Lux Express announces domestic, international expansion
Lux Express have bought 20 new Scania buses, investing some €7 million in their new rolling stock, and are planning to increase trip numbers in the Estonian domestic as well as the international market, BNS reported.
In Estonia, they intend to focus on Tartu in the second half of the year. Passenger numbers to and from Tartu have increased by 30 percent over the first five months this year, compared to the same period last year. Additional departures will also be added to the Tartu-Pärnu, Tartu-Narva, and Tallinn-Tartu-Võru routes.
Starting as early as July 1, the number of departures on the Tallinn-Pärnu route will be increased from 10 to 11. On the Tallinn-Narva route, the company will replace four Simple Express departures with Lux Express ones, upgrading their service in terms of both cost and comfort. This will put the number of departures on this route at 15 per day and direction, BNS wrote.
Ten departures a day to St. Petersburg, more trips to Riga, Warsaw
Already on June 1, Lux Express added an additional 10th daily departure to its Tallinn-St. Petersburg route. Passenger numbers have been on the rise here as well, going up 7 percent year on year, the company said.
A route entirely operated abroad is the St. Petersburg-Helsinki bus, where Lux Express have had a whopping 40 percent more passengers over the last few months compared to the first half of 2018. The number of departures is thus increasing there as well, most recently going from four to five a day.
One of the busiest international routes is the Tallinn-Riga connection, where Lux Express is now at 14 trips a day in each direction. The Tallinn-Warsaw route, at the same time, is being increased just this week from three to four trips a day. An additional change announced here is that there won't be any stops between Vilnius and Warsaw, which saves a full two hours' travel time, Lux Express said.
The first new buses were delivered to Lux Express in the beginning of June, with the remainder to be delivered in installments of two or three at a time until the end of the third quarter this year.
Lux Express to experiment with different fare, business models
In the fall, Lux Express is planning to introduce a monthly ticket for domestic trips in Estonia at a price of less than €100.
"The monthly cost has to be attractive enough for a person to no longer opt for their car," member of Lux Express' management, Paul Kristjan Lilje, told media, adding that the price was expected to be in the range of €90-95.
Also in the fall, Lux Express will start pilot tests of a door-to-door solution that would include transport by taxi from the passenger's home to the bus station, and from the destination station to the customer's final destination of the trip.
"The main point is that in the future, the passenger would no longer have to put together a plan for their trip, but that a complete solution would be offered to them by the service provider," Lilje said.
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Editor: Dario Cavegn