Text-to-pee service launched
Seriously, spending a penny
Finland’s residents now face being caught short during car trips if their phones are out of credit, because the country’s road management agency has introduced an SMS entry system for public toilets.
Called the SMS Lock System, users must text “OPEN” to a number shown on the door of various toilets and shower rooms along Highway One in Paimio and Salo, near Turku, where the texting service began operating earlier this month.
The SMS Lock System only lets avid texters have a pee
Hopefully without a long delay, the bursting user’s text is directed to a modem that helps to deactivate the door’s lock. Use of the service costs the same as a standard text message in the region.
The service, which is managed by the country's Road Administration (RA) and is thought to be the first of its kind, was introduced because of ongoing vandalism to public facilities. However, the RA believes that you’re less likely to bash a bog or smash-up a shower if they have your time of entry and mobile phone number recorded.
This isn’t the first time texting has been used for pee-related problems. Last year, London’s Westminster Council launched its Sat Lav scheme, which allows mobile-equipped Londoners to locate the nearest public toilets by texting the word ‘toilet’ to 80097.
COMMENTS
Bad Bad Bad
Just using myself as an example:
After moving it took an act of God to get out of our contracts w/o the early termination fee....(old service not available here)
Only 2 cell companies here and I don't like either company, us cellular and alltel.
Right now I'm also being somewhat of a tightwad, just don't feel like spending $80 per month on a stupid cell phone. It's really nice not being able to be found 24/7. Also I won't sign a 2 year contract we never did before.
And another point in my case. We ALWAYS had text messaging disabled on our accounts. We had some dirty spam messages come through so since then just had the service turned off. I don't even remember how to text. You know what? I like it that way. We actually visit with each other uninterrupted....
If you really have to poo or are sick I guess your just SOL???
a dumb paris idea if u ask me, it's easily defeated!
Go in loo & trash it, then call them and tell them the place is a mess, the person who used the loo before you gets blamed!
Or how about PAYG phones, no contract means no tracability as to who owns the phone. OK they could have my number traced but would they REALLY go to all that effort and cost?
Bit of a pointless excercise if you ask me, right I'm off for a wazz ... up the outside of this silly text to open loo ;) much cheaper!
Me thinks Paris came up with this dumb as idea!
"food and drink should also be free"
Yes, they should.
Have you seen Africa recently ?
@ most of the comments here
First of all, it says to text OPEN. Whoever dredged up the list of Finnish words, most of those are derivatives, the Finnish equivalent would be AVAA, not employing Ä or Ö characters at all. Finns are very used to having English words scattered around.
Second, Finland does indeed have a very well-developed telecommunications backbone - you can buy transport tickets for bus/metro/trams as a text ticket within the Helsinki metropolitan area, and there are some sweet machines somewhere in the central railway station that accept text messages as payment too.
Finally, those pay-toilets do indeed tend to be made quite strongly - we're not talking about those blue plastic portaloos that you see at rock concerts. In the streets of Helsinki you can find grey metallic pay-toilets sitting at street corners. Not as out-of-place as you'd think.
That said, none of the above applies to a place like the UK, where all of the moans and problems in these comments probably apply quite rightly. This just would not work in the UK.
Customer service
Customer: "Operator, I can't send an SMS - it says "message failed""!
Operator: "Sir, are you taking a piss?"
