Smart city and mobility

One of Estonia’s main aims is to achieve seamless multimodal mobility. The ideal is that every person in Estonia should be able to move around conveniently without owning a car. Work is underway to integrate public transportation, micromobility, and other modes of transport in order to give people alternative options, which are comfortable to use and good for the environment.

Autonomous vehicles – Bringing these to our roads has been a dream for years. Estonia was one of the first countries in the world to legalise the testing of self-driving vehicles on public roads back in 2016. Since then, Estonia has had several self-driving buses commuting in real city traffic. One of these level 4 autonomous buses was developed by Auvetech, an Estonian firm. In April 2021, Estonia granted a licence for the first unmanned self-driving vehicle to operate in traffic and the world’s first autonomous hydrogen vehicle was launched in Estonia in July 2021.

Larger cities in Estonia are preparing to implement MaaS (Mobility as a service), which integrates different modes of transport and helps people to move from point A to B comfortably. Estonia’s countryside regions are sparsely populated, so it is more efficient to use demand-responsive transportation. Contactless bank cards are also widely accepted throughout the public transport systems in Estonia. This means a traveller doesn’t have to search for ticketing machines or personnel, but pays for their fare via a mobile device or directly at the public transport validator with their bank card.