[FI] The demise of open rail data in Finland

Branching from what has been discussed on the Foreign Train Trackers / Schedules thread.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA) is reviewing open data of the railway sector. Rail is the only mode of transport under review. Other modes like sea, road and air are not affected. In Finland, infrastructure manager of the state-owned rail network is FTIA and another public body named Fintraffic is in charge of providing traffic control on that rail network. Both public bodies do release open data. FTIA does mainly infrastructure data and Fintraffic has infrastructure data, timetables and real-time traffic data.

CarrotPie said:

Information on signals, derailers, gradients (eh?), point speeds and, most intriguingly, whether or not a point can be electrically controlled, will be removed from open data in the future. They've already been taken off Julia, but they're still available online (here) for at least a little while longer.

It really feels like the people at the infrastructure manager watched Nightsleeper and that's what made them decide to choose the categories they did, especially the control methods of points. Oh well, the downfall of Finnish open rail data has begun...

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I've been talking around and the infrastructure data removed now will in fact remain public, but not accessible through the open data platform. The information was taken off Julia beforehand. FTIA is making an official decision in approximately two weeks. The situation is slightly bizarre though, I mean, how can a public body restrict the release and usage of data that is considered public in the first place? For example, the information about signals will not be restricted by security classification. The constitution of Finland is clear: "Documents and recordings in the possession of the authorities are public, unless their publication has for compelling reasons been specifically restricted by an Act. Everyone has the right of access to public documents and recordings."

The demise of open rail data will not end here, I'm afraid. There have been talks about removing information about everything that is not a commercial passenger service. So any data on ECS, freight and departmental trains would be gone later this year. Just remove any useless bit of data, they basically said.

Datasets like train tracking which follows trains in real-time based on train vacancy proving sections (pretty much like a Train Describer in the UK does) and routesets which indicate a route set from a signal will be gone as well.

I don't think Nightsleeper is the issue, more probably concerned with assisting planning for sabotage by foreign state actors? (or to be honest here... Russia.) It has certainly been happening in Ukraine by Russian forces / sympathisers and the Ukrainian military intelligence service (GUR) has been sabotaging Russian railways all the way to the middle of the Far Eastern Railway.

If you have to go to a physical repository to get the information it narrows down the opportunity to pre-plan actions e.g. if you could see which points were electronically controlled and proven it makes it easier to decide which ones to sabotage with less opportunity for a signaller to intervene before a train derails.

Likewise obscuring the movements of freight services could have some logic if military freight movements were to be obscured. Some UK operators obscuring head codes goes partway to this idea of making things harder to track but realistically unless it is done universally or removed entirely things can be tracked by the fact they are obscured and others aren't.

I don't particularly like the idea of information becoming less open but I can see possible reasoning behind it.

jpl said:

I've been talking around and the infrastructure data removed now will in fact remain public, but not accessible through the open data platform. The information was taken off Julia beforehand. FTIA is making an official decision in approximately two weeks. The situation is slightly bizarre though, I mean, how can a public body restrict the release and usage of data that is considered public in the first place? For example, the information about signals will not be restricted by security classification.

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Eh? So it's going to be basically only available by requesting it, which will probably take months, knowing them? Brilliant, makes total sense.

I still don't understand why the information was taken off Julia before it's been removed from the open data portal itself...

jpl said:

The demise of open rail data will not end here, I'm afraid. There have been talks about removing information about everything that is not a commercial passenger service. So any data on ECS, freight and departmental trains would be gone later this year. Just remove any useless bit of data, they basically said.

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"They" talked about it, but I haven't seen anything conclusive one way or the other. As was mentioned by the creator of Julia, open data has succeeded in what it set out to do (develop a good architecture for it, allow the public to find cool uses for it and, most importantly, get people using open data to help make it better, which in turn helps the operators), but I don't see why that should mean it should become "closed data" again. I don't see how the situation has changed since the late 2010s, when the race was on to santise and release pretty much every data set possible. Yes, Russia has invaded Ukraine, but Finland has always known about the threat that Russia poses and it's been four years since the start of the war, anyway, so why only now?

