Skip to main content
Matkustajat nousemassa junaan

Transport volumes down in the midst of a sluggish economy – but passenger traffic still growing

The slowdown of Finland’s national economy has been reflected in traffic volumes and heavy goods transport in particular during the first three months of the year. Car use and long-distance rail traffic, on the other hand, are growing. Local rail traffic and rail freight volumes are down compared to the first quarter of the previous year. Air travel increased in February/March thanks to the school holidays first in Southern Finland and later in Eastern and Northern Finland.

‘The slowing down of economic growth and rising prices have forced households and businesses to curb their spending. This is already started to affect transport volumes. Increasing the efficiency of Finland’s traffic and logistics system is now more important than ever. It is vital that traffic and logistics costs remain under control and not eat into the purchasing power of households and the competitiveness of businesses’, says Fintraffic’s CEO Pertti Korhonen.

Digitalisation can help to smooth and speed up transport and travel chains, make the most of transport capacity, lower the costs of road maintenance and reduce traffic jams and emissions.

‘An increase of just five per cent in the efficiency of transport and travel chains would lower the annual travel costs of households by approximately EUR 600 million and businesses’ annual expenses by EUR 1.5 billion. These benefits are worth really going after in the coming years to ensure that the traffic system supports Finland’s success’, Korhonen continues.

Road traffic: heavy goods transport volumes down

The sluggish national economy has had an impact on the volume of heavy goods transport during the first months of the year: heavy goods transport between January and March was down almost seven per cent on the corresponding period of the previous year. The economic slowdown has not affected car use, however: car traffic volumes on Finland’s main roads are up by almost six per cent on the previous year.

Annual heavy goods transport volumes are more than 11 per cent down on the pre-pandemic level of 2019 on the whole. Car traffic volumes on Finland’s main roads are also still behind pre-pandemic levels, but the difference now stands at less than three per cent.

Average vehicle speeds during the first quarter of the year were similar to those of previous years. The average speed of cars and vans was 88.0 km/h, and the average speed of lorries and buses was 80.9 km/h.

Rail traffic: more trains running on time

The volume of local rail traffic between January and March was down by just over three per cent on the corresponding period of the previous year. The number of long-distance trains on Finland’s railways, on the other hand, increased slightly and was up by 1.4 per cent on the corresponding period of 2022. The number of freight trains fell by around 1.6 per cent.

The punctuality of rail services has improved during the first months of the year compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. Train punctuality increased to 90.4 per cent (88.5%) in local rail traffic, to 87.5 per cent (82.9%) in long-distance rail traffic and to 92 per cent (85.5%) in rail freight services.

More track work was carried out this winter than in early 2022. The number of engineering works came to 52,424 (51,844).

‘Snowy winters with low temperatures are typically challenging for the rail sector. Both snow levels and temperatures have been more favourable this year compared to the previous winter, for example. The various railway operators also worked more closely together to prepare for the winter this time around. All these factors have helped to improve train punctuality during the first months of the year’, says Pia Julin, CEO of Fintraffic Railway Ltd.

Air traffic

Both international and domestic air traffic increased during the first months of the year, although volumes are still down on pre-pandemic levels.

‘Compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, both international and domestic air travel has increased significantly, which has kept our air traffic control units rather busy at times. Overflight volumes, on the other hand, are at a record-low level (-50%) – even lower than at the height of the pandemic in April 2020. This is because of the sanctions imposed as a result of Russia’s war of aggression, which have brought us to a situation where Western airlines have practically stopped overflying Finland and pretty much the only airlines currently overflying Finland are Chinese. There are unfortunately no signs of this situation changing any time soon’, says Raine Luojus, CEO of Fintraffic Air Navigation Services Ltd.

Traffic data

Nearly 1.54 billion searches were performed using Fintraffic’s open traffic data interfaces between January and March. Fintraffic provides real-time traffic information to consumers, companies and the media, as well as open-source data for transport operators, logistics service providers and software developers to use in a variety of map services and navigators.

In addition to providing an overview of the traffic situation across the country, Fintraffic collects data for public transport route planners, which now cover 6,260 routes and 385,440 services nationwide. Finding public transport services, timetables and routes in Finland is now easier than ever before. The Opas.matka.fi route planner has been redesigned, which has also improved the route planner apps of individual public transport service providers, as they mainly use data from the same back-end system, which now covers the whole country more comprehensively. The new design of the route planner has made it possible to publish more extensive real-time data on public transport nationwide. Approximately 16 new operators have been added to the service.

Check out Fintraffic’s services:

Find out what open-source data on road, rail and maritime traffic is available in the Digitraffic service: https://www.digitraffic.fi/ 

The Traffic Situation service visualises data provided by Fintraffic, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) on a map. This service is available as both a web service and a mobile app  (iOS and Android). The app enables you to monitor the traffic situation in Finland and make reports on the condition of roads.

The Traffic Customer Service is a nationwide advisory service for roads, railways and waterways, provided by Fintraffic in collaboration with the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and regional Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment. The Traffic Customer Service also operates a Feedback Channel where you can report issues and propose improvements to Finland’s roads.

Read more about road, air and rail traffic volumes: https://www.fintraffic.fi/fi/fintraffic/liikennemaarat

A summary of services for all transport users, professionals and app developers.

References:

https://www.fintraffic.fi/en/news/route-planner-updated-easier-travel-route-searches-and-real-time-stop-information

https://www.fintraffic.fi/en/news/help-avoid-traffic-jams-fintraffic-road-will-be-utilising-wazes-real-time-congestion-alerts

https://www.fintraffic.fi/en/news/fintraffics-2022-operational-reliability-traffic-management-remains-high-digitalisation

Share