The New Space scene is forming rapidly in Finland covering small satellites, satellite subsystems and components, satellite data based services, software, security and connectivity as well as research and education. 

Business Finland has published a new eBook: New Space Economy in Finland. The New Space Economy landscape is a tool for international customers to take a quick overview on Finland’s expertise, and a handy way for Finnish players to get to know each other.

Read more about the eBook on Business Finland’s web page.

The Mixed Reality offering puts together the best Finnish Virtual and Augmented Reality know-how in various industries and research.

Mixed Reality changes every industry, e.g. automotive, education, training and maintenance. This offering is a tool for international customers to take a quick overview on Finland’s Mixed Reality expertize, and a handy way for Finnish players to get to know each other. The eBook covers:

• Simulation and surveillance
• Planning and Design
• Training
• Maintenance
• Gaming and Entertainment

In addition to companies, the offering presents Finnish Mixed Reality research and operators. The Mixed Reality solutions from Finland offering is prepared by Business Finland.

Download the eBook on Business Finland’s web page.

 

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, is increasing rapidly. The goal of the multidisciplinary FUAVE research consortium is to establish a new research, development, and innovation partnership network to support the development of Finnish knowledge base and business related to the unmanned aviation of the future and its applications.

‘Our vision is that controlled test areas form the basis of the sustainable development of unmanned aviation and its applications. These test areas should act as Living Lab environments in urban or rural areas, providing a one-stop-shop for unmanned aviation research, business and applications,’ says Research Professor Eija Honkavaara, director of the consortium, from the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) of the National Land Survey of Finland.

The Finnish UAV ecosystem, or the FUAVE consortium, is building a sustainable base for the development and use of test areas. These test areas can then be used as platforms for the development of safe and weatherproof UAVs and sensors. They also enable the development of scaled aviation solutions for urban and rural areas. As the number of drones and other UAVs is only going to increase, safe traffic solutions must be built for them.

‘The project’s ambitious goal is to develop operations by launching a test area network covering the whole of Finland. The network includes Linnanmaa in Oulu, Jätkäsaari in Helsinki, Helsinki-East Aerodrome in Pyhtää, OuluZone, Kemijärvi and the Sjökulla test field in Kirkkonummi,’ says Project Manager Kimmo Paajanen from Oulu University of Applied Sciences.

Paajanen is responsible for the development of test area operations in urban areas in the project.

Joint development between stakeholders

FUAVE is developing the ecosystem and operating models around the test areas. Concrete actions include networking and joint development between stakeholders, the development of operating principles for test areas in urban and sparsely populated areas, and demonstrations of top technology and commercial applications in the test areas.

‘More than 20 companies and organisations have given their commitment to the project, and the ecosystem already includes more than 100 partners through various networks. Together with our partners, our goal is to build and innovate new accomplishments for drone operations that have an impact on Finland as a whole,’ says Hannu Karvonen, Senior Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, who is responsible for stakeholder activities in the project.

Partners of the FUAVE consortium include, for example, 6G Flagship, FCAI and UNITE, scientific spearheads of the Academy of Finland.

The consortium strengthens the societal impact of research

FUAVE received funding of roughly EUR 1.7 million from the Academy of Finland. The project will be carried out between 2020 and 2022. Other members of the FGI-led research consortium are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Oulu University, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, and South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences.

The project’s funding is part of the Academy of Finland’s special funding, which supports research-based partnership networks where universities and public research institutions build networks with businesses to strengthen the societal impact of high-quality research.

Read FUAVE’s publication here and find more information about test areas in Finland!

Data is the new fuel powering vehicles. As cars become more digitalized and connected, car manufacturers have to supercharge their vehicles with new technologies and fresh ideas. No wonder Finnish companies are already driving on this fast lane to the future.

Finland has introduced countless technologies and digital services to the world. In fact, Finns are renowned for creating user-driven solutions and sought-after technologies, in large part due to their holistic understanding of digitalization and the entire digital value chain.

Business Finland gathered the Finnish top tier mobility players into one eBook Smart Automotive and Mobility Solutions from Finland. Read the eBook here.

It’s the year 2030. Finland has the safest, smoothest and most environmentally friendly traffic in the world.

Fintraffic provides traffic information in Finland that helps companies to create new traffic and smart mobility solutions for people and goods. In the new video Fintraffic introduces their vision and how the Finnish transportation system will work seamlessly in the future.

Check out the new video:

 

 

In conjunction with the launch of Finland’s national battery strategy, Fortum announced in January 2021 the further expansion of its battery recycling operations. In February 2021, Fortum will open a new mechanical recycling processing plant located in Ikaalinen, Finland. The new plant, which is expected to employ up to 20 employees, will complement Fortum’s existing hydrometallurgical pilot facility in Harjavalta, Finland, which is already capable of operating on an industrial scale.

The world will increasingly need sustainable raw materials for EV batteries, as the electrification of cars is rapidly increasing the need for the valuable materials and chemical elements that batteries contain, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese. In addition, a recent EU directive proposal will also require improved collection targets, higher recovery rates and the increased use of recycled raw materials in new batteries.

