Backlog of trucks causes congestion at Nuijamaa and Imatra border-crossing points as well as Vaalimaa

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The backlog of heavy goods traffic has once again created record-long queues at the crossing points from Finland to Russia.
      On Thursday night last week, trucks heading for the Imatra frontier station were stopped for the first time already on the four-lane portion of Highway 6 in Joutseno. The aim of the move was to avoid the trucks from blocking the highway in Imatra.
     
The most severe congestion was cleared during the night, but on Friday the queue once again reached a length of just under ten kilometres. At another southeastern checkpoint - Nuijamaa - the truck queue stretched back no less than twenty kilometres from the border.
      The long queues in Imatra and Nuijamaa are the result of a new practice adopted by the Customs, whereby the frontier crossing points of Vaalimaa, Imatra, and Nuijamaa divide the heavy goods traffic seeking entry into Russia more evenly between the three of them.
     
This has nevertheless done little to alleviate the situation in Vaalimaa, the most congested checkpoint of them all, where in recent days the length of the truck queue has varied between 15 and 40 kilometres.
      At all three crossing points the controlling of traffic because of the long truck queues has started to tie down police officers from other duties.
      Ari Järveläinen, head of the Traffic Police's Imatra Unit, explains that if temporary parking areas are set up along the highways for the trucks, patrolling these areas means that all the traffic police patrol units have to postpone their other duties.
      "And it seems that this is not an exceptional, passing state of affairs. In fact, the situation is expected to remain the same or possibly even get worse towards the winter."
      The backlogs are a result of the increased consumption in Russia, for a significant portion of the consumer goods bought in Russia are imported through Finland. The transit traffic via Finland’s highways grew during the second quarter of 2007 by nearly a third.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Parking area for eastbound trucks to cost over EUR 24 million (27.3.2007)
  Departures of trucks from ports to be staggered to avoid backlog (17.11.2006)
  Minister Huovinen: Lines of trucks caused by inefficiency of Russian Customs (10.11.2006)

Links:
  Finnish Road Administration

Helsingin Sanomat