Estonia’s and Latvia’s state-owned passenger train operators, Elron and Pasazieru Vilciens (Vivi), will open a regular train service from Tallinn via Tartu to the Latvian capital, Riga, on 12 January 2026, ERR reports. Elron received permission from the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) to use three new Stadler FLIRT diesel trains on Latvian railway…
Latvia’s Road Transport Administration (ATD) has signed an agreement with Czechia’s Skoda Group for the purchase of nine battery-powered electric trains, LSM reports. Skoda was the only eligible bidder for the contract, LETA reported. Under the deal, worth EUR 89.409mn, Skoda is due to deliver the BEMU trains in 2029. ATD has an option to…
The number of cars newly registered in Latvia totalled 18,000 in 2023, LSM reported. The most popular brands in the new car segment were Toyota (3,900), Skoda (2,350), and Volkswagen (2,000). In the second-hand car market, the most popular brands were BMW, Volkswagen, and Audi. The data showed that SUVs and 4×4 cars were the…
The number of new cars sold in Estonia totalled 22,820 in 2023, which was 11.7% more than in 2022, according to data from the Union of Estonian Car Sales and Service Enterprises (AMTEL), ERR reports. Sales were still short of the figure in 2019, when the number of new cars sold totalled 26,589. Hybrid vehicles…
The network of public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations is growing rapidly in the Baltic States, ERR reports. Estonia has 0.57 EV charging stations, Latvia 2.38 stations, and Lithuania 0.93 stations for every 10 EVs registered. The total number of charging stations amounts to 311 in Estonia, 532 in Latvia, and 1,018 in Lithuania. Meanwhile,…
New electric trains in Latvia will not start carrying passengers before November 2023, state-owned passenger train operator Pasazieru Vilciens (PV) announced, LSM reports. Initially, the trains were supposed to be running in January 2023. Representatives of Czechia’s Skoda Group explained that the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine had disrupted the production and delivery…
The number of new passenger cars and commercial vehicles sold in Estonia totalled 14,076 in the first half of 2023, which was 6.5% more than in the same period of 2022, according to data from the Estonian Transport Administration (Transpordiamet), Postimees reports. The number of passenger cars sold amounted to 12,236 (up 10%) and commercial…
The authorities in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, will remove old trolleybuses from city traffic temporarily for the duration of the NATO summit on 11-12 July 2023, LRT reports. The municipal public transport company, Vilniaus Viesasis Transportas, will remove old Skoda trolleybuses from traffic and have new trolleybuses running in the city during the summit. Also, bus…
Estonia’s passenger train operator, Elron, began operating Swiss rolling stock manufacturer Stadler’s FLIRT electric trains ten years ago on 1 July 2013, ERR reports. In ten years, the trains have carried more than 66 million passengers. In 2013, train passenger numbers were at an all-time low of 4.2 million journeys. Elron will receive 16 new…
