Rail traffic has continued to increase in April-June, especially in commuter train traffic. Trains arrived at their destinations more punctually than at the same time last year. In air traffic, the number of domestic and international flights has remained at the same level as during last year’s second quarter, but the number of overflights through Finnish airspace has decreased substantially. Growth in volume of heavy goods traffic halted on roads after the spring. Demand for traffic data is growing: Fintraffic’s digital services attracted 2.6 million visits, which is 40% more than the year before.
“The growth in transport has slowed down as the year progresses. In April-June, freight traffic mainly increased on rails, while road transport volumes were at the same level as in the previous year. Passenger traffic on both roads and railways has grown steadily. In terms of operation and maintenance, good weather conditions have contributed to train traffic being more punctual than during the same period last year, which serves both passenger and freight traffic. The use of our digital services has continued to grow. This indicates that traffic data is increasingly utilised, for example, in travel planning,” says Fintraffic CEO Pia Julin.
Punctuality on railways improved notably from last year
During this year’s second quarter, the volume of commuter rail traffic increased by 10 per cent from the same period the previous year. This is mainly due to track work in the Tikkurila area during the reference period
Long-distance rail traffic volumes increased by 3.8 per cent between April and June. The volume of freight traffic was 2.4 per cent higher than during the same period the previous year. In Southern Finland, traffic volumes have increased due to large events, festivals and various functions that attract passengers from different parts of Finland. For this reason, additional train services have been scheduled, for example, to Turku and Riihimäki. In other parts of Finland, long-distance traffic volumes have been very similar to last year.
Several factors have contributed to the slight increase in freight traffic. In Southeast Finland, the situation in Russia still affects the number of freight trains. On the other hand, traffic flows within Finland have increased, as the needs of industry and ports have remained unchanged. In Northern Finland, timber transports in particular have increased between Lapland, Kainuu and Kemi, and the growth is due to the transport needs of the Nuojua timber terminal and the Kemi bioproduct mill.
The punctuality of rail services was considerably better in the second quarter of 2025 than last year at the same time. Train punctuality was 93,8% (90.4%) in commuter traffic, 89.7% (78.4%) in long-distance traffic and 94.3% (90.5%) in rail freight services. These figures have been influenced by such things as the mild winter and spring. The favourable weather conditions facilitated the operation and maintenance of train traffic and reduced disruptions caused by weather conditions.
Track work was down by eight percent compared to the same period last year. The easy winter is highlighted in these figures, as it reduced the need for such things as snow clearance and maintenance on railways. Large repair projects in different parts of Finland are progressing as planned in areas such as Pirkanmaa, Central Finland and Satakunta.
Use of Fintraffic’s digital services grew by 40 percent
In the second quarter of 2025, Fintraffic’s digital services attracted around 2.6 million visits, an increase of around 40% (1.8 million visits Q2/2024) from the previous year. The Fintraffic App, which won the Suomen paras asiakasteko 2024 award, is still Fintraffic’s most popular service and has been used 1.7 million times a growth of about 72% from last year (1.0 million visits Q2/2024). In addition, the Traffic Situation service and Train Departures have attracted a large audience.
In 2025’s second quarter, 1.47 billion calls were made to Fintraffic’s Digitraffic services open traffic data APIs (1.55 billion Q2/2024). Traffic bulletins, weather camera images and real-time traffic volume data are distributed through Digitraffic.
During the second quarter of the year, approximately 3.94 billion API calls (4,31 billion Q2/2024) were made to the Digitransit platform to gain access to public transport journey data. A total of 63 TB of data were shared (58,5 Q2/2024). The decline in the number of API calls indicates that the interfaces have become more efficient: information is now available more effectively and with fewer API calls. Finnish public transport journey planners make extensive use of the shared knowledge base through the Digitransit platform.
Growth of heavy traffic on roads came to a halt
In April-June, total road traffic volumes on main roads (highways and main roads) increased slightly from what they were during the same period last year (2.6%). The traffic volume of cars and vans has increased by 2.8 per cent from a year ago.
In the year’s first quarter, the volume of heavy goods vehicles increased by 4.1 per cent compared to the same period last year, but in April-June the growth has clearly come to a halt: the volume of heavy goods vehicles increased by only 0.1 per cent from the previous year.
Number of overflights seeing substantial decline
In air traffic, the strong growth in the number of flights through Finnish airspace halted in late 2024 and the situation has not improved over the spring. The number of overflights decreased by 7.5 per cent in April-June compared to the same period last year. The number of both domestic and international flights has remained at the same level they were a year ago.
“We have seen clear changes in overflight route choices in air traffic between Asia and Europe. Flights from India decreased substantially, and Chinese airlines transferred overflights to over the Baltic countries instead of Finland. On the other hand, Russian aircraft flights over the Gulf of Finland are increasing by about 10 per cent. “Between 100 and 150 Russian aircraft fly over the Baltic Sea in international airspace every day,” says Raine Luojus, CEO of Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services.
