Andres Ruubas, head of the public transport department at the Ministry of Regional and Agricultural Affairs, said the proposal consists of four parts.

First, the ministry is proposing that state support for public transport be increased next year. That funding has remained at the same level since 2020. Under the proposal, funding would rise from the current €121 million to €149 million.

At the same time, the regional affairs ministry would commit to increasing the share of self-generated revenue in public transport — namely, income from bus, train, ferry and domestic airline ticket sales.

Ruubas explained that currently, ticket sales make up about a quarter of all public transport revenue. The breakdown is 8 percent for buses, 16 percent for domestic flights, 38 percent for trains and 40 percent for ferries.

"Our view is that self-generated revenue should increase by about half a percent each year. That would mean either more service users [passengers] or, in the worst case, higher ticket prices or reduced expenses," Ruubas said.

Any infrastructure-related costs and tax increases that are outside the ministry's control — such as rail usage fees, port charges or airport fees — would continue to be covered from a designated reserve fund.

The final part of the funding model would involve decisions made during the state budget strategy process, such as the introduction of new trains, which would expand the rail network and lead to additional fixed costs.

Ruubas said the new funding model has been submitted to the Ministry of Finance, which must now decide whether to approve it.

"If the new model is adopted, it would mean a change to the base budget, which has been frozen in place. Then, the only additional funds we would need would be to cover changes in infrastructure fees and new tax burdens, which would still have to be drawn from reserve funding," Ruubas said.

He added that, at the same time the ministry is seeking additional funding for public transport, it has also been tasked with cutting expenses by 8 percent next year. According to him, there is currently no clear plan for how to implement that cut.

"It's a difficult situation. The reality right now is that cuts can't be made unless we're willing to reduce services," he said.

Talks also included the idea of keeping just one public transport center.

Currently, 11 regional public transport centers oversee county bus services in Estonia. ERR reported in January that the Ministry of Regional Affairs is reorganizing how these centers operate and is considering merging them.

At the time, Andrus Kärpuk, head of the Pärnu County Public Transport Center, said the ministry's vision was that three to four centers would be optimal for Estonia.

Minister of Regional and Agricultural Affairs Hendrik Terras (Eesti 200) said the current public transport system is not sustainable, but how many transport centers should remain will be determined through further discussions. Among other ideas, coalition negotiations have included the possibility of following Latvia's example and consolidating Estonia's system into a single transport center.

Terras noted that merging centers would allow for better procurement processes and more effective decision-making. On the other hand, he said this approach risks losing local insight into how people actually travel.

"Consolidation has come up in discussions. How far to go with it — whether we ultimately end up with just one center — will be decided after analysis. I'm not ruling it out, but it really depends on how efficiently we can manage things without losing that local knowledge," he said.

Urmas Kruuse, who led the Reform Party delegation in regional policy topics during coalition talks, said that while the consolidation of transport centers was discussed, no decisions were made. In his personal view, Estonia currently has too many public transport centers.

"Based on the expert opinions I've seen in public reports and media, my view is that there should be fewer of them. That's also because people's travel patterns clearly go beyond county and local government boundaries," Kruuse said.

State, not local government paying for Kuressaare bus connection

Last week, the Ministry of Regional Affairs also presented its initial plans to the public for how the Public Transport Act could be amended. One part of the intention-to-develop document focuses on revising how bus routes are currently classified.

The ministry noted that the current legal classification of bus routes fails to take into account the fact that, following the administrative reform, some cities and municipalities — such as Saaremaa Municipality and the City of Pärnu — have grown significantly in size. As a result, the ministry argues it is no longer reasonable to expect that all intra-city or intra-municipality transport should be funded by local governments.

The ministry acknowledged that a situation has developed where local bus routes in some urban areas — such as Rapla, Võru, Põlva and Kuressaare — are mainly funded from the state budget, while in others — such as Pärnu, Narva and Rakvere — they are funded from local budgets.

"If a route lies entirely within the territory of a single municipality due to the administrative reform, it is currently classified as a municipal route, and under the law as it stands, funding such services is not a state responsibility. Given that weaker municipalities likely lack the resources to provide an equivalent level of public transport service, these areas face a serious risk of a sharp decline in service quality," the intention-to-develop document states.

It also notes that the current definition of county routes is overly broad and allows virtually any route using public roads and streets to be classified as a county route.

The ministry is proposing that bus routes be defined not by how many city or municipal boundaries they cross, but by their function, using new terms such as "county centers."

Under one possible definition, a long-distance bus route would be one that connects at least two county centers located in different counties — for example, the Tartu-Põlva route.

A regional bus route would link a county center with a regional, local or nearby center. A regional route could also be one that connects two county centers within the same county or two regional centers, such as Kallaste-Tartu.

A local bus route, under this proposal, would be any route that does not qualify as either long-distance or regional. These would include city routes, for example.

The ministry states in the intention-to-develop document that updating these definitions would help clarify how bus routes are categorized and, in turn, enable more efficient use of state funding.

Andres Ruubas said it's currently unclear whether the new definitions would result in cities and municipalities taking on more or fewer responsibilities for funding public transport.

"All in all, it's hard to say whether the state would be assuming more or fewer obligations. That's not really the aim here. We're not looking to shift more costs onto anyone. What we're trying to do is identify, in today's changed circumstances, when a route should be classified as regional rather than local," Ruubas said.

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