Kerkko VANHANEN

Biographical note
Kerkko Vanhanen works at Helsinki Region Transport as the Head of Information Systems Group. He is responsible for HSL digital passenger information services as well as telematics solutions behind the scenes. He has worked with public transport information services and systems since 2007 and worked before that as a traffic planning consultant.
Kerkko’s educational background includes an M.Sc. Traffic Engineering, minor in Urban architecture and City planning as well as in Logistics.

Innovation by opening data: Helsinki’s strategy favouring Open [Everything]:  data, governance, platforms and “trialling culture”
Open Data – What’s in it for public transport passengers? How about citizens? Open data and APIs are today an essential part of the digital service portfolio in Helsinki region.  This strategy offers more flexible solutions to people’s special needs and a possibility for any 3rd party to make money and create apps that full fill the needs of any interest groups. Done this way the digital services are always up to date and the process from data to services is faster – this brings better value for the tax payers’ money as well. HSL Helsinki Region Transport and the Finnish transport Agency have recently developed and published an open source code digital platform called Digitransit to boost new national public transport services. Open [Everything]:  data, governance, platforms and “trialling culture” has been a guideline through the project. Now anyone anywhere can benefit from HSL’s new Journey planner and the Digitransit platform.