Words / Craig Thomas

The Baltic nation of Estonia has come a long way since independence in 1991. Shaking off the yoke of the Soviet Union, the country has become a member of the EU, adopted the euro as a currency and ranks highly in global league tables for quality of life, digitalisation of public services and the success of its technology companies.

It should therefore come as no surprise that this outward, open and technologically oriented society is aiming to introduce seamless multimodal mobility for its citizens. The Estonian government wants people to be able to move around without having to own a car and is currently working to integrate public transportation, micromobility, and other modes of transport as alternatives to the private car, which are easy to use and minimise the environmental impact of transport.

Estonia has also used technology to modernise its transport infrastructure, implementing smart and digitalised transport infrastructure that can communicate with vehicles and users’ smart devices. These include smart pedestrian crosswalks, smart bus stops and smart pavements to make traffic smoother and safer for everybody.

Using data to inform decisions

A digitalised and web-based weather information service is also integrated with this infrastructure, receiving information from sources such as mobile and in-road sensors and open data. This helps optimise autonomous winter road maintenance and provides users with a quick, detailed overview of the current state of the weather and road conditions on the main roads in Estonia.

The use of AI is also being pioneered in the country, with Tallinn, for example, using AI to avoid obstructions at intersections. And as autonomous vehicles are now operational in Estonia, collecting 3D data has become crucial. Indeed, the country is one of the few countries in the world fully covered by a digital twin, with an AI platform and on-demand mobile mapping system being used to control the flow of data while processing raw data from multiple sources.

The government recognises that public transport isn’t always available when needed or accessible from a desired location, so travellers opt instead for their personal car. In addition, a trend for professionals leaving urban areas to live in the countryside has complicated the plotting of mass transit schedules and routes.

Improved mobility – for people and freight

In terms of modal use, Estonia’s larger towns and cities are working on the implementation of mobility as a service (MaaS), integrating different modes of transport that travellers use contactless bank cards or a mobile device to pay for.

The more sparsely populated countryside regions need for demand-responsive transportation will continue, with several self-driving buses commuting in real city traffic.

Freight hasn’t been forgotten, either. A low-speed vehicle that drives up to 25kph and can operate for eight hours on a single charge is being used for last-mile delivery applications and drives autonomously on a pre-mapped area (three LiDARs and five cameras provide a 360-degree view of the surrounding environment). Autonomous parcel delivery vehicles have become an integral part of the logistics system in Estonia since 2017, especially in the capital of Tallinn, where they’re so common that even pizzas can now be delivered by a robot.

There are certainly lessons to be learned from what Estonia is doing to modernise and decarbonise its transport systems. And despite the Baltic state being a fifth of the size of the UK and with a population of just 1.3m, there are certainly lessons to be drawn from the progress that it is making to become more sustainable.