Traficom’s year 2022: The importance of reliable transport and communications, preparedness and cyber security continued to grow

The Russian invasion of Ukraine had impacts on Finland’s transport system and traffic flows, the ways in which the operational reliability of communications networks is managed and the ensuring of reliable and secure digital services in 2022. The war in Ukraine also further emphasised the importance of common situational awareness and understanding.

In 2022, the cyber security threat level rose higher than it has ever been before. In response, the National Cyber Security Centre Finland (NCSC-FI) operating under Traficom developed its capacity to produce situational awareness of and analyse cyber security in cooperation with our stakeholders. We also developed our technical detection capabilities in data networks and our capacity to provide support to organisations affected by major cyber incidents.

Our June 2022 transport system analysis included a summary assessment of the impacts of the current global situation on Finland’s transport system. The global political situation has caused changes in cross-border traffic to and from Russia and affected traffic flows. Together with our stakeholders, we produce strategic situational awareness and analysis of the transport system and its development needs to support decision-making.

The importance of having access to fast and secure communications connections is constantly increasing and only further emphasised in various crises. Meeting the connectivity needs of Finnish households and companies requires not only mobile network connections, but also optical fibre, which has the required speed and quality for decades to come. Through broadband aid, we facilitate the building of optical fibre networks in the sparsely populated areas of Finland as well.

In 2022, we continued to grant conversion and purchase subsidies for low-emission vehicles and expanded the subsidy scheme to also cover electric and gas-powered vans and lorries. Facilitating the reduction of transport emissions is one of our key tasks: The aim is to halve transport emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels and to reduce emissions to zero by 2045.

In addition to engaging in national cooperation, we also continued our international advocacy for the interest of Finland.

In terms of the Agency’s internal efforts, we continued to develop an interactive operating culture, stabilised our operating methods and adopted a flexible multi-location working approach following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. Although the year was challenging, we managed to achieve nearly all of our performance targets during 2022.