Road notes
I'm on my way to Copenhagen with the final destination Brussels tonight. Cute location is one of the absolute benefits of Linkoping that I have to accept. Being 2 hours from Stockholm and 3-4 hours from Copenhagen gives a kind of freedom in selection of traveling routes. Sadly there is no comparison with Vaasa and its 8 trains to Helsinki per day. However in terms of living comfort I'd prefer Finland with all its small benefits in mundane.
From lyrics back to track... My today's trip was planned as pleasant short holidays but unexpectedly had to be changed into more complicated and multi-purpose adventure. The route looks like this: Linkoping - Copenhagen - Brussels - Helsinki (Espoo) - Riga - Stockholm - Linkoping within 5 days and main points of "attraction" in Brussels and Espoo. The former is just to spend some free time. The latter is more serious. It will be the participation in the Project Management Championship. I have mentioned already that our team won honour to represent the University in it. And I'm sure I'll write about it more later when it happens.
But today it's some notes of misunderstanding how transport companies calculate ticket fares. Firstly, my favorite topic is about Swedish railways. I wrote already about "online discrimination" but finally I got a great assistance from a Masters's student from LiU. So I bought the tickets with fairly low price. We couldn't buy only one ticket for the today's train. Even a Swedish credit card was not accepted at the web-site of the transport company. By the way it was Veolia that has bus services also in Finland.
I was quite mean to overpay for the same ticket when buying it at the website of the Swedish railways. The price there increased around 20% comparing to Veolia web-site price. I waited... I also knew that it would be possible to buy tickets on board as we did it already once. Today when I arrived to the station I still decided to try my luck in the ticket office. There I was pleasantly surprised. I bought the ticket 20 crons cheaper than internet price. Last time it was vice versa situation. So I'm totally lost how the Swedish railways calculate prices. Why and how is it possible to go from Linkoping to Stockholm at 95 crons or at 395 crons in the same 2nd class. Mystery!!! I think this is an example of anti-transparency :-)
From arrangement of this trip I have other cute example of anti-transparency. As news about our win in qualification came after I planned my trip to Brussels I had to decide urgently the issue with my transportation from Brussels to Helsinki. Firstly, bad surprise was that the capital of the European parliament had quite bad connections with Europe. Secondly, I had to improvise bearing in mind that I have to be delivered to Espoo by 9 a.m. on Monday. Direct flight cost a fortune. Indirect flights took ages. I tried all the possible airports near Helsinki. Solution came from unexpected side. Checking flights Brussels-Riga being almost in despair I found one with connection in Helsinki :-) Nice choice, wasn't! It was almost twice cheaper than direct flight Brussels-Helsinki. Miracle? I don't know. I have no explanations but since now I will bear it in mind :-)
My station is next so have to close up.
From lyrics back to track... My today's trip was planned as pleasant short holidays but unexpectedly had to be changed into more complicated and multi-purpose adventure. The route looks like this: Linkoping - Copenhagen - Brussels - Helsinki (Espoo) - Riga - Stockholm - Linkoping within 5 days and main points of "attraction" in Brussels and Espoo. The former is just to spend some free time. The latter is more serious. It will be the participation in the Project Management Championship. I have mentioned already that our team won honour to represent the University in it. And I'm sure I'll write about it more later when it happens.
But today it's some notes of misunderstanding how transport companies calculate ticket fares. Firstly, my favorite topic is about Swedish railways. I wrote already about "online discrimination" but finally I got a great assistance from a Masters's student from LiU. So I bought the tickets with fairly low price. We couldn't buy only one ticket for the today's train. Even a Swedish credit card was not accepted at the web-site of the transport company. By the way it was Veolia that has bus services also in Finland.
I was quite mean to overpay for the same ticket when buying it at the website of the Swedish railways. The price there increased around 20% comparing to Veolia web-site price. I waited... I also knew that it would be possible to buy tickets on board as we did it already once. Today when I arrived to the station I still decided to try my luck in the ticket office. There I was pleasantly surprised. I bought the ticket 20 crons cheaper than internet price. Last time it was vice versa situation. So I'm totally lost how the Swedish railways calculate prices. Why and how is it possible to go from Linkoping to Stockholm at 95 crons or at 395 crons in the same 2nd class. Mystery!!! I think this is an example of anti-transparency :-)
From arrangement of this trip I have other cute example of anti-transparency. As news about our win in qualification came after I planned my trip to Brussels I had to decide urgently the issue with my transportation from Brussels to Helsinki. Firstly, bad surprise was that the capital of the European parliament had quite bad connections with Europe. Secondly, I had to improvise bearing in mind that I have to be delivered to Espoo by 9 a.m. on Monday. Direct flight cost a fortune. Indirect flights took ages. I tried all the possible airports near Helsinki. Solution came from unexpected side. Checking flights Brussels-Riga being almost in despair I found one with connection in Helsinki :-) Nice choice, wasn't! It was almost twice cheaper than direct flight Brussels-Helsinki. Miracle? I don't know. I have no explanations but since now I will bear it in mind :-)
My station is next so have to close up.