Russia-bound cargo on Finnish roads is growing dramatically

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The number of foreign trucks on Finnish roads is growing almost exponentially. The Director of the Eastern Customs District Tommi Kivilaakso estimates that the amount of heavy goods traffic will double within the next five years.
      At the Vaalimaa border crossing station, the truck traffic has grown 80 percent since the beginning of the decade, while at the Nuijamaa station the volume has doubled since 2000.
     
Last year, over 850,000 trucks crossed the eastern border, and four out of five vehicles were Russian. Particularly the transportation of new cars (shipped via the Finnish ports of Turku, Hanko, and Kotka into Russia along the southern coast of Finland) has been growing. The transit transport of cars has tripled in three years, and alarm-bells are already ringing over the fact that current structures cannot take this sort of growth.
      Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communcations intends to look into the possibilities of moving some cargo transports from road to rail. In principle, also Russia agrees to the plan.
     
The Finnish Transport and Logistics SKAL demanded on Tuesday that foreign transport companies should pay their share of the use of the Finnish road network.
      "It is not fair that they do not contribute to the maintenance of the roads in any way", argues the Managing Director of SKAL Seppo Sainio.
     
According to Sainio, Russia plans to cover the construction of the new St. Petersburg-Moscow highway by collecting tolls.
      Director-General Harri Cavén of the Ministry's Transport Policy Department notes that if Russia starts collecting tolls, Finland should also consider levying similar road usage fees on Russian vehicles.
     
Some idea of the scale of the truck transport can be gained from the fact that on the busiest day in 2005, a total of 375 TIR car-transporter trucks left Hanko for the eastern border. This represents a nine-kilometre line of trucks. In the year as a whole 43,000 truckloads, carrying 253,000 cars, passed through the port.
      One positive aspect, in the view of some, is that the arrival of the truck convoys has reduced the hazards previously caused by courier drivers bringing in individual cars. Police were repeatedly involved with speeding incidents as powerful vehicles from the German second-hand market found their way to new owners in Russia.
      The Russian car transporter that collided with a Finnish coach on Highway 7 in Pyhtää, Southeastern Finland on Monday was removed on Tuesday from the ditch where it ended up after the crash. No new information has come to light as yet about what caused the accident, which killed two bus passengers.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Two die in collision between coach and car transporter (7.2.2006)

Links:
  Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications
  The Finnish Transport and Logistics SKAL

Helsingin Sanomat