You Can Now Ride A Finnish Shuttle And Pay By Singing

We all know what it’s like – you need to get home safely from a festival or big event but you’ve already spent all your money and can’t afford a taxi. Finnish company Fortum has just introduced a novel solution. Their festival shuttle isn’t paid for by cash or card but by singing.

How it works

Once customers get into the Singalong Shuttle, it will keep moving for as long as they keep singing and the driver will accept the song in lieu of payment. There aren’t any restrictions on which songs can be sung or the languages they can be performed in and customers don’t even need to be good singers. They can pay for their ride with anything from opera to rap. A tablet will be provided for any customers who can’t think of a song or forget the lyrics.

Fortum staff members test drive the Singalong Shuttle.

The shuttle will debut at the Ruisrock Festival from July 6th to 8th 2018 at the Ruissalo National Park near Turku in southwest Finland. Revellers will be able to take the shuttle between the festival grounds and Turku city centre. If this goes well then hopefully it will be seen at more events in the future.

The Ruisrock festival in Turku, where the Singalong Shuttle will debut.

An eco-free ride

The Singalong Shuttle is being operated by Finnish-based clean energy company Fortum, one of the largest clean energy providers in the Nordics. The company regularly promotes eco-friendly events in Finland. Earlier this year they sponsored Finnish athlete Erkka Lehtonen when he broke the world record for wakeboarding.

The Fortum company headquarters in Espoo, Finland.

The Singalong Shuttle is an electric car and the lack of emission-related background noise means that the customer’s songs will be heard loud and clear. Since electric cars are still a surprising rarity in otherwise eco-conscious Finland (mostly due to the long and dark winters), the main purpose of the shuttle is to give Finns a free ride and a fun experience in an electric car so that they can see what it is like. It is hoped that the shuttle will promote clean and sustainable transport and unique ride-sharing concepts, because what could be better for the world than sharing a lift and a song?