FINLAND: ‘Our strategy focuses on profitability, growth and creating a values-based VR culture’, VR Group CEO Elisa Markula said when she the presented the national operator’s H1 2024 results on August 16 and set out plans to divest some assets to facilitate competition.
With the opening up of the passenger rail market, Markula said the government’s creation of an outsourced rolling stock owning company would facilitate competition in both the commercially-operated and tendered sectors by lowering the threshold for entering the market.
She also explained that ’to create a competition-neutral environment, VR will divest station properties, depots, and the remaining rail infrastructure owned by the company’.
Markula said ‘properly targeted and sufficient state investments in rail infrastructure are necessary to improve the punctuality of trains, as about half of the delays are due to the poor condition of the track’. She added that ’telecoms operators also need to make investments in trackside network infrastructure’.
VR’s exclusive right to provide passenger services expired at the end of 2020, with open access operators now able to enter the market. In 2022 the government directly awarded VR a contract to operate loss-making passenger services until the end of 2031, with tenders to be called for future operations.
Since 2021 VR has operated services within the Helsinki region under a 10-year tendered contract, and regional authorities elsewhere are looking to procure subsidised services.
