Lappeenranta to enhance transport through shared vehicle services

The City of Lappeenranta is currently looking for a service provider to introduce shared electric vehicle services to the city. The city is planning to offer four new electric cars in this service this year. They will be available for hire by residents when they are not in official use by the city. The service will be operated entirely by a private service provider. The key aim is to streamline the use of vehicles by the city and thus create savings in the city’s vehicle operations.

“We are using this pilot project to test our residents’ interest in shared electric vehicles, and we wish to promote the purchase of electric cars,” says Terhi Jantunen, advisor at the city’s Business Development Services.

Promoting the culture of shared use

Despite the media hype, the use of electric vehicles is at a low level in the Lappeenranta region. The idea behind piloting the shared use of electric vehicles is to make electric cars more popular and to create a new culture of shared use. Today, there is no service provider in the Lappeenranta region for the shared use of electric vehicles.

“Once the city introduces the shared vehicle service and provides parking spaces and charging points, we will be able to significantly lower the threshold of launching the service in South Karelia,” says Advisor Petri Kero from the City of Lappeenranta.

For the vehicles in the service, the city will place four 22 KW charging points in the indoor car park at Lappeenranta City Hall. The City of Lappeenranta has received EUR 5,000 from the Prime Minister’s Office funds for pilot projects on the circular economy. During the summer, the Experimental Finland team of the Prime Minister’s Office looked for small-scale pilots to promote the circular economy that could be completed for EUR 500–5,000. They received 126 proposals in total. Of these, 21 pilots received funding.

Efficient use of old cars

Lappeenranta is the first city in Finland to start sharing vehicles owned by the city. As of 20 September 2017, five cars not used to full capacity by the city have been available to rent by the city’s residents through the Shareit Blox Car service.

“Our wish is to make full use of our property, and also to speed up the process of making the vehicle fleet of the city lower in emissions. We are willing to give it a go,” says Markus Lankinen, Senior Advisor at the City.

The City of Lappeenranta actively seeks to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the city and throughout society. In the spring of 2017, the City of Lappeenranta, with its group of companies and the Social and Health Care District of South Karelia, decided to prioritise vehicles that run on renewable energy, i.e. on gas or electricity.