Opening of the long-delayed West Metro services between Helsinki and Espoo, last scheduled to start operation in late September, may be delayed further as the authorities responsible failed to fix up exact date yet, local media reported.

The Länsimetro Oy, the company implementing the project, earlier decided that management of the stations, shafts, track and building services systems of the Ruoholahti to Matinkylä will be handed over to Helsinki City Transport (HKL) at the beginning of September, but the authority failed to make the handover as two stations were not ready, National broadcaster Yle reported quoting an Espoo based newspaper Länsiväylä.

A Finnish language daily Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday reported that none of the organisations involved in the metro services is now able to predict the exact date for opening of the services.

The implementation of the West Metro project from Ruoholahti in Helsinki to Matinkylä in Espoo was originally scheduled to open in 2014, but the project has been delayed repeatedly with the last deadline for completion set for early 2017 after the August 2016 deadline was also delayed.

Earlier, in October 2016, the authorities said the opening of the West Metro Services will be delayed further due to hardware faults.

Then again in June 2016, the West Metro authorities said its test run for passengers would begin no later than January 2017.

However, the initiation of the test traffic has required more time than foreseen, as tests related to fire situations conducted at Aalto University have found faults in the operations of equipment, the sources said.

The authorities even failed to estimate the possible timetable for beginning of the operations.

In September 2016, the Helsinki City Corporation decided to investigate into the reasons behind the delay in launching the West Metro services.

The city authorities appointed the accounting and advisory services firm BDO Ltd to probe into the matter.

BDO Ltd has been asked to submit its report by the end of October on the delay of launching West Metro services and the loss incurred by the city.