Minister Kyllönen: Transport services a new growth sector

"Transport policy needs a new approach. In Finland the ideas of user-orientation in transport and utilisation of new technology have already been implemented in practice. Our next goal is the most intelligent transport system in the world", said Ms Merja Kyllönen, Finland's Minister of Transport, at a seminar on intelligent transport solutions, ITS, hosted by the European Commission in Brussels on Monday.

Minister Kyllönen believes that the big change in transport policy will happen when the focus shifts from owning a vehicle to using it. At the same time transport services will be sold in a new way, as service packages.

"ITS is already one of the fastest growing sectors. The global ITS market is a business of billions and new services are being developed at rapidly increasing rates. The role of administration in the change is to ensure the new innovative services a chance to develop, and to prepare for the changes brought by the technological development", Minister Kyllönen said.

She also spoke about the significance of open data in developing transport services and invited the conference delegates to Helsinki in June 2014 for the ITS Europe 2014 Congress.