Estonian capital city to start developing joint Tartu-Tallinn mobility service

TALLINN - The Tallinn Transport Department has announced public procurement for finding a contract partner for developing and introducing a mobility service platform that would combine different transport services provided in Tallinn and Tartu into a single package. 

The service would enable users to plan their route as well as pay for all transport on their route at once. The platform is planned to cover means of public transport, micromobility, taxis and self-driving vehicles, it appears from the procurement notice. 

The platform would be open for all service providers and enable ordering transport for the desired route at a suitable time for the customer through a single mobile app by that would combine different means of transport. 

The motivation for developing the service stems from an increasing share of cars and car drives in commutes as a result of a growth in the Tallinn population. In 2021, 48 percent of people who worked in Tallinn used a car to get to work and back home, according to the Tallinn Transport Department. In 2000, the share was significantly smaller at 34 percent. The share of people using public transport has meanwhile dropped from 50 percent to 27 percent.

According to prognoses in the 2018 analysis of functions of the Ulemiste joint terminal, the number of car drives by Tallinn residents will grow by another 10.3 percent by 2040. The city entered into a cooperation agreement in 2019 with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure to see 50 percent of commute in the Tallinn region made by public transport, on foot or by bicycle by 2025 and at least 70 percent by 2035.

The procurement will take place as a competitive dialogue, as the agency wants an innovative solution, and the technical solutions and contract terms of which cannot be determined with sufficient precision without negotiating with market participants.

Bids in the procurement cab be submitted until Aug. 25. The estimated cost of the procurement is 250,000 euros and the procurement contract is planned to run until the end of August 2023.