Taxi inspections in Helsinki have uncovered regulatory violations in nearly half of the vehicles checked during a joint enforcement operation involving police and several Finnish government agencies.
Authorities inspected 43 taxis across Helsinki on Friday and found deficiencies in 20 of them, representing approximately 47 per cent of the vehicles examined. Police issued 10 fines and several traffic penalty fees following the inspections.
The operation brought together Helsinki Police, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), the National Supervisory Authority, the Finnish Tax Administration and the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard. According to a police statement published on Saturday, officers stopped taxis in traffic and carried out additional checks at designated taxi ranks.
The most common problems involved missing driver and operator details, incomplete driving records and drivers failing to produce required operating documents when requested.
Inspectors identified 14 cases in which driving logs were missing or incomplete. In 13 cases, passengers could not access information identifying the driver, while another 13 involved missing details about the taxi operator or the company’s contact information.
Seven drivers were unable to present the required taxi operating documents immediately. However, all 43 inspected vehicles had valid taxi operating licences.
Other violations included two vehicles that were not registered for commercial passenger transport, three without the required taxi signs and five that failed to display fare information. One driver was also found to be operating without the required taxi driver’s permit.
Senior Constable Ilari Vilen of Helsinki Police said officers had repeatedly encountered problems with driving records, particularly among drivers employed by taxi companies. He also pointed to an unusually high number of vehicles without proper taxi signs and said some taxis had tyres that were unsuitable for professional passenger transport.
Despite the regulatory shortcomings, Vilen said most of the inspected vehicles were in satisfactory mechanical condition and considered roadworthy.
The findings also raised concerns about whether passengers are consistently receiving the information they are legally entitled to when using taxi services in Finland. Traficom specialist Tiina-Liisa Ruotsalainen stressed that passengers must be able to identify both the driver and the company responsible for providing the service.
She said these requirements are established obligations, not recently introduced regulations. Even an individual violation can lead authorities to examine an operator’s wider business activities more closely.
The inspections also covered employment conditions in the taxi industry. Labour inspectors examined issues including working hours, wages, annual leave, occupational healthcare and the procedures employers have in place for dealing with threats of violence.
Of the 14 employed drivers encountered during the operation, 13 had deficiencies in their driving logs, highlighting the scale of the problem among workers operating under employment arrangements.
The Finnish Tax Administration also gathered information about wages, payments and vehicles as part of efforts to identify possible tax irregularities and undeclared economic activity in the sector.
Tarja Valsi, a director at the Tax Administration, said authorities would take action against dishonest business practices to protect fair competition within the taxi industry.
Police have primary responsibility for taxi enforcement in Finland, while other participating agencies use information collected during inspections to identify businesses that may require further investigation. The Helsinki operation demonstrated how checks can extend beyond vehicle safety to examine driver qualifications, passenger information, employment practices and compliance with tax obligations.
