The taskforce is chaired by Hannes Luts, an adviser at the ministry's Public Transport Department whose duties include coordinating mobility reform-related projects, and also includes representatives from the Ministry of Climate, Tallinn city government as well as Rail Baltic Estonia.

It has been tasked with mapping out potential locations for a new Tallinn Bus Station, assessing their advantages, disadvantages and associated costs, and issuing a recommendation for where the new bus station should be located.

Luts told ERR that finding a new location for the bus station currently is not yet a decided course of action.

"However, we do want to analyze and evaluate what options exist and what the plan for the future should be," he acknowledged. "As you know, the current bus station faces accessibility issues – primarily in terms of traffic patterns."

The ministry adviser noted that the City of Tallinn believes that the current situation in the immediate vicinity around the bus station cannot be significantly improved. "There's also of course been talk in the media about the developments planned for adjacent properties," he added.

One of the options to be analyzed by the taskforce is the construction of a new bus station adjacent to Rail Baltica's future Ülemiste Terminal.

Luts acknowledged, however, that traffic solutions surrounding even the site of the future major transport terminal have not yet been fully figured out.

"One question at Ülemiste, for instance, is how to ensure access from the east, meaning Vesse [tänav], if the bus station were indeed to be located there," he highlighted. "Right now it wouldn't make any sense to move the bus station to Ülemiste, as there is currently no draw or activity around [that location]. A bus station certainly shouldn't be located in the middle of some empty site."

According to the taskforce chair, other options beyond just building a new bus station next to Ülemiste Terminal should still be considered as well.

"That is one option, but again, I wouldn't lock it in as the only one," he said. "We should consider whether we're perhaps overly fixated on Ülemiste and aren't thinking outside the box."

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