Line of trucks at eastern border costs millions of euros a day

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The lines of trucks queueing in Southeastern Finland to cross over to Russia cost businesses millions of euros per day.
      According to Tommi Kivilaakso, the Director of the Eastern Customs District, Russian businesses have estimated that each hour a truck spends in a queue equals USD 200, or over EUR 150, in lost revenue.
      In recent days there has been a backlog of over a thousand vehicles at the Vaalimaa border-crossing, which translates to nearly EUR four million a day in loss of revenue.
      The bill falls primarily on the Russian side, for 85 per cent of the heavy goods traffic across the border is operated by Russian companies.
      Director of Foreign Transport Antti Seppälä from the Finnish Transport and Logistics is of the opinion that the estimate of EUR 150 per hour is high, but not impossible for special deliveries. Finnish carriers have estimated the cost of a day spent in a queue at EUR 500.
     
There is no immediate solution in sight for the truck line problem, for traffic across the eastern border is growing at a yearly rate of ten per cent. In October, yet another record was set at the Vaalimaa border-crossing point when 20,000 trucks crossed over to Russia in a period of one month.
      The truck lines are also breaking records in length. On Wednesday the line of trucks on Highway 7 before Vaalimaa reached 45 kilometres in length, causing major disruptions to normal traffic. According to the Border Guard, this translates to a queueing time of over 48 hours.
      The Customs requested on Wednesday that no more trucks be sent to Vaalimaa. In addition, the police started directing trucks towards the Nuijamaa and Imatra crossing points instead.
     
According to Vesa Parkko, head of the Kymi River Valley Regional Rescue Services, the pain threshold has been crossed once and for all.
      The backlog of trucks increases the risk of accidents on the roads of Southeastern Finland, and the truck lines are impeding the journey of emergency vehicles.
      The situation is worst in the city of Hamina, where the queue of trucks can cause the highway traffic to stop in both directions.
      Emergency vehicles have had to resort to driving on the pavement on the wrong side of the road in order to reach the scene of an accident.
      "On the eastern side of the city, the narrowness of the road, combined with the line of trucks, makes driving there extremely dangerous", Parkko lists.
     
The Regional Road Administration of Southeastern Finland has made an effort to ease the problem. Before the first snow, the Road Administration managed to widen Highway 7 for a ten-kilometre stretch west of the village of Virojoki. If the lay-by made out of crushed aggregate proves successful, it will be continued next year.
      "All the same, we can only make so many changes to the infrastructure, when everybody knows the real problem lies elsewhere", says Antti Rinta-Porkkunen, director of the Regional Road Administration of Southeastern Finland.
      The long queues are primarily blamed on the Russian border officials' ineffective and overlapping inspections. Also the capacity of the border crossing point on the Russian side does not match the needs of the rapidly growing traffic.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Third day of heavy snow paralyses traffic over eastern border (3.11.2006)
  Finland wants Russia to drop all border-crossing fees (26.10.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat