Volume of goods transported by lorries decreased in 2022

Domestic transport

In 2022, a total of 241 million tonnes of goods were transported in domestic road transport, down by five per cent from 2021. The traffic performance increased by two per cent to 1.9 billion kilometres. In addition, the transport performance increased in 2022, being 29 billion tonne-kilometres. The term “tonne-kilometre” represents the amount of transport activities and is calculated per performance as the product of the weight of goods indicated in tonnes and the transport distance indicated in kilometres.

In 2022, licensed transport accounted for 90 per cent of the total tonnes of transported goods and 94 per cent of the transport performance.

The volume of goods transported by vehicle combinations of more than 68 tonnes remained below 100 million tonnes

Vehicle combinations with a total weight of more than 68 tonnes transported 91 million tonnes of goods, accounting for 38 per cent of the total volume of goods transported in Finland. This showed a decrease of eight per cent from 2021. Since 2013, the share of such vehicle combinations has increased each year except for 2020 and 2022.

However, the transport performance continued to increase. Tonne-kilometres increased by 13 per cent to 12 billion.

Variation between groups of goods

Examined by groups of goods (NST 2007), the largest group of metal ores and other mining and quarrying products, as well as peat, decreased by a quarter, or 20 million tonnes. The transport performance in this group decreased by more than 30 per cent, or 37 million kilometres. This is the largest group of goods, accounting for 28 per cent of the total volume of goods.

Other significant decreases in the volume of goods were seen in the group of wood and products of wood and cork (except furniture); articles of straw and plaiting materials; pulp, paper and paper products; printed matter and recorded media, in which the volume of goods fell by almost two million tonnes, or 11 per cent. However, this group showed the second highest increase in the transport performance of nearly 23 million kilometres.

Two groups with a significant increase in the volume of transported goods were coke and refined petroleum products with 4.6 million tonnes and other non-metallic mineral products with 3.1 million tonnes.

The volume of transported soil materials decreased

In 2022, the volume of transported gravel was 62.8 million tonnes, down by 18 million tonnes or 23 per cent from 2021.

The average transport distance remained unchanged at 90 kilometres, and the loading ratio decreased by three percentage points to 66 per cent. The average transport distance was the longest in the group of products of agriculture and fishing, including raw milk, raw fish, wool and animal hide, with 466 kilometres. The loading ratio was the highest in the groups of solid fuels (97 per cent) and basic chemicals (94 per cent). Fuel peat, logwood and pulpwood also had a loading ratio of more than 90 per cent.

International transport

In 2022, domestic lorries transported a total of 2.5 million tonnes of goods in international transport, down by 43 per cent from 2021. The transport performance in international transport was 1.6 billion kilometres, showing a decrease of 19 per cent from 2021