Estonia creates common public transport ticketing system

Estonia currently sees a range of different transport service providers in their market, ranging from bus, train and ferry companies, to short-term car-rentals or e-scooter sharing services. However, the service providers all use their own booking and sales systems, making clients purchase tickets for each of the different modes even if a single trip connects more than one of the services.

Johann Peetre, head of the Mobility Planning Department at the Transport Administration stated: “At the moment, passengers do not have a convenient unified system through which to plan their journey using public transport and alternative modes of transport. This is one of the reasons why people tend to move by private car, as it is currently easier. To solve this problem, the state is supporting the creation of a prototype, on the basis of which the private sector can create a functioning environment where different transport service providers can easily sell their services.”

Therefore, the state is to start developing a prototype allowing travellers to purchase necessary tickets from one single environment. The prototype is being created by the MaaS (Mobility as a Service) X-Road project.

It is a secure data exchange layer unifying all public transport and mobility service providers, where all the services needed for the journey are found in one place, and tickets and usage rights can be acquired in a single transaction. The prototype is being developed in stages, with stakeholders getting involved in testing the suitability of each developed module.

The project timeline is for 18 months and is funded by the State Chancellery with a total of EUR 840,000.