Randomer said:

Likewise obscuring the movements of freight services could have some logic if military freight movements were to be obscured. Some UK operators obscuring head codes goes partway to this idea of making things harder to track but realistically unless it is done universally or removed entirely things can be tracked by the fact they are obscured and others aren't.

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When an operator sends a schedule application to FTIA/Väylävirasto, they can tick a box to have either just the timetable or any trace of the train removed from the open data, and this has worked fine (bar some abuse from a power-trippy steam train operator) for years. For example, military trains are completely undetectable in open data.

If we assume that Russia has spies in Finland spotting freight trains, they can work out which trains may be military cargo by seeing which trains they observed don't appear in the open data. As @Randomer said:

Randomer said:

things can be tracked by the fact they are obscured and others aren't

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If some non-military cargo trains are missing as well, the spies might be able to narrow down the military trains by following unlisted trains to their destinations.

Gag Halfrunt said:

If we assume that Russia has spies in Finland spotting freight trains, they can work out which trains may be military cargo by seeing which trains they observed don't appear in the open data.

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They can tell which ones are military trains because they're got tanks on the carriages!

CarrotPie said:

"They" talked about it, but I haven't seen anything conclusive one way or the other. As was mentioned by the creator of Julia, open data has succeeded in what it set out to do (develop a good architecture for it, allow the public to find cool uses for it and, most importantly, get people using open data to help make it better, which in turn helps the operators), but I don't see why that should mean it should become "closed data" again. I don't see how the situation has changed since the late 2010s, when the race was on to santise and release pretty much every data set possible. Yes, Russia has invaded Ukraine, but Finland has always known about the threat that Russia poses and it's been four years since the start of the war, anyway, so why only now?

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I have to admit much of this is hearsay until official decisions come in. Anyway, I can say this change from open to closed data is almost certainly driven by the current Government Programme (of the government which started from summer 2023). Look at the Section 8.5: https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/governments/government-programme#/

Finland will prepare for hybrid threats proactively. The Government will revise Finland’s Cyber Security Strategy to respond to the changed operating environment. National security will be taken into account when reassessing the open sharing of critical infrastructure data. We will update legislation on intelligence and emergency powers to enable hybrid threats to be countered effectively.

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Randomer said:

if you could see which points were electronically controlled and proven it makes it easier to decide which ones to sabotage with less opportunity for a signaller to intervene before a train derails.

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Removing the information after it's been public isn't going to prevent that, except for points that become electronically controlled later. Which ones are now, that's public knowledge at this point, and any malicious actor worth their salt will already have it.

I suspect national security is probably the main reason Finland has chosen to take this step. Finland and its eastern neighbour haven't got on well traditionally, which is only likely to have got worse following its decision to join NATO.

Gag Halfrunt said:

If we assume that Russia has spies in Finland spotting freight trains, they can work out which trains may be military cargo by seeing which trains they observed don't appear in the open data. As @Randomer said:



If some non-military cargo trains are missing as well, the spies might be able to narrow down the military trains by following unlisted trains to their destinations.

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But still requires more effort and increases the risk of coming to the authorities’ attention than accessing a public website does.

MoominAndChips said:

Removing the information after it's been public isn't going to prevent that, except for points that become electronically controlled later. Which ones are now, that's public knowledge at this point, and any malicious actor worth their salt will already have it.

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I suppose if you really wanted to resolve that risk it would be time for a full recast of the timetable...

MoominAndChips said:

Removing the information after it's been public isn't going to prevent that, except for points that become electronically controlled later. Which ones are now, that's public knowledge at this point, and any malicious actor worth their salt will already have it.

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And the data still seems to be publicly available, just not on Julia anymore...