Fortum, a leading European energy company, is committed to engage its customers and societies to decarbonise and to help them in decreasing their environmental footprints. Moving forward, CO2-neutral societies will rely on battery technology. Fortum has been developing new and increasingly efficient ways to optimise the entire lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries for several years now and aims to further expand its battery operations in the coming years. Partnering with industrial and infrastructure customers is one of Fortum’s strategic priorities.

“Our new plant in Ikaalinen will enable us to leverage our existing recycling operations in Finland and will give us the annual capacity to recycle approximately 3,000 tonnes of used batteries, corresponding to about 10,000 EV batteries,” says Tero Holländer, Head of Business Line Batteries at Fortum. “We aim to steadily increase this capacity in the coming months and years in order to bridge the raw materials gap faced by the automotive industry with the electrification of transportation. Providing recycled and sustainable raw materials for batteries will bring significant value not only to our partners and customers but also to Finland’s battery industry, which is well poised to take the lead in the supply chain for EV batteries.”

The global lithium-ion battery recycling market was worth about EUR 1.3 billion in 2019, but it is expected to boom in the coming years to more than EUR 20 billion. According to a forecast by the International Energy Agency, the number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads will increase from three million to 125 million by 2030.

Many current operators that recycle battery metals often do so by smelting, which results in lower material recovery rates and higher emissions. In order to recycle used lithium-ion batteries efficiently, safely and with the lowest possible CO2 footprint, Fortum has taken an approach that includes using both mechanical and hydrometallurgical methods for the recycling process; this approach can reach a recovery rate of up to 95% of the metals included in the valuable active materials of a battery’s black mass.

Fortum’s unique mechanical recycling process has been optimised to complement the hydrometallurgical process and has been designed to minimise emissions and dust. During the process, used EV batteries are shredded and the metals are separated to create a black mass. This black mass is then delivered to Fortum’s processing facility in Harjavalta where a hydrometallurgical process is applied to create new recycled raw materials that can be used in new battery products.

Read Fortum’s press release here.

Telia partnered with Arthur D. Little to look into the digitalization of public transport in the Nordics and Baltics – the results of the study are published in a comprehensive report now available online.

How IoT and Data Insights Are Changing the Way We Move

Public transport is a in a period of intense challenges and remarkable possibilities. In this report, Telia and Arthur D. Little look at the goals, trends and pain points identified by public transport authorities and operators across the Nordics and Baltics – and how they can be addressed by the emerging possibilities of digitalization.

The new report covers following areas:

• Nordic & Baltic overview
• Impact of Covid-19
• Local trends
• Understanding crowds
• Pain Point 1: Attracting passengers
• Pain Point 2: Passenger satisfaction
• Pain Point 3: Modernization pressure
• Pain Point 4: Competetive advantage
• Digitalization in action
• What will 5G drive
• Cases from the real world
• The road ahead

Analysts from Arthur D. Little interviewed public transport decision makers from across the Nordics and Baltics to understand their pains. Combining these findings with other local and global reports, we looked at how the emerging possibilities of digitalization can help to address them.

Read the full report here.

Stockton, CA & New York, NY 20th November 2020

The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) and Masabi, the company bringing Fare Payments-as-a-Service (FPaaS) to public transit, announced November 20th 2020 the launch of EZHub, a cashless mobile ticketing and fare payment system, available in the Vamos Mobility App from Kyyti, that will make using public transit safer and easier to access and pay for throughout San Joaquin County.

Once downloaded, transit riders can use the Vamos Mobility app to plan their journeys and, thanks to the addition of EZHub, purchase tickets for any of the seven participating transit systems. The app is available from both the App Store and Google Play by searching for “Vamos Mobility” or “EZHub”, connecting residents of California’s Central Valley with affordable and clean local transit.

From 20 November 2020, riders on services provided by San Joaquin RTD, Manteca Transit, Tracer, eTrans, Altamont Corridor Express (ACE Rail), GrapeLine and City of Ripon can use EZHub to purchase tickets via the Vamos Mobility app wherever, whenever and ride across the agencies networks. This will cover the regional bus and rail transit services throughout San Joaquin County and local bus transit service in the cities of Stockton, Lodi, Manteca, Ripon, Tracy, and Escalon. Talks are ongoing to expand the app’s functionality beyond San Joaquin County, and to add further mobility partners.

Vamos is integrating EZHub using Masabi’s Justride SDK, enabling transit ticketing from within the Vamos Mobility app. This ground-breaking innovation will help open up ticketing across the region, giving people the freedom and flexibility to open a single app to plan a trip, get real-time information, and purchase a ticket in just a few taps.

Thanks to Masabi’s cloud-native and multi-tenant Fare Payments-as-a-Service platform, Justride, which powers EZHub, transport agencies no longer need to purchase their own design-and-build bespoke ticketing systems, which are expensive, slow and risky to deploy, and do not update regularly with new features and functionality unless significant amounts of money are invested. Instead, using a Fare Payments-as-a-Service approach, they can benefit from the latest innovations delivered quickly and cost-effectively, with regular feature updates everyone on the platform benefits from.

