In 2023, the VR long-distance traffic included over 15 million journeys – the number has grown by 14 per cent from 2022

“The increased popularity of rail travel is reflected in the record number of journeys last year. The carbon-neutral train is a mode of transport of the future, and more and more people choose it not only for environmental reasons, but also for travel comfort reasons. Although the start of the year has been challenging due to extremely cold weather nationwide, we are also aiming for record-breaking travel volumes and an excellent customer experience this year,” says Elisa Markula, VR CEO.

The last month of 2023 was also strong for long-distance traffic. As a whole, almost 1.2 million journeys were made in long-distance traffic in December 2023, showing a year-over-year increase of 2 per cent.

The volume of goods transported by rail was approximately 2.2 million tonnes in December. The volume of freight traffic decreased by 5 per cent year-on-year in December. Last year, 23.4 (29.8) million tonnes of goods were transported by rail, which is about 21 per cent less than in the previous year. The volume of freight traffic decreased from the previous year due to a downturn in the industrial sector and the end of Eastern traffic.

In long-distance traffic, 86% of trains ran according to schedule in 2023

In 2023, 86% of long-distance trains ran on schedule, when punctuality is measured with an accuracy of 5 minutes. We operate 200 long-distance trains daily, which means that 172 of them ran on schedule, according to the annual average. The majority of the delays in 2023 (48%) were caused by reasons related to the track, which is managed by the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, including temporary speed limits, 27% were caused by reasons related to VR, including rolling stock failures, and 25% were caused by other reasons.

The punctuality of long-distance traffic in November was 76.4%. The causes of delays were divided among track-related causes (40%), VR-related causes (34%) and other causes (25%). The punctuality of long-distance traffic was decreased, in particular, by temporary speed limits due to track maintenance work as well as rolling stock failures.

The punctuality of VR commuter traffic in December was 95.1%. The causes of delays were divided among other causes (50%), track-related causes (25%) and VR-related causes (25%).