Föli celebrates its 10th anniversary on 1 July 2024

Föli traffic started on 1 July 2014 in Turku, Kaarina, Raisio, Naantali, Lieto and Rusko. Today, up to 100,000 journeys a day are made in Föli and customer satisfaction remains high year after year.

Since the start of the service, the area has remained the same until now, exactly ten years later, with the Föli area now expanding to Paimio. The City of Paimio joined Föli at the beginning of 2024 and joint traffic operations begin today, 1 July.

Milestones in Föli history

The first electric buses began operating in Turku in 2016 on line 1 – a route linking the harbour, the city centre and the airport. Today, FöIi operates 105 electric buses and already more than half of Föli's kilometres are driven electrically.

In the same year, Föli was the first in Finland and one of the first in the world to switch to an identification-based payment system, which means that the travel card data is stored in the background system and not in the physical card. The upgrading of the payment system has also made it possible to introduce joint tickets for FöIi and events. Many event organisers in the region, such as theatres, issue a joint ticket meaning that the event ticket includes Föli travel and does not require a separate bus ticket. Other business services have also been developed in recent years. Föli offers, for example, a commuting card, which enables employers to offer an easy employment benefit to their employees.

In 2017, Föli's water bus service between the River Aura and Ruissalo started with one water bus. The much appreciated water bus service has since been regularised, and today there are two water buses that run during the summer season from the River Aura to Ruissalo and Hirvensalo. Around 60,000 journeys are made by water buses every summer.

In 2018, Turku's city bikes, the Fölläri bikes, arrived in Turku. There are 700 of them in the city, each with its own unique name. Fölläri bikes are a popular service, with over 365,000 journeys made on the bikes during the 2023 Fölläri season.

In 2021, contactless payment was introduced in Föli, the first local transport service to do so in Finland. You can therefore pay for your Föli ride using contactless payment by debit or credit card, or mobile device. Contactless payments have been warmly welcomed, with more than 2.5 million trips made with them last year alone Other payment methods are still available, so you can pay for your trip by travel card, mobile app or cash in addition to the contactless payment.

In Föli, accessibility has been improved over the years to make public transport possible for all. Since 2022, buses have featured announcements to indicate the name of the next bus stop. Almost all buses have a low floor. Guidance materials have been produced in many different languages. There are also pictorial communication instructions for Föli services, produced in cooperation with Papunet by the Finnish Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.  The FöIi plain-language website was launched in 2023.

In terms of the number of trips made, the best year in FöIi's history was 2017, when 27 million were made. Now in 2024, in the wake of the renovation of the Market Square and the COVID-19 pandemic, we are fast approaching and possibly exceeding the figures for that record year.

This year, Föli won the international European BEST Survey for the fourth consecutive time. BEST (Benchmarking in European Service of Public Transport) is a European cooperative network that conducts an annual survey to map resident satisfaction with public transport in its member cities. Ninety percent of passengers travelling daily were satisfied with Föli.

A look to the future

In one year’s time, on 1 July 2025, the new trunk lines will start operating. The new frequent trunk lines will usher in a new era for Föli, and the renewal will bring a new look to the entire bus network within Turku. The new network will be based on trunk lines that run so frequently that you can set off for your stop regardless of the timetable, making public transport even easier to use.

In addition to the trunk lines, there will be supporting lines such as school lines, inter-municipal services and regional services.

Celebrate with us!

Föli collects the best Föli memories from its customers throughout the year. Föli is also running a knitting design competition to celebrate its anniversary. Föli is looking for the best pattern for an item of knitwear that in some way reflects Föli. Entries are open until the end of July and the winner will be chosen in August. For instructions on how to participate, see foli.fi/en/10years. (Opens in a new tab)

In August and September, Föli invites customers to pick sunflowers from sunflower fields accessible by bus in municipalities in the Föli area. The locations of the fields will be published on foli.fi/en/10years (Opens in a new tab)later in the summer.