At its meeting today, the city government gave permission to the Tallinn Department of Transport to enter into a ten-year contract with AS Tallinna Linnatransport (TLT), the purpose of which is to offer and develop a modern, convenient and high-quality public transport service in the capital, according to a press release.
“Today, almost a third of city residents get to their main destination by public transport – this figure needs to be increased to 50 percent. To achieve this, we will invest more than one hundred million euros in modernizing rolling stock and infrastructure, updating the route network and finding ways to increase the speed of public transport,” said Tallinn Mayor Evgeniy Osinovsky. – At the same time, work will continue to reduce the environmental footprint of public transport. We will buy no new vehicles that consume fossil fuels, and all our public transport will be climate neutral by 2035.”
According to Deputy Mayor for Transport Kristjan Järvan, the city is working every day to ensure that Tallinn has more public transport for the same money. “Therefore, the fact that we have envisaged the possibility of opening the passenger transport market in Tallinn to the private sector is significant. Greater competition will ensure better prices and quality,” he emphasized.
Kaido Padar, member of the board of Tallinna Linnatranspordi AS, noted that TLT currently serves approximately 380,000 passengers per day, but the goal is half a million passengers: “Our service is provided by about 1,500 drivers, with 660 buses, trolleybuses and trams in use.”
The total volume of the contract is approximately 1.2–1.4 billion euros. This is one of the largest agreements ever concluded in Estonia in the field of mobility. The goal of the collaboration is to ensure that half of all travel modes are by public transport, and to develop rolling stock in such a way that by 2035 the CO2 emissions of public transport are close to zero.
Source: www.dv.ee
