A Modern Cargo Harbour in Vuosaari

By Kari Noroviita

Cargo port operations in Helsinki are moving away from the city center to a new harbour in the Eastern-Helsinki district of Vuosaari, to be opened on 28 November 2008. The old cargo harbour sites will be freed for redevelopment, ultimately to house homes and jobs for tens of thousands. Heavy road traffic will also decrease in the city centre.

The Vuosaari Harbour offers a competitive and modern service package for roro and container traffic with a seamless integration of efficient port operations with other logistics operations. Vuosaari harbour has direct connections with the entire Finnish main road and railway network and offers the most frequent shipping services between Finland and northern Central European ports. There is a fast connection also to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

The most of Finnish unitized cargo transport is sea transport carried in containers and trailers. At Vuosaari Harbour, automatic traffic and access control represent top class of modern technology. The non-stop flow of goods from ships to land transport and vice versa is smooth. The shortest time that loads stay in the harbour is just a few minutes.

The harbour has two 750-metre container quays and 15 roro berths, some of which lend themselves to the handling of deck cargo with a crane. A straight fairway, with a minimum depth of 12.5 metres, leads from the harbour to the open sea.

In addition to the assessment processes that are required by law, the impacts of the Vuosaari harbour and traffic channels have been evaluated. The impacts on nature, people, the community structure and the economy have been assessed. The steps have been taken to eliminate or reduce negative impacts on the environment at every stage of the project. The Vuosaari harbour has been designed and built under tight environmental scrutiny, subject to years of environmental assessments prior to groundbreaking in 2003. As a result, the harbour, which borders nature conservation areas, will be operating with minimum environmental impact. As proof, besides the tunnel access, high wall and earth structures separate the harbour from bird nesting areas just yards away, acting as an effective noise barrier. The lighting of the site is the result of an architectural competition, won by APRT Architects for both merits in design and an effective, environmentally conscious solution to minimize the diffusion of light.