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The Last Mile Project

The project ended on February 29, 2020.

The “Last Mile” project (“Perille asti” in Finnish) aims to improve the mobility of local residents and travelers in the Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa Regions:

  • Jätkäsaari in Helsinki
  • Aviapolis and touristic destinations in Vantaa
  • Nuuksio and Rantaraitti in Espoo

It is a joint project of the city of Vantaa, Espoo Marketing, Forum Virium Helsinki, Metropolia UAS, Aalto University, and Demos Helsinki. ”Last mile” is funded by European Regional Development Fund through the ”Six City Strategy” during 2017-2019.

The Last mile project was seeking smart and sustainable mobility solutions for tourists, residents and commuters in the Helsinki metropolitan area in collaboration with companies that provide mobility services and companies in tourism industry.

Metropolia´s project team made research and several studies supporting the selection of suitable trials in different target areas of the project. An international benchmarking study, which provides 41 examples of mobility services in cities and recreational areas, was completed during spring 2018 and followed by another benchmarking study about mobility services including some value-adding cargo logistics or well-being related service (14 examples).About 100 tourists were interviewed at Jätkäsaari West Terminal in Helsinki spring 2018. The expectations for mobility services and accessibility of touristic attractions were studied at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, in some hotels and touristic attractions in Aviapolis area in Vantaa. About 200 visitors on the costal walkway of Espoo and in Nuuksio Natural park and about 100 visitors of Pentala island in Espoo by Aava Lines were interviewed as well. Metropolia collected also feedback from the users of these new services which is need when developing them further.

With help of service design innovation projects some of the recognized service needs were developed further into service concepts. Also a MaaS Business Model Canvas was created and a research which was based on several interviews to the specialists of the subject area was conducted. The purpose of this was to enable the companies to understand the business environment and added-value of the mobility services better.

Links to all research results can be found under Research results at the bottom of the page.

Business from new services

During the project twenty company pilots related to mobility services were implemented in the target areas of the project. Examples of these mobility services are e.g.: audio guided routes and electric bikes and Stopoverguide.fi - service for travelers, Nuuksioon.fi- trail-route-planning service connected to public journey planner, surveillance cameras utilizing solar panels to ease parking problems, shuttle bus service, P2P- platform to combine private bout owners and people in need for a bout ride, direct waterbus connection from Jätkäsaari to touristic attractions and to Pentala Museum island in Espoo, a service combining car sharing service and parking service to ease parking problems in Jätkäsaari and cargobikes for residents in Jätkäsaari.

Metropolia will produce a summary report of the main research results as ”lessons learnt”. In this report, the special features of Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo target areas of the project are taken into consideration. This is done in cooperation with Demos Helsinki

More information

tki-info [at] metropolia.fi (tki-info[at]metropolia[dot]fi)

Kaija Haapasalo
Project Manager
tel. +358 400 988 529
kaija.haapasalo [at] metropolia.fi (kaija[dot]haapasalo[at]metropolia[dot]fi)

Last Mile Smart Mobility pilots in Jätkäsaari 2018

Testing folding bikes at Metropolia - Bikefy concept

Metropolia UAS is developing further so called Bikefy-concept together with Kultaiset Pojat Oy during spring and summer 2019. The target of this pilot is to collect feedback from Metropolia staff about combining folding bikes and public transport while commuting to work. This provides a sustainable alternative for using cars. This innovation development with Kultaiset Pojat Oy originates from a pilot in Last Mile project in Vantaa autumn 2018. It supports Metropolia´s strategic focus area of sustainable development.

Last Mile Bikely - Pilot training

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Research results

Innovation projects

Thesis