“The launch of EZHub represents the dawn of a new era for transit riders in San Joaquin County,” said Diane Nguyen, Deputy Director at SJCOG. “From now on, not only will people be able to buy their tickets at any time, anywhere, but that ticket will take them wherever they want to go in San Joaquin County, saving the hassle of keeping track of multiple tickets, schedules and services across different agencies. Masabi presented us with a compelling proposition, with a world-renowned product that will help streamline transit for people and communities, and we are delighted to have such an esteemed partner on board as we get to work making journeys smarter.”

“At Masabi, our Fare-Payments-as-a-Service approach to fare collection has brought time and cost-saving innovation to all sizes of transit agency across the world. Now, more than ever, when passenger safety is paramount, the reassurance of a fully contactless rider experience combined with an easier way to reach destinations throughout the region means that journeys can be undertaken safely and conveniently,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. “We’re excited about the launch of this ground-breaking regional project and pleased to bring the benefits of cashless technology to riders of all the agencies involved via a single solution.”

“SJCOG’s new regional fare payments system, EZHub, is a highly advanced solution to a technically complex problem. It seamlessly combines services from seven  transit agencies. We are very happy to be the end user app provider for this project,” said Kyyti Group CEO Pekka Möttö. “We believe in making everyday commuting more convenient and more sustainable. Working with Masabi allows us to seamlessly combine passenger information with mobile ticketing over many operators, all within one app”, Möttö says.

Read the full story on Kyyti Group’s press release.

The digitalisation of public transport helps to achieve the set service and emissions targets

Finland needs a digital travel information market that motivates different information providers to produce travel data needed for high-standard digital services to be shared by all service providers. Travel information contains data related to the operation of public transport, such as route, stop and timetable data, as well as disruption information and real-time data.

In collaboration with key public transport operators, the Finnish state owned research institute VTT studied the current situation of the digital travel information infrastructure, development needs, organisational models and measures for achieving the target state. The aim is to make public and shared transport a genuine alternative to private motoring to reduce emissions and generate business-driven growth. The key measure to increase attractiveness is the provision of comprehensive, high-quality digital travel data and services based on it.

Challenges of the current state and future goals

The operating environment of public transport has gone through many changes. Emissions targets, customer requirements and changes in legislation require increasing attention from service providers. Furthermore, new forms of mobility and flexible demand-driven and shared services increase the requirements for digital services. The implementation of smooth multimodal travel chains requires taking account of the needs of various actors and standard solutions to ensure interoperability. At the national level, the development of digital public transport services has come to a halt or been siloed into limited service packages, despite the efforts of the authorities to establish nationwide integration of travel data and a journey planner based on it.

“The current systems are beginning to be outdated, and they no longer support all needs and new forms of mobility services. All actors will need to renew their systems in the near future, which provides an opportunity for developing common and compatible solutions,” says Hannu Heikkinen from the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL).

The need for the reorganisation of the providers of travel information services arises largely from the need to provide interoperable services in a cost-effective manner. Another major change in the current situation is the restructuring of the maintenance and service provision of the Digitransit system, which serves as the foundation of, for example, matka.fi and the journey planners of HSL and TVV Lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy.

In addition to services targeted to consumers, transport operators and other travel information providers need a clear integration environment, standards, guidelines and tools for producing high-quality travel information for all parties involved.

“Comprehensive travel information is needed by all, not only customers but also authorities for such tasks as planning and monitoring,” says Pipsa Eklund from the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom.

Measures and operating models for achieving the objectives

The VTT report describes different alternatives for potential organisational models for the travel information ecosystem, including the roles, necessary measures and technical solutions. The aim is to find a model that uses the work and business of different actors while taking account of the needs of the public sector. Tentatively, the hybrid model based on cooperation between the public and the private sector is considered the best option.

“The challenge with closed systems is whether they allow providing consumers with a service that is good enough to make them switch from private cars to public transport,” says Jari Paasikivi from TVV lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy.

Towards an advanced national solution together with the key operators in the sector

“As a small market area, it is not resource-wise for Finland to have different parties doing the same overlapping things that, at their worst, are not even compatible. A common ecosystem and trust network between the actors would give better opportunities for cost-effective action that, at best, could extend beyond national borders,” says Olli Pihlajamaa, Senior Scientist at VTT.

HSL, Matkahuolto, TVV Lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä, Traficom and VTT have decided to make an initiative on a travel information group, which will set off to specify the required measures together and ultimately decide on the organisation of the collection and integration of travel data. The aim is to bring Finnish actors together to join concrete cooperation, which would result in building a joint solution that serves all actors.

“To generate good services the project should engage a broad range of actors and service providers from both the private and public sectors in producing and utilising information. Genuine collaboration will benefit all the parties involved and enable the provision of better services to consumers,” says Mika Rajanen from Oy Matkahuolto Ab.

Further information:

VTT Technical Research Center of Finland
Olli Pihlajamaa
Senior Scientist
+358 40 5069153
olli.pihlajamaa@vtt.fi

Read the original article in Finnish on VTT’s webpage.