Helgelandske is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

 and ferry

Ferry

A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...

 operator based in Helgeland

Helgeland

Helgeland is the most southerly district in Northern Norway. Generally speaking, Helgeland refers to the part of Nordland county that is located south of the Arctic Circle. The district covers an area of about , with nearly 79,000 inhabitants...

. The company is owned by Veolia Transport Norway

Veolia Transport Norway

Veolia Transport Norway is the Norwegian subsidiary of Veolia Transport, part of Veolia Corporation and operates through its subsidiaries buses, ferries and trams in the counties of Akershus, Finnmark, Nordland, Rogaland and Sør-Trøndelag, primarily through the purchase of former monopolists. The...

 and operates 18 passenger- and car ferries. The company has its main office in Sandnessjøen

Sandnessjøen

Sandnessjøen is the centre of the municipality of Alstahaug in the county of Nordland, Norway, with a population of over 9,000. It was made a township in 1788....

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The company was founded in 1867 as Det Helgelandske Dampskibsselskap, the same year its first steam ship, D/S Helgeland was launched. In 1898 the company moved its headquarters from Søvik to Sandnessjøen. In the 1920s the company tried, but failed to achieve success with cruise

Cruising (maritime)

Cruising by boat is a lifestyle that involves living for extended time on a boat while traveling from place to place for pleasure. Cruising generally refers to trips of a few days or more, and can extend to round-the-world voyages.- History :...

 operations. The last steam ship was taken out of service in 1955, and in 1957, after having bought a number of smaller bus operators in the area, changed its name to Helgeland Trafikkselskap. In 1976 the company got its first high-speed boat, and operated a travel agency

Travel agency

A travel agency is a retail business that sells travel related products and services to customers on behalf of suppliers such as airlines, car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, sightseeing tours and package holidays that combine several products...

 between 1959 and 2000. The company changed its name to Helgelandske in 1998, the name that has been its nickname since the start. In 2005 Veolia bought the company and as of April 1, 2006 the company lost the public service obligation

Public Service Obligation

In transport, public service obligation or PSO is an arrangement in which a governing body or other authority offers an auction for subsidies, permit the winning company a monopoly to operate a specified service of public transport for a specified period of time for the given subsidy...

 (PSO) contract for all its bus routes except the airport coach, the routes being transferred to SB Nordlandsbuss

SB Nordlandsbuss

SB Nordlandsbuss is a Norwegian bus company that operates in Nordland. The company was created in 2002 when Nettbuss Helgeland merged with the bus division of Salten Bilruter. The company is owned 34% by Nettbuss and 66% by Salten Bilruter...

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