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Public transport in Tallinn
Public transport in Tallinn, Estonia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Public transport in Tallinn consists of bus, tram, trolleybus, train, and ferry services. Tallinna Linnatranspordi AS mainly operates bus, tram and trolleybus routes, while Elron offers electric train services, and Spinnaker OÜ ferry service to Aegna Island with high speed craft Vegtind. Tram, trolleybus, and bus services were formerly divided between Tallinna Autobussikoondis and TTTK. Still, these companies merged into Tallinna Linnatranspordi AS (TLT) in 2012.[1]Tallinn is the only city in Estonia to have ever used trams or trolleybuses. Elron offers local EMU services to Keila, Paldiski, and Turba in the west and Aegviidu in the east, as well as Viljandi, Tartu, and Narva.
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The first tram route of Tallinn was opened in 1888. Tram traffic began with horse power and lasted like this for 30 years. The horse-drawn tram lines ran on the Narva, Tartu and Pärnu main roads passing through the city of Tallinn. A tram has remained on these routes to this day. The first electric trams went on the line in 1920, which were built locally in Tallinn using German and Swedish equipment. The use of trams as public transport was very popular during the Republic of Estonia (before World War II and German and Soviet occupations), for example in 1939 the Tallinn tram carried more than 143 million passengers.
Regular bus connections in Tallinn began in 1921 after World War I and establishing of the Republic of Estonia, which had become independent from the Russian Empire in 1918, although attempts to offer regular bus connections had already been made earlier. The original five bus lines have become a system with 67 lines in 2024.
Although planned as early as 1946, the first trolleybus route in Tallinn opened in 1965 during Soviet Union's occupation of Estonia. Although there were nine such routes at their peak, there are only four in 2024. 160 trolleybuses were in use in the peak year of Tallinn's trolleybus traffic in 1988, but only 45 in 2024.
The first passenger trains with steam locomotives began to serve the people of Tallinn and people living near the city in the 1870s. The country's first electric train line Tallinn - Pääsküla was opened in 1924. The Second World War was devastating for passenger train traffic - the retreating Red Army stole rolling stock to Russia in 1941 and the Germans dismantled the electricity grids during the German occupation. Passenger train traffic was reopened only in 1944. Narrow-gauge railway passenger train traffic in Tallinn (with one of the most important stops at the port) operated from the beginning of the 20th century until the Soviet occupation forces decided to liquidate them.
Tallinn has been planning to construct a light rail service since 1970. The light rail project halted when Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union's occupation, with planning resumed in the 2000s.[2]