Keeping tabs on Helsinki from the keyboard
Webcams, maps, real-time services all at the public's disposal
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By Jarmo Huhtanen
The City of Helsinki offers dozens of real-time online services, which are publicly available. Through them it is possible to see life in the Finnish capital with new eyes.
On the computer screen, it is possible to follow the movements of ships, aircraft, and trams, weather changes, traffic, or emergency calls received by the Helsinki Rescue Department.
Helsingin Sanomat looked into what the Finnish capital looked like online on Thursday February 16th between 10:00 am and 11:00 am.
Picture 1. The webcamera of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) shows the snowy South Harbour in the winter. Moored at a jetty in the foreground is the rescue vessel Jenny Wihuri, owned by the Finnish Lifeboat Institution. At the Katajanokka jetty, there is the M/S Suomenlinna II, which sails to the fortress island of Suomenlinna. Its lane clearly stands out in the ice covering the harbour.
Picture 2. In Helsinki’s district of Kallio, the No. 9 tram that has turned from Fleminginkatu to Aleksis Kiven katu is stopping in order to take on more passengers. As it is morning, there is little car traffic to be seen.
Picture 3. FlightRadar24 is one of the programmes which can be used to observe the planes landing and taking off at Helsinki-Vantaa International. The national carrier Finnair’s Airbus A319 is landing at Runway 2 in the morning. Flight AY 422 is a domestic, coming in from Rovaniemi.
Picture 4. On the website of the Tilannehuone (”Situation Room”) service, one can see the alarm calls received by Helsinki’s Rescue Department. The white triangle symbols indicate that for example the number of fire alarms has been four. The largest circle in the middle denotes a minor fire that started when someone was cooking sausages on a hot grill on Hämeentie in Helsinki.
Picture 5. The Helsinki Testbed project consists for example of weather observation systems, with real-time data on weather changes in Helsinki publicly available online. The map shows how a westerly weather front promising snowfall is approaching Helsinki.
Picture 6. Vessels moving off the coast of Helsinki can be observed using programmes like ShipFinder. The white lines in this instance indicate the harbour tug Protector’s mazy route at the Vuosaari Harbour. The vessels anchored and docked at the quay are shown as blue and yellow spots.
Picture 7. The City of Helsinki’s live webcam shows the latest views from Kalasatama, a future residential and business district on the waterfront. Jätkäsaari is another large area currently under construction in Helsinki. The progress of the construction site can be observed with a camera installed at the Salmisaari power plant.
Picture 8. Helsinki’s trams can also be tracked online. The picture shows how two trams on Line 8 are moving in the Jätkäsaari area. One of them is at the new end terminal, while the other is crossing the new Crusell Bridge. A No.6 tram is approaching Hietalahti. Similar applications for smartphones enable one to follow local and long-distance trains and also the buses of the Helsinki Regional Transport.
Picture 9. Anchors aweigh! The Port of Helsinki webcam in the West Harbour shows the Eckerö Lines ferry Nordlandia leaving for Tallinn on Thursday evening.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.2.2012
Links:
Helsinki.fi
Webinfo.fi - Webcams in Helsinki and elsewhere
Port of Helsinki webcam, West Harbour
EK - South Harbour webcam
ReittiGPS for iPhone (route planner and also real-time map of Helsinki Metro Area public transport; in Finnish, Swedish, and English)
Helsinki Testbed
Tilannehuone - map of ongoing incidents nationwide (can be zoomed)
FlightRadar24 live tracker
ShipFinder
HSL Live (mostly trams, but also some buses)
JARMO HUHTANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jarmo.huhtanen@hs.fi
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| 21.2.2012 - THIS WEEK |
Keeping tabs on Helsinki from the keyboard
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