Number of passenger train trips by VR slides by 36% last year

About 59.5 million trips in passenger traffic were made by National railway operator VR in 2020, which is 33.3 million or 36 percent lower compared to the number in 2019, according to Statistics Finland.

Meanwhile, about 38.4 million tonnes of freight were transported and the volume of freight transported was unchanged from the previous year.

Of trips, 86 per cent were made in local traffic and 14 per cent in long-distance traffic. The number of trips in local traffic fell by 34 per cent and in long-distance traffic by 45 per cent from the previous year.

Of the trips made in long-distance traffic, 8 million were made in Finland and 0.1 million in international traffic. The average length of trips was 47 kilometres, which was 11 per cent shorter than in the year before.

In 2020, the number of passenger-kilometres in train traffic decreased by 43 per cent from the previous year.

Passenger-kilometres totalled 2.8 billion, of which long-distance traffic accounted for 73 per cent and local traffic for 23 per cent.