Working timetables for commercial trains are generally public documents, as they are part of the broader railway network operational plans. But lately we've seen some freight trains transporting diesel fuel being excluded from the open data. Still, those excluded timetables are generally public documents that anyone can put in a request for. This literally makes no sense at all. What's the purpose of excluding trains from open data when you can still put in a request to see the timetables?

jpl said:

Working timetables for commercial trains are generally public documents, as they are part of the broader railway network operational plans. But lately we've seen some freight trains transporting diesel fuel being excluded from the open data. Still, those excluded timetables are generally public documents that anyone can put in a request for. This literally makes no sense at all. What's the purpose of excluding trains from open data when you can still put in a request to see the timetables?

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It is a very odd situation. They are just giving themselves more work. Removing it from the open data means that dozens of people will make Freedom Of Information requests for this. That will give them more work to process and reply to each request. But if it was kept as open data then they could reduce their workload. Removing it from the open data can not have anything to do with safety if people can still request such information. It feels like this is all theatre and they are just removing it from the open data to try and make point.

Väylävirasto have recently decided to abritrarily classify a significant portion of their railway archive records because apparently they can just do that. There has been discussion about it recently on the Finnish railway forum vaunut.org (in Finnish, of course; I can't be bothered to translate it right now, but there wasn't really much reasoning given anyway).

stadler said:

It is a very odd situation. They are just giving themselves more work. Removing it from the open data means that dozens of people will make Freedom Of Information requests for this. That will give them more work to process and reply to each request. But if it was kept as open data then they could reduce their workload.

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I would highly recommend not trying to make requests for information from public authorities in Finland. I've spent several months getting bounced around between VR, HSL, Väylävirasto and Traficom to try and get passenger usage staistics, with everyone giving some excuse ("it's not our job"/"VR said they would give them to you"/"they're company secrets"/"giving them to you is a breach of our contract"), that it's just a huge waste of your time.

CarrotPie said:

Väylävirasto have recently decided to abritrarily classify a significant portion of their railway archive records because apparently they can just do that. There has been discussion about it recently on the Finnish railway forum vaunut.org (in Finnish, of course; I can't be bothered to translate it right now, but there wasn't really much reasoning given anyway).

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I've been trying to keep track of which records are being reclassified, but very little information has been released to the general public. Some of the records are over 100 years old and that is slightly odd. It is a government decision, as railways are now considered critical infrastructure on the grounds of national security. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about it.

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CarrotPie said:

I would highly recommend not trying to make requests for information from public authorities in Finland. I've spent several months getting bounced around between VR, HSL, Väylävirasto and Traficom to try and get passenger usage staistics, with everyone giving some excuse ("it's not our job"/"VR said they would give them to you"/"they're company secrets"/"giving them to you is a breach of our contract"), that it's just a huge waste of your time.

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I assume you mean the passenger usage statistics of individual railway stations. This is something that is considered a trade secret. As well as rail fares are. VR, even though wholly owned by the government, is not obligated to respond to freedom of information requests. As VR is a company it is not covered by the publicity law and they can decide what information they release.

I know that the station usage figures have been released once in the past but it may as well have been a fortunate mistake.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jun 2026 ==

Also mentioned on the Finnish railway forum vaunut.org is the case of photography/filming from the cab or rear window of the train. That requires a permit from Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and they have declined those requests for several years now on the grounds of railway security. Media wasn't allowed to film the cab of VR's new Sm7 EMU for similar reasons. (In fact even basic technical specifications of Sm7 like body width or weight haven't been released.)

jpl said:

Also mentioned on the Finnish railway forum vaunut.org is the case of photography/filming from the cab or rear window of the train. That requires a permit from Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency

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I would like to see them try and stop you filiming from the rear window of a passenger train!

jpl said:

Media wasn't allowed to film the cab of VR's new Sm7 EMU for similar reasons.

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Although interestingly people were allowed to take photos of the Sm6 cab when they were relaunched as the Pendolino Plus.

jpl said:

I assume you mean the passenger usage statistics of individual railway stations. This is something that is considered a trade secret. As well as rail fares are. VR, even though wholly owned by the government, is not obligated to respond to freedom of information requests. As VR is a company it is not covered by the publicity law and they can decide what information they release.

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However, VR is not the only organisation who holds this data, and other organisations seem to think it is very much not a secret and indeed have disclosed this data on several previous occasions.