Clock to advance 1 hour as summer time begins Sunday

Summer time will start early Sunday when the clock will advance by one hour at 3:00 o’clock.

Timing complications may arise in different sectors, especially in public transport and communication.

The authorities, however, expect that everything will be normal once people become accustomed to the new timing in a few days’ time.

There will be some changes in the timetables of the bus and train services.

Timetable of local buses could be asked from the operators; while timetables for long-distance bus will be found on Matkahuolto's web page.

The summer time-shifting for long-distance buses will mainly affect Helsinki-Vantaa's airport express bus connection.

The schedule for the intercity and long-distance bus services will be available on the websites.

The train service schedules will also see some changes, including the Allegro high-speed train that operates between Finland and Russia.

The new timing will impact the schedules of some long-distance night trains that operate between Saturday and Sunday.

Summer time generally starts on the last Sunday of March and continues until the last Sunday of October.

Finland has been following separate time schedules for summer and winter since 1981.

Meanwhile, the tradition of daylight saving time is likely to be scrapped in 2021 as the Members of the European Parliament late March 2019 decided to scrap daylight saving time to keep standard time year round.

The decision, however, needs approval by the EU Council of Ministers. Finland is expecting the decision by the year 2019 while it is still in possession of the rotating EU Presidency.

Earlier, on 12 September 2018, the European Commission proposed that the practice of daylight saving be ended in 2019.

According to the Commission proposal, the bi-annual clock changes would end everywhere in the European Union. The proposal is based on Finland’s initiative.