Maintenance and cleaning of street areas

The objective of street maintenance is to keep the streets clean and in a satisfactory condition for traffic. The maintenance consists of street cleaning, ploughing, anti-slip and maintenance of pavements, traffic signs and street furniture. Some of the management responsibilities in the street area belong to the owner or holder of the plot.

In Kuopio, the maintenance services of the urban environment service area are responsible for monitoring compliance with the maintenance and cleaning obligations. The police supervise maintenance and cleaning from the perspective of public order and safety.

Act on the Maintenance and Cleaning of Streets and Public Areas

Act on the Maintenance and Cleaning of Streets and Public Areas on the Finlex website (in Finnish)

Structural maintenance
- site access maintenance
- informing about broken road surfaces
Cleaning
- removal of dirt, leaves, debris, weeds and loose objects accumulated on the road, pedestrian and cycle path and pavement from the property border up to the centre line of the street;
- keeping clean the access routes passing between plantings to the plot
- keeping clean the green lane and ditch that extends to a distance of no more than 3 metres from the boundary of the plot
Winter maintenance
- keeping the street drain next to the sidewalk, the rain gutter and the drum on the site access free of snow and ice
- seeing to the maintenance of the site access
- removal of the snow border between the road and the site access
Maintenance and cleaning responsibilities (pdf)
Mestar Kuopio Oy
On-call: +358 44 446 5164

City centre
+358 44 4465158 (street areas)
+358 44 4465016 (green areas)
+358 44 446 5718 (Market Square, outdoor areas of properties)

Southern Kuopio
+358 44 446 5770 (street areas)
+358 44 446 5073 (green areas)

Destia Oy
Northern Kuopio
On-call +358 20 444 1231

Savon Kuljetus Oy
Karttula
Western Kuopio
Kurkimäki
Vehmersalmi
On-call +358 44 727 2683

Nilsiän Sora Oy
Juankoski
Nilsiä
+358 50 326 6688

HP-Konepalvelu
Maaninka
+358 44 291 4520

Siilin Monipalvelut Oy
Riistavesi
+358 400 238 356

Map of contract areas in a central urban area (pdf)
The ploughing of the ploughing route must be in progress when the amount of snow according to the starting threshold is reached somewhere on the ploughing route.

Ploughing times range from 5 to 12 hours after the snowfall has ended on the roads and on walking and cycling routes. There is no winter maintenance on the park corridors.
On Sundays and public holidays, maintenance class 1 can meet the quality requirements of maintenance class 2

Central and Southern Kuopio

Roads (pdf) Pedestrian pathways (pdf) Walking and cycling routes (pdf)

Western Kuopio

Roads (pdf) Walking and cycling routes (pdf)

Northern Kuopio

Roads (pdf) Walking and cycling routes (pdf)
The City of Kuopio has made a decision to take over the winter maintenance of the pavements belonging to the owners of the plots (City Council, 13 November 2006, section 108).

Invoicing is based on section 8 of the Cleaning and Maintenance Act for Streets and Public Areas. On that basis, the City is entitled to charge a fee, which is determined on the basis of actual costs. All owners or holders of a plot in the central urban area will thus receive a winter maintenance invoice for the pavements.

The costs of the pavement belonging to the owners or holders of the plot for winter maintenance shall be invoiced after the end of the winter maintenance period. The actual costs are charged to all owners or holders of the plot, regardless of whether there is a pavement in the street area or not.
Since 2012, the city of Kuopio has operated a service that sends warnings of slippery walking conditions to citizens by SMS. Until now, the service has been operated based on the observations of street maintenance workers in the city center area.

On 1.11.2024, the city will introduce a new slippery sidewalk warning service provided by the Finnish Meteorological Institute. This new service includes the ability to send warnings of predicted slippery conditions ahead of time, using the FMI’s forecasting data. The service is free to use.

How to use the service:
- To subscribe to the service, text 16167 with the message “jalankulku kuopio”
- By default, messages will be sent as soon as the meteorologists at FMI have published the forecast. If you wish to instead receive messages only at certain times of day, add the start time and end time to the end of the subscription message. For example, if you want the service to send messages between 9-21, subscribe with the message “jalankulku kuopio 9 21”
- To unsubscribe from the service, text 16167 with the message “jalankulku sulje”
- If you are already a user of the city’s previous slippery street warning service, you will be transferred to the new service automatically and do not need to make a new subscription.
More information (in Finnish):

About the pedestrian weather model

About slippery sidewalk conditions

About preventing accidents