S60 Open to new features

This entry is not that S60-specific, but still something that deserves an entry on this very day: Helsinki City Transport, the public transportation organizer in Helsinki, Finland, updates its SMS-based ticket purchasing service today. Here's an insight for you non-Finns out there how things are done over here.

A quick recap: in the service, you can send an SMS to a service number to instantly receive an SMS-ticket that is valid for one hour on Helsinki trams, subways and commuter trains. The service has been around for quite a while and the whole concept is absolutely brilliant: forget about standing in a queue or trying to find loose change for the ticket vending machine; simply send an SMS and be on your way.

But. Enter the usability problem.

Until today, what you had to do is send the following exact message to the service number: "A 641". My first reaction was: "What? Why? Why not just the word 'ticket' or something?" The code was (is) very unintuitive and cryptic: very difficult to remember by the non-frequent user. What was it again? What does the code mean? Why a random string of numbers? Does it work without the space character? And - what was the service number again?

Granted, there are plenty of information posters and simplified instructions scattered around. But there never seems to be one where you need it. So - why not just the word "ticket" as the code? Or even several alternatives ("ticket", "lippu", biljett") to cater for all official and common local languages?

The logic behind the cryptic code, A 641, is as follows: "A" stands for a certain ticket type, "64" is an identifier specifying the country (Finland) and 1 means Helsinki. How logical and exact. Definately required an engineer. (By the way, I think there are no other ticket types you can purchase with the service - no current need for different codes.)

Now, the service update: as of today (in honor of the Car Free Day), instead of "A 641", you just need to enter "A 1". Shorter, easier - better, but not quite there yet. Still plenty of room for improvement. On the plus side - at least the old code still works together with the new one, and the five-digit service number did not change. (And even all variations 'A 1', 'A1' 'a 1' and 'a1' work now.)

Do you have a similar service in your home city? How does it work? And what could be the ideal solution?