Ferry schedules to your pocket
How does a load of logs travel to Hailuoto, how does milk get picked up from an island in Saimaa, how do people get to their cottages in Mossala? Operating working connections in Finland, the land spotted with thousands of lakes and islands requires ferries.
Finferries serves the needs of passengers at over 40 routes for sea and lake travel from southern Finland to the north. Their ferries annually transport over 5 million vehicles and 10 million passengers.
Ferry schedules to your pocket
The idea of creating a mobile app originally stem from a customer satisfaction survey, that Finferries conducts every summer. With more than 40 routes at place, the frequent ferry users were looking for a quicker way to browse through the schedules of their favorite routes.
Finferries approached a group of mobile application developers, calling for an app that would gather all of the ferry schedules and routes in one place. An app, that would be simple and easy to use and most of all, useful to have in your pocket. Keeping the frequent ferry users better up-to-date was also one of the objectives that Finferries was hoping to meet with the application.
Staying connected even offline
Having a full-on internet connection can never be taken for granted on the islands of the coastline. One of the things that made Liana Technologies stand out in the bidding was the full offline support of the mobile app. Should the internet go down or function slowly, the users of the app can browse through the routes and check schedules regardless. Updates are run automatically as soon as the user is re-connected.
Push notifications on favorite routes
To improve the communications with frequent ferry users Liana's developers suggested the idea of Favorites.
The users of the app can add routes as favorites to receive push notifications on any changes. Whether it’s a delay due to a storm, a technical issue or an extra shift, the app users will be the first to know.
Results and future plans
Since the launch of the mobile app, Finferries has actively collected feedback from the users of the app. Based on the feedback, the app has been developed and an updated version has been released. The next developments are already being planned and so it should be – Finferries sees the mobile app more as an evolving platform that they have no intention to finish up but constantly develop further.
The biggest peak in the amount of downloads is yet to be expected, as we currently move towards the vacation period and people traveling to their summer cottages.