[jpalomaki]

There was quite interesting pilot service run by the entity responsible for the public transportation in the Helsinki region in 2012-2015. It was called "Kutsu Plus". There is a report available in English [1].

This service was something between bus and taxi. They were operating small busses. All the rides started and ended at a bus stop (which you have plenty in the region). You would use a website/mobile app to tell where you are going and when. The system would then optimize the requests from multiple people, determine the routes and tell you when to be at the bus stop, how long the journey takes and the price.

Eventually the service was shut down as the local municipalities did not want to put in more money to support it. All the trips were very heavily subsidized. They would have needed to significantly grow the pilot to see if could have become economically feasible.

Seems to be the software side of the project is now part of Volkswagen owned Moia [2].

[1] https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2016/final-report-kutsuplus-trial... [2] https://www.moia.io/