The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency's operations are premised on ensuring the fluency and safety of the everyday journeys made by people and the transport of raw materials and products of companies.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency is a procurement agency and employs some 400 experts. Through our procurement and annual budget of approximately two billion euros, we provide indirect employment to 14,000 people.

The ongoing tendering processes can be found in the public procurement notification channel HILMA.

In addition, the current framework agreements can be found on the Framework Agreements page, and information on planned procurement can be found on the Procurement Programmes page (in Finnish only).

See Procurement Progammes

Procurement policies 

The revised procurement policies were published in February 2020 (pdf, in Finnish)

The main objective of the procurement policies is to promote procurement processes and to ensure that we, as an agency, are able to implement our procurement actions efficiently and creditably. We use the policies to communicate our expectations to the service provider market: which are the things the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency pays attention to as a client, what the Agency considers important from the perspective of societal impact, i.e., enabling smooth and safe transport on high-quality transport routes. The procurement policies concern all procurement actions of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and the infrastructure procurement within the transport and infrastructure area of responsibility of the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centres).

The Agency's previous procurement policies were drawn up in 2013. They laid strong emphasis on taking into account the needs of infrastructure users, the functioning of the market and the productivity of the infrastructure sector. We have been promoting these goals and achieved effectiveness through measures already taken. The views specified above remain among the key objectives in the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency's procurement.

The drivers behind the reform of procurement policies included changes in the operating environment (the agency reform in the transport administration sector in 2019) and megatrends (digitalisation, urbanisation, climate issues). They have influenced the operating practices of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency's procurement both as such and indirectly, through the group strategy of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the strategy of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, and the joint development of procurement between the supplier market and central government.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency develops its procurement in collaboration with various actors. We engage in active dialogue with service providers and other infrastructure sector actors and participate in the development of procurement within the whole central government system. The service provider market has also been consulted in this policy reform work.

The procurement practices include the common guidelines applied to all procurement and so-called procurement category-specific guidelines, each of which applies to procurement of specific sets of items or services of similar nature. The common guidelines are presented in the next chapter. The procurement category-specific guidelines can be found in chapter 3 of the Procurement policies 2020 publication. In addition to the publication mentioned above, more information on procurement categories can be found on the  Procurement Categories page. 

Common policies 

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency's operations are premised on ensuring the fluency and safety of the everyday journeys made by people and the transport of raw materials and products of companies. In our procurement, this is visible as an effort to ensure that the needs that customers consider important are passed on and taken into account throughout the life cycle of the procurement; from the planning stage, through measures taken in the realisation phase, all the way to maintenance. Active communication on, for example, transport infrastructure maintenance measures and construction projects is important for the different user groups of transport infrastructure and thus a central part of successful procurement. Service providers operate in the customer interface, and it is important that the client’s objectives concerning the customers’ needs are passed through the entire procurement chain to the subcontractors.

The management of infrastructure property requires that we increase our digital data resources also through procurement. We use dialogue and cooperation with the market as a means to ensure that we make high-quality and cost-effective purchases and find new solutions, and enhance both our innovation capacity and quality management and quality control. The aim is to collaborate with the market to promote digitalisation and thus create opportunities for even new kind of business. Furthermore, procurement enables the development and adoption of new solutions. 

Uniform requirements promote coherent procurement of consistent quality, and fair and transparent operations. In addition, uniform requirements ensure the efficiency of the procurement process, still considering how appropriate the requirements are in each case.
We aim to reduce emissions harmful to the climate and other environment as well as the consumption of energy and materials during the life cycle of transport infrastructure. We encourage service providers to adopt low-emission, energy-efficient and material-efficient solutions, products and services. We integrate environmental criteria in procurement to promote taking account of the climate viewpoints, emission calculation, life-cycle costs and the circular economy.

We also develop the effectiveness of procurement and these policies by monitoring, measuring and analysing concrete results, especially within procurement categories with high volumes and/or of critical nature. We continuously work on developing and systematising the methods used for market analysis. We also regularly communicate the results and impacts of our activities to market operators. 

Successful procurement requires expertise from both the client and the service provider. At the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, we invest in the development of our competence and our capabilities in a broader sense. We also strive to contribute to the development of competence within the field. 

We implement our procurement within the framework of public contracts legislation, substance legislation and the set of norms governing the functioning of state administration. Through common policies, we communicate the basic principles that guide all our procurement regardless of the procurement category.

Common guidelines

1.    We take account of the customers' transport and mobility needs throughout the procurement life cycle.
2.    We observe the information needs of the infrastructure property management in all procurement activities. 
3.    We seek better quality and more efficient service and prospects for new types of business operations in cooperation with the supplier market.
4.    We use procurement to promote climate and sustainable development goals.
5.    Our procurement is based on uniform practices and documentation.
 

 

 

 

Our strategic goal is to increase the productivity of the infrastructure sector.

The FTA maintains and develops the transport service level of the state-owned transport routes, and promotes an effective transport system, traffic safety, and balanced and sustainable development of the regions.

The FTA is a procuring authority, and we procure most of the products, services and know-how required to carry out our public task from external suppliers. It is our responsibility to identify the needs of the customers, i.e. the users of different transport services, as well as to define and produce the services by procuring these from the supplier markets. The service providers produce the services for the end users.

Procurement and supplier market management strongly affect FTA’s ability to reach and implement its strategic goals. The principles and goals of the FTA's procurement operations set the guidelines for procurement, i.e. for FTA’s procurement strategy.

The FTA's total procurement volume is about 1.6 billion euros. This amount is divided between infrastructure management procurement and other procurements.

Products, services and know-how are procured from a variety of external suppliers. Some of the product and service categories are procured from supplier markets with several actors, while others are procured from supplier markets with only one or a few actors.

The FTA also switches roles from client to customer on different supplier markets. In some cases, the FTA, as the client, may hold an important position which may even affect the operating conditions within the whole infrastructure sector. In other cases, the FTA plays a less important role, either nationally or globally, from the point of view of the supplier market actors.

Since it is not possible to guide and develop all procurements according to the same principles, the FTA has grouped its procurements into categories with respect to coordination and steering.

The Finnish Transport Agency uses procurement programmes to inform the service providers about future projects and contracts. The aim is to give entrepreneurs and service providers advance information about upcoming procurements by means of procurement programmes. This helps entrepreneurs and service providers to plan their operations. The aim of the procurement programmes is also to ensure that contract calculations are spread evenly over the bidding period.

One of the FTA's strategic goals is to increase the productivity of the infrastructure sector. This goal will not be reached if each actor only develops its own procurements. Instead, the different clients in the infrastructure business (the Finnish Transport Agency, ELY Centres and municipalities) should collaborate. For this purpose, different types of collaboration (e.g. cooperation forums, operating models, instructions, data systems) between the clients and service producers are required. The Finnish Transport Agency is actively involved in the process of developing common forms of procurement.