Railway transport

The Ministry of Transport and Communications is responsible for drafting Finland’s railway transport legislation and for contributing to any legislative drafting at EU level.

In recent years the EU has taken decisions to increase competition in rail transport. In Finland, national goods transport was opened to competition at the beginning of 2007. As stated in the Government Programme, a special concern of the Ministry is to increase rail transport and improve the level of service.

Administrative sector

Finland's railway infrastructure is the responsibility of the Finnish Transport Agency, which operates under the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Monitoring of railway safety and interoperability of the railway system are the responsibility of the Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi).

The railway network and transport

In Finland about a quarter of goods transport has traditionally been conveyed by rail. In 2008, some 40 million tonnes of goods were carried by rail, of which internal transport accounted for 25.5 million tonnes and international transport for 16.5 million tonnes. The number passenger trips made by rail in 2008 was 70 million. In 2009 the amount of goods transported by rail had decreased.

The total length of the Finnish rail network is 5,919 kilometres, of which 3,067 kilometres have been electrified. There are some 3,600 level crossings; less than 3,000 of them are without safety devices. A total of 7-14 million euros is spent annually on removing level crossings.

The Description of the Railway Network is a publication presenting the technical characteristics of the network. It describes the current status of the railways and their technical condition.

Licences

An undertaking that wishes to provide goods transport services on the Finnish railways must apply for an operating licence from the Ministry of Transport and Communications. In addition a safety certificate granted by the Finnish Transport Safety Agency and an agreement on the use of the railway network must be signed with the Finnish Transport Agency and rail capacity applied for. So far the national company VR Group is the only actor in the rail transport sector.

International passenger traffic within the EU was also opened to competition in 2010. The new EU regulations will not necessarily have a direct effect on Finnish rail traffic as Finland has no direct international rail passenger connections with other EU countries.

The on-line report published by the Finnish Transport Agency describes the conditions for access to the railway network, the state railway network, the procedure for allocation of rail transport capacity, the services offered for rail transport operators and the grounds on which rail network charges will be decided in the coming scheduling period.
The report, published once a year, deals with the general rules, quantity limits, procedures and criteria for the allocation and pricing of rail capacity.