Fintraffic in figures – We have a broad impact

Fintraffic keeps traffic moving on land, at sea and in the air. We help people and goods arrive safely and smoothly, while also paying attention to the environment. What does Fintraffic look like, in figures? How do we keep things moving? Where do we work? You can learn all about it below.

Did you know that for us, safety comes first? Our road traffic management prevents approximately 200 accidents that would result in personal injury every year.

When a captain is given permission to land, or a train passenger is trusting their train to arrive at its destination on time, or a cargo ship receives information that it is departing from its safe fairway area, we are there. Our mission is to ensure safe and smooth movement on land, at sea and in the air.

Accidents and disruptions in traffic can cause significant damage to people, the environment and the economy. Fintraffic’s task is to ensure smooth and safe traffic around the clock, every day of the year. Under all circumstances.

You can find us at the air traffic control offices, taking care of aircraft overflights in the airspace and safe take-offs and landings at airports. You can also encounter us in Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) Centres where we guide and supervise that cargo and passenger ships operating in the Finnish coastal area stay safely on their own routes in any weather: each year, Fintraffic VTS Centres intervene more than 10,000 times in vessel movements, on their own initiative, ensuring safety and smooth traffic flows.

We also operate on tracks: every year, we ensure safe and smooth traffic flow for more than 500,000 trains and just over 82 million passengers. In fact, the level of rail traffic passenger safety in Finland is among the best in Europe (ranked 1/29 in the EU).

We also take care of road users: for example, we ensure safe traffic safety-critical road tunnels, let emergency vehicles move quickly from one traffic light to another on the ‘green wave', and we warn drivers about slippery road conditions via electric signposts, among other things.

Did you know that we make travel and transport chains more efficient? The punctuality of Finnish rail traffic is as high as 89.0%.

At Fintraffic, we help things move precisely and efficiently to save time. You can see our work in all modes of transport: in 2022, the punctuality of Finnish rail traffic was as high as 89.0% (81% in Sweden). In some sections, the punctuality level is close to 98%. On roads, our services save approximately 16,000 hours of vehicle travel time per year. We also work to make air traffic more efficient. Thanks to the lack of delays in Finnish airspace, a total of more than 220,000 flight minutes were saved in 2022, which reduced the costs of airlines by more than EUR 20 million.

In addition to its basic traffic management assignment, Fintraffic has a special mission to promote the digitalisation of traffic and logistics in Finland. For example, sharing real-time vessel ETAs more effectively with a variety of operators has helped shipping companies to optimise the speed of their ships in the Baltic Sea, which has in turn had an impact on Finland’s logistics costs and emissions.

Did you know that we are working to reduce the carbon footprint of traffic? We reduce emissions from road and air traffic by 78,100,000 CO²e annually, which equals the annual emissions of 50,000 passenger cars.

We support Finland on its journey towards its 2035 carbon neutrality target. We continuously develop concrete measures and actions to streamline traffic and reduce emissions. Our extensive carbon handprint is the sum of many factors, and we have significant opportunities to mitigate climate change and protect the environment by working with other operators in the transport ecosystem.

And all this accumulated efficiency has a major impact. Our environmentally efficient and optimised traffic management reduces traffic emissions. Thanks to our air navigation services, Finnish airspace is safe and efficient, its air routes are direct, and planes landing at Helsinki Airport use continuous descent approaches significantly more often than on average in the EU – which substantially reduces climate emissions. We also improve the smoothness and safety of road traffic by means of traffic lights, tunnel technology, road weather data and variable speed limits, all of which have a direct impact on driving emissions.

We also work for more environmentally friendly rail and maritime traffic. We help rail traffic with economical driving, for example. One example of a digital service promoting functional traffic is the Port Activity application developed by Fintraffic, which facilitates efficient and eco-friendly port visits by improving the flow of information in more than 20 ports in Finland. Our Time Stamp and Estimation Service and Port Activity app were even used as model examples for reducing climate emissions from shipping in the Green Shipping Challenge at the UN’s COP27 Climate Change Conference in Egypt.

Did you know that we share data? More than 4.25 billion interface calls are made annually to our Digitraffic service!

By opening up and combining real-time data, we can optimise the movement of people and goods. This is a great opportunity. We also provide traffic operators with traffic and weather data in the form of open data in our Digitraffic service, which gets an average of 350 million interface calls per month. When data is utilised more efficiently and in real time, different modes of transport can be combined into functional travel chains. Goods can also move more easily, as waiting times are reduced and fill rates improved.

