Helping HSL strengthen digital journeys to support sustainable mobility

HSL plays a vital role in keeping the Helsinki region moving. To maintain an extensive public transport network across the metropolitan area, ticket revenue and smooth customer journeys are essential.

Building on years of partnership, HSL chose to continue the journey with Columbia Road as a long-term partner to develop ticket sales and customer experience. Together, we have combined growth thinking, cross-functional collaboration and rapid experimentation to increase digital sales, improve customer guidance and build a new way of working that continues to deliver value beyond individual campaigns.

Starting point: Ambitious targets and the need to make buying easier for everyone

HSL's starting point was clear: to sustain such a wide, high-quality transport network, every passenger needs to be able to easily buy the right ticket. Encouraging more people to choose public transport and to purchase valid tickets is fundamental to enabling sustainable mobility in the region.

At the same time, HSL was progressing several large-scale, long-term system development initiatives. While these investments were building the foundation for the future, they also meant that parts of the customer interface were in transition. On a day-to-day level, there was a need for more tactical, agile action to help customers find tickets and complete their purchases smoothly.

Some customer groups lacked clear digital touchpoints. In addition, navigating different ticket types and sales channels was not always as straightforward as it could be. HSL wanted to:

• Increase overall ticket sales in a sustainable way
• Grow digital transactions and app usage
• Improve cost-efficiency in ticket sales
• Make purchasing and self-service simpler for passengers

As a public authority, HSL operates within governance structures, procurement rules and regulatory frameworks that require transparency and accountability. Any change had to work at scale and serve diverse passenger groups.

Our approach: Building a cross-functional growth team to drive measurable ticket sales impact

Together with HSL, we assembled a cross-functional growth team of 15 HSL experts from marketing, product development, customer service and public transport operations. Columbia Road specialists worked alongside them.

This was a new way of working for the organisation: bringing multiple disciplines into the same room, aligning them around shared growth targets and giving them a mandate to test and learn quickly.

We introduced:

• Clear goal setting linked to ticket sales and digital channel growth
• Hypothesis-driven development and A/B testing
• Multi-disciplinary, fast-paced task force working in regular sprint structures
• Data-driven decision-making as a daily practice
• Close collaboration with customer service to reduce workload through better self-service

A significant share of the work focused on improving the hsl.fi website. Originally, the site was not primarily designed to guide users towards purchase. We shifted the focus towards clearer customer guidance and smoother paths to buying tickets.

Concrete actions included:

• Running a minimum of one A/B test on the website every week
• Testing different ways to highlight and position “Buy a ticket” entry points
• Launching and iterating a modal-based purchase prompt that later became a primary interface element
• Running targeted email experiments to activate specific customer groups
• Optimising and hypothesis testing with always-on growth advertising
• Conducting qualitative surveys and combining them with behavioural data to understand customer pain points and optimise journeys

The growth team also challenged positive status quo assumptions. Rather than relying solely on established practices, we encouraged a culture of evidence: define a hypothesis, test it, measure the results and refine.

Impact: Increased digital sales, stronger internal capability and better passenger guidance

The collaboration delivered tangible, measurable outcomes while strengthening HSL's internal ways of working.

Impact on ticket sales and digital adoption

Through systematic experimentation and improved customer guidance:

• Transitions to the HSL app increased by over 180% during the first six months of focused growth work.
• 42% of ticket sales during a defined period were influenced by or originated from growth team initiatives.
• Digital sales grew, contributing to additional revenue growth while supporting cost-efficient distribution

Impact on passengers and customer service

Passengers benefited from clearer guidance and easier ticket discovery. For instance, on a key landing page, targeted improvements led to a 37% reduction in users reporting they "could not find" what they were looking for. Furthermore, the number of users who found user instructions with ease on mobile increased by 66%. These improved self-service journeys reduced unnecessary friction and supported smoother everyday travel.

By increasing digital adoption, HSL was also able to reduce pressure on customer service, freeing up time for more complex enquiries and improving overall service quality.

Impact on culture and ways of working

Beyond numbers, one of the most important outcomes was cultural.

Data and measurement became part of everyday decision-making. Teams outside the growth team began asking how they could measure and optimise their own initiatives; a strong signal that the mindset was spreading.

Highlights and lessons learned: Cross-functional alignment and rapid testing as catalysts for change

Several turning points defined the success of the collaboration.

From experiment to core interface element:

Ideas originating from the growth team, such as the modal-based “Buy a ticket” solution, evolved from experiments into primary user interface components. Rapid testing supported product development with concrete data, reducing guesswork and accelerating decision-making.

Proving the value of measurement:

Systematic numerical analysis created transparency for leadership. Clear signals, such as the significant increase in app transitions, helped secure buy-in and reinforced the importance of evidence-based prioritisation.

Lessons for public-sector digital transformation:

• Cross-functional teams break down silos and improve information flow.

• Short-term tactical wins can coexist with long-term system transformations.

• Measurement builds trust, especially in publicly accountable organisations.

• Growth thinking can energise teams when given clear mandates and shared targets.

Way forward: Embedding growth as a core capability within HSL

With strong early results, HSL has further raised its ambitions.

The long-term objective is to continue strengthening organisational maturity. Growth thinking, experimentation and data-driven decision-making are increasingly becoming part of how development work is approached across the organisation.

This calls for ongoing evolution in how teams are organised, how targets are set and how impact is measured. As these capabilities develop, HSL is further reinforcing its ability to sustain ticket sales performance, optimise digital channels and continuously improve passenger experience over time.

By building both results and capability, the collaboration has laid a foundation for long-term, sustainable impact in public transport.