Fintraffic is visible 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? What are all the places where we are visible? 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 trusts that their train will arrive at its destination on time, or a cargo ship receives information if it is departing from its safe fairway area, we are present. 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 is tasked with ensuring that traffic is safe and well-functioning around the clock on every day of the year. Under all circumstances.
You can find us at Finland's air traffic control towers ensuring the safe take-off and landing of aircraft and monitoring the safety of our country's airspace. You'll also find us at 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 no matter what the weather: In 2023, Fintraffic’s VTS Centres proactively intervened about 11,000 times in vessel movements, 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, rail passenger safety in Finland is among the best in Europe.
We also look after road users: We ensure safe traffic in safety-critical road tunnels, allow emergency vehicles to move quickly from one traffic light to another on a ‘green wave', and we warn drivers about slippery road conditions via electric signposts.
Did you know that we make travel and transport chains more efficient? The punctuality of Finland's long-distance train traffic is almost 82%
At Fintraffic, we help goods move precisely and efficiently to save time. You can see our work in all modes of transport: The punctuality of Finland's long-distance train traffic is as high as 81.9% (Sweden 71%). On highways, we have cut travel times by approximately 16000 vehicle hours annually. We also work to improve our efficiency in the air, and e.g. the lack of delays in Finnish airspace resulted in a total of 350,000 minutes of flight time (=35 million euros) saved in 2023.
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 annually by 94,000 tCO2e in road and air traffic.
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 the carbon footprint of passenger cars.
We also work for more environmentally friendly rail and maritime traffic: Finland's efficient rail traffic helped reduce calculated CO2 emissions by 350,000 tons, which is equivalent to annual emissions from 380,000 passenger cars. 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 4.7 billion interface calls are made annually to our Digitraffic service!
By opening up and combining real-time data, we can take optimising the movement of people and goods to a whole new level. 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 390 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? We provide services for consumers with Fintraffic Traffic Situation service, which utilises Digitraffic data and the Fintraffic App, which both provide a broad variety of information on e.g. road conditions, roadworks, winter maintenance, charging points for electric vehicles and fuelling stations for gas-powered vehicles.
Did you know that Fintraffic’s Road Traffic Management is a nerve centre for traffic information? Every year, our road traffic centre makes nearly 10,000 traffic announcements.
Finland’s passenger and goods transport relies on smooth and efficient traffic on our roads, stretching more than 78,000 kilometres. 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. For this purpose, we have a total of 20,000 traffic control devices, road condition and weather devices. 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 centre sends more than 10,000 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. More than 120,000 calls are made to 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 vessel traffic services prevented 13 possible groundings in 2023?
Finland lives off shipping. Over 90% of Finland's foreign trade exports and imports are transported by sea. It is the task of Fintraffic’s 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 2023, we prevented the possible grounding of 13 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 our rail traffic management moves more than 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 trafficked 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 (in terms of kilometres), the lower the climate emissions caused by transport overall. The capacity of existing tracks can be significantly increased in the future thanks to a new modern train control system (the Digirail project) 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 air navigation services secure an average of 400 take-offs and landings at Helsinki Airport every day?
Fintraffic's Air Navigation Services are provided to about 225,000 flights per year by the Area Control Centre and to about 144,000 take-offs and landings per year at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Air navigation services also safeguard nearly 60,000 overflights through Finnish airspace every year.
We are at the forefront of Europe in achieving the safety, efficiency and emission-reduction targets set by the EU Commission. Air navigation technology is constantly evolving, and around 200 technical changes are made each year.