Did you know? Digitraffic data is also used in our Fintraffic Traffic Situation service for consumers, which provides a broad variety of information including weather conditions, roadworks, winter maintenance, charging points for electric vehicles and fuelling stations for gas-powered vehicles. The service also provides information about rail, air and maritime traffic.

Did you know that Fintraffic´s Road Traffic Management is a nerve centre for traffic information? Every year, our road traffic centre makes nearly 14,000 traffic announcements.

In Finland, 90 % of passenger traffic and more than 60% of freight traffic run on our road networks. In road traffic management, we ensure safe and smooth traffic flow 24/7/365.

Our operations rely on us having an uninterrupted, real-time situational picture of traffic at our disposal. We get it from about 20,000 pieces of traffic management and weather equipment, the data from which we enrich from other sources. Using this traffic and weather data, we control things such as speed limits, traffic information displays, traffic lights and tunnels.

We are the nerve centre of road traffic information. Our road traffic centres sends almost 14,000 traffic bulletins per year. We also answer calls to Fintraffic’s Road User Line, a channel through which road users can report acute traffic issues. A total of almost 160,000 calls are received by our road traffic centre each year: We are responsible for ensuring that information about incidents and exceptional circumstances is received by different authorities, such as the police and rescue services, and also by other operators, such as roadside contractors and maintenance.

Did you know that Fintraffic´s Vessel Traffic Services prevented 21 possible groundings in 2022?

Finland lives off shipping. In Finland, 94 % of exports and 91% of imports are transported by sea. It is the task of Fintraffic Vessel Traffic Services to ensure that both foreign trade and domestic vessel traffic is safe and uninterrupted.

Our vessel traffic service centres monitor the passage of passenger ships and cargo vessels through Finland’s coastal waters 24/7, every day of the year. We inform vessels about other traffic in the area and anything else that may affect their passage, such as weather and ice conditions or safety equipment failures. In 2022, we broke records by preventing the possible grounding of 21 vessels and, as usual, assisted vessels in navigation and prevented near misses from developing into accidents – while also protecting the sensitive marine environment.

Fintraffic’s Vessel Traffic Services also maintain and develop one of the world’s most extensive vessel traffic control systems. In addition to this development work, we are actively involved in promoting the service models needed by increasingly automated maritime traffic. One of our newer services is an updated port call schedule service for merchant vessels that combines sea and land freight into efficient chains at ports, and also enables a common situational picture for operators.

Did you know that Fintraffic´s Rail Traffic Management moves about half a million trains each year?

We are responsible for controlling rail traffic in Finland’s track network, which is 6,500 kilometres long and used by more than 500,000 trains carrying tens of millions of passengers every year. It is our duty to ensure that passengers and cargo reach their destination safely and smoothly.

Ensuring smooth rail traffic is also one of our main tools in improving the attractiveness of low-emission train travel: the greater the proportion of passenger and goods transport accounted for by rail traffic, the lower the climate emissions caused by traffic overall. The capacity of existing tracks can be significantly increased in the future thanks to a new modern train control system (the Digirail project), among other actions. Estimates indicate that track capacity could be increased by up to 30% on densely operated sections. The new system will also significantly reduce the impacts and duration of incidents. Thanks to the Digirail project, Finland is also at the forefront in promoting digitalisation in Europe to both improve the safety and functionality of rail traffic and increase its popularity.

Did you know that Fintraffic´s Air Navigation Services secure an average of 400 take-offs and landings at Helsinki Airport every day?

Fintraffic Air Navigation Services manage Finland’s airspace and provide air route services and air navigation services at 22 airports in Finland.

Fintraffic Air Navigation Services ensure safe air traffic in Finland with as few delays as possible. Our customers operate in commercial aviation, Finnish state aviation and military aviation, general aviation and flight schools.

Air navigation services are provided to over 200,000 flights per year by the Area Control Centre and to about 140,000 take-offs and landings per year at Helsinki Airport. Air Navigation Services also safeguard more than 53,000 overflights in Finnish airspace every year. 

Helsinki Air Traffic Control is responsible for local and approach air traffic control services at Helsinki Airport. Helsinki Airport sees approximately 170,000 operations per year. The average number of operations per day is 400.

Network airports provide air traffic control or flight information services, depending on the volume and/or nature of operations at the airport in question.

Fintraffic Air Navigation Services are also responsible for the necessary infrastructure, system design and system maintenance in accordance with international standards. Technical air navigation also encompasses the maintenance of radars, navigation equipment and radio equipment in the airport environment.

We are at the forefront of Europe in achieving the safety, efficiency and emission-reduction targets set by the EU Commission. Efficient airspace offers excellent operating conditions for air traffic in Finland.