The first versions of the educational videos from the DigiMar project have been released, supporting navigational safety by improving routine maritime communication. These openly available videos are primarily aimed at VTS professionals and students, and they are based on international guidelines and authentic educational recordings. The videos offer practical support for developing communication skills.

Fintraffic’s application D/S POLO is already in use in more than thirty ports. A user survey shows that users find the service to be useful for their organisations, especially in providing a situational picture of schedules. The application received an overall score of 4/5 in the survey. This year, completely new features will be launched in the app related to vessel notifications, winter navigation and more.

In 2024, VTS Centres prevented 14 vessels from running aground and prevented near misses from developing into accidents. This information is from the newly completed annual statistics on prevented groundings by Fintraffic’s Vessel Traffic Services. In 2024, nearly 20 new vessel traffic meeting and overtaking prohibition areas and new special transport safety zones were also introduced in Finland.

Digitalizing Port Operations – Optimizing Maritime Logistics in the Baltic Sea
Date: January 30, 2025 
Time: 12:00 CET to 13:30 CET (13:00–14:30 EET)

The Sustainable Flow project is the first global project focusing on both the development of a digital tool and energy savings and renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector, especially in the maritime sector and in ports. A digital tool developer has now been selected through a tender process. A total of nine international service providers participated in the public tendering process, and of these Awake.AI Oy was selected.

A wide variety of aviation operators responded to the survey, ranging from strategic partners in air navigation and flight schools to smaller airport operators and general aviation representatives. This year, the total number of respondents and the percentage of pilots among respondents was slightly lower than in the previous year. On the other hand, the overall cooperation score for Fintraffic's Air Navigation Services increased slightly, rising to 4.0 this year (2023: 3.8).

It is the task of air traffic control to anticipate the effects of winter weather conditions and runway closures on the ground and in the air. If necessary, air traffic is controlled to provide realistic runway time for each arriving and departing flight.

Luxembourg Air Navigation Administration, which is responsible for air navigation services in Luxembourg, has simulated new air traffic control working methods in Finland.

Fintraffic’s Vessel Traffic Services and the Lübeck Port Authority have signed a service agreement for the Fintraffic POLO Port Activity port application. Port of Lübeck will start using the application in the beginning of next year. The port is particularly known as a busy hub for Scandinavian and Central European freight transport.

POLO Port Activity is already in use at more than 30 ports and is a daily tool for hundreds of people. In connection with the launch of Maritime Traffic Notification Service NEMO, the application will also include vessel notifications in accordance with the European Maritime Single Window (EMSW) regulation as a new feature next year. This will enable vessels to submit port call-related vessel notifications via POLO both to Finland and to the EU.

A new working method concept will be validated for Luxembourg’s air traffic control in Fintraffic’s air navigation simulators. The aim will be to obtain data on new working methods on the basis of which their practical functionality and prerequisites for operational deployment can be verified.

Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services has organised CISM activities as peer support activities in which volunteers in the work community are trained in the CISM method and on encountering a colleague who has encountered a sudden crisis.

Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services Planning Manager and Technical Supervisor Gustav Juslin ensures that air traffic control equipment and systems work as they should.

Finland is introducing special maritime transport security zones for the first time to ensure the safe passage of special transports by organizing other traffic in the area. The first safety zone for special transports was introduced in the Inkoo fairway. In the future, similar arrangements will be extended to merchant shipping lanes throughout Finland’s coastal area.