Tartu has dropped plans to use taxpayer money to subsidize an early-morning bus service to Riga, according to Tartu City Secretary Jüri Mölder. Instead, passenger train operator Elron plans to introduce a morning rail connection in the first half of next year. Currently, the first bus from Tartu toward Riga leaves the university city at 11:10 a.m.
Tartu Cancels Bus Subsidy Plan Amid Budget Pressures
Late last year, the City of Tartu announced it was prepared to temporarily allocate approximately €30,000 a year to subsidize an early-morning bus service heading toward Riga. The municipality intended to hold an open tender to find an operator under de minimis state aid rules. However, officials have now scrapped that measure.
“This has been prompted by changes in the economic environment around us, which force us to look at the situation more broadly,” Jüri Mölder stated, adding that lower-than-expected city budget revenues required a more careful assessment of municipal spending.
As of December, two transport companies—A-buss and Lux Express—had expressed interest in running the subsidized route. Lux Express previously operated an early-morning departure from Tartu to Riga on a commercial basis.
Commercial Bus Realities and Passenger Numbers
Lux Express currently runs twice daily between Tartu and Riga. According to Lux Express CEO Ingmar Roos, the company will not introduce an early-morning commercial service for the current season because passenger demand remains too low.
Between January and May, better-performing departures carried an average of 20 passengers, while weaker runs carried fewer than 10. Passenger counts rose closer to 30 a day during the June-to-August tourist season before dropping again in September, Roos explained.
“Twenty passengers between Tartu and Riga is still around 30 percent below the threshold at which a bus company operating solely on ticket revenue could provide the service,” Roos said. He noted that existing departures remain viable only because routes are extended to Narva, capturing additional travelers.
Elron Prepares Morning Rail Alternative
While the bus subsidy is canceled, passenger train operator Elron plans to add a morning train during the first half of next year, supplementing its existing evening Tartu-Riga departure. Kristo Mäe, Elron’s communications manager, stated that the company can introduce the new morning Tallinn-Tartu-Riga service once new Škoda electric trains begin running between Tallinn and Tartu.
“We currently have information from infrastructure owner Estonian Railways that we will be able to start serving the Tallinn-Tartu route with Škoda electric trains in January. After that, we will be able to provide the exact dates. It certainly won’t happen on January 1,” Mäe said.
Elron currently operates one daily evening train from Tartu to Riga, with the return trip in the morning. Statistics covering the first eight months of operations show that more than 29,000 train journeys have been made with Elron between Estonia and Latvia or Lithuania, which includes nearly 12,000 passenger journeys on the direct train route.
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