Overview
Post-war Finland has been built up successfully. Establishing a Nordic welfare state
has been a joint effort that has given us a highly-developed infrastructure, comprehensive services, world-class education and innovation policies as well as, above all, a socially just society. We have succeeded in global competition, but our model for success, based on the ethos and way of thinking of an industrial society, is now under serious threat. The Asian-led second wave of globalisation will result in intensified competition for positioning in value-adding activities, and competition will even be directed at the level of individual tasks. Climate change will force us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to make radical changes to the way society functions. Not least with regard to transport, land use and urban structure. Finnish society is the fastest ageing in Europe. Health care costs are increasing at the same time as ever more educated and better informed citizens demand ever better and more customised services. The national debt and the sustainability gap are growing. We need skilled labour from abroad to replace people who are retiring and to innovate and create new jobs. However, there are no queues of engineers, nurses or road sweeper drivers waiting at the door. That is why we need ever more attractive environments in which to live and work, as well as a more open mind without losing the heart of the Finnish way of life. International and domestic evaluations of Finnish public administration have confirmed what we have long known. Cooperation across administrative areas is weak, and administrative sectors are isolated from one another. There is a lack of jointly constructed vision and agendas at different levels of government, and the Government Programme and the budget framework function too independently of one another.
- The project has
- Better service level and cost savings for customers
- Same quality and service level for customers with fewer resources
- Cheaper products and services
- Lower transport administration costs
- Controlled management of tasks through reform of government agencies that support efficient production and innovation
- New kinds of innovative and effective solutions to traffic problems
- From a product-centred operation to customer centred service concepts
Funding
Results
In order to strengthen national and regional competitiveness, reduce emissions and improve services, cooperation at different levels of government and between different administrative branches is especially important in the planning of transport and land use that creates the necessary operating conditions.
We are moving from the production centred social paradigm of the industrial age towards a sustainable and people centred service society. This means, for example, an emphasis on the significance of immaterial and intellectual growth, more individual solutions, networked operating intensive industry as well as active participation in development and value creation by people, communities and companies. In a sustainable, people-centred service society, infrastructure, transport and logistics are regarded as services and sources of well-being, not simply as infrastructure investments or projects.
Transport and urban planning and transport services make it possible for people to have good lives and for companies to improve their competitiveness. Public sector procurement that produces added value and service levels and people’s diverse range of needs both play their part in creating new business and jobs. Depending on the demands of procurement and users, they may also give rise to international business activities. In the kind of world described above, you have to be able to produce more and better with less.
This is the central premise of the Transport Revolution development programme. The first stage of the development programme is the construction of a mind chart that describes the new approach to transport and urban policy. This report summarises the main aspects of the mind chart. The Transport Revolution will proceed through concrete pilot projects, some of which are already underway, company driven research programmes as well as development actions taken by different parties as described below. The international survey that we have carried out shows that the challenges are the same in all developed countries, but we have not found any similar initiative aimed at producing systemic change.