What am I? I am a bicycler. I am an activist. I am a computer user since 1990, linux user since 2000 and a mac user since 2007. I am a happy. I am a fan of the original ideology behind wikipedia. I am a railfan. I am talkative. I am a person who likes to love everything around him. I have feet.

I have been doing mostly minor adjustments to wikipedia articles for several years now. Mostly anonymously, as the public computer I use doesn't preserve cookies. Besides the languages in my babel box I also have very simple Russian skills, enough to stay alive in Russia. About halfway between ru-0 and ru-1, I figure.

This user wants to be your friend.

This user is a friendly Hospitality Club member.

This user tracks his or her money on EuroBillTracker.

This user prefers Mozilla Firefox.

This user just LOVES to cycle!

This user is a citizen of the European Union.

This user's time zone is EST.

The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (Finn. Helsingin seudun liikenne, HSL, Swed. Samkommunen Helsingforsregionens trafik, HRT) began its work on January 1st, 2010.^[1] The work of the new intercommunal authority is based on the new Finnish public transportation law in force since December 3rd, 2009.^[2]. HSL is one of the larges intercommunal bodies in Finland, having 1,1 million people in its area of influence.

According to the law HSL is responsible for the planning and procuring of the public tranportation in greater Helsinki. The traffic functions of YTV and planning, procuring and tendering functions of HKL were moved into the transport authority.^[3]

It is now HSL's duty to procure the bus, tram, metro, ferry and commuter train services and to compile the Helsinki Region Transport System Plan. HSL also takes care of marketing and passenger information for the public transportation, approves the fare and ticketing system and the tickets' prices and is responsible for ticket inspection.

In the beginning phase the member municipalities are the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kerava and Kauniainen and the municipality of Kirkkonummi, who own the new intercommunal body together. A treaty has been composed, in which the operations and governance of the transport authority are regulated.

Also the other municipalities in the greater Helsinki area (Järvenpää, Nurmijärvi, Tuusula, Mäntsälä, Pornainen, Hyvinkää, Vihti and Sipoo) may join the tranport authority in future. There are currently altogether 1.3 million inhabitants in the 14 municipalities of greater Helsinki and the population is estimated to increase to 1.5 million by 2030.

The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority was founded in a meeting on June 17th, 2009. When its work began, it had a revenue of over 500 million euros, and approximately 350 staff members. The first president of the board of directors of HSL was Timo Jaatinen from Helsinki. Since mr. Jaatinen got chosen as the president of another organization, Tatu Rauhamäki from Helsinki was chosen as the president of HSL in December 2009. The offices of the transport authority are located in Pasila, Helsinki in the address Opastinsilta 6A.

The official name of the transport authority is Helsingin seudun liikenne -kuntayhtymä HSL in Finnish ja Samkommunen Helsingforsregionens trafik HRT in Swedish. The official name of HSL in English on Helsinki Regional Transport Authority. Also the shorter form of the name, Helsinki Region Transport may be used in some situations.

The visual outlook of HSL has been designed by design office Kokoro & Moi. Its compilers explain it in the following manner:

"The outlook shows reliability, freshness and ease of approaching. The octagonal shape of the logo is symbolizing the expanding public transportation network. The loops in the logo remind of leaf shoots, telling of new ways of action and new partnerships and of ecological values. The eight loops also represent all cardinal directions and are sending a message of the broad-ranged function of the origanization. In the middle of the logo there are two graphical lines, symbolizing uniting organizations and the public transportation with its tracks, wheels and map lines."