Travel Card swap
All HSL’s blue Travel Cards are changed to new, green cards. The change of cards is part of an extensive renewal of HSL's ticketing and information system. Travel Cards can be swapped free of charge at Travel Card service points until 10 November 2010, after which customers can change their cards for a processing fee for another two years.
Old Travel Cards in use until 10 November
The old Travel Cards will not be valid on public transport from Thursday 11 November onwards. If you have not yet swapped your old card to a new one, you should do that before this date at a Travel Card service point. The new Travel Card is contactless and it works on card readers exactly like the old card. Period tickets and value left on the old card are transferred to the new one.
The change of cards began in November 2009.By the end of September 2010 a total of around 670,000 cards had been changed. This means that the great majority of the around 700,000 -800,000 actively used Travel Cards have already been changes to the new green cards. The total number of Travel Cards issued since its introduction in 2001 is around 1.4 million.
Use of contact cards will terminate on 11 November as well
Tourist tickets, Suomenlinna tickets and two hour tickets loaded on contact cards will likewise not be valid for traveling after 11 November.
You can swap unused contact cards for single-charge cards free of charge at HSL's service points and the citizen's offices in Espoo and Vantaa until 10 November 2012.
Travel Card swap part of wider reform
The change of cards is part of an extensive renewal of HSL’s ticketing and information system which will introduce Travel Cards based on new technology, as well as real-time passenger information in phases by 2014. Also the pricing policy of tickets will be revised.
The reform introduces standard compliant cards enabling open tendering and cost-efficient development of the entire system. The new cards are ISO 14443 compliant and significantly cheaper than the currently used cards.
These reforms will allow us to provide more real-time timetable information and enable the introduction of new web-based services. For example, in future you can check a stop display or online to see if your bus is running on schedule or which alternative route to take e.g. in case of a service disruption. It will also be easier to expand the Travel Cards' service area to new municipalities.