
