Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Port, Transport

The move would redirect up to a quarter of Tallink's freight traffic between Estonia and Finland out of the Estonian capital.

The Tallink cargo ship Sea Wind, which at present departs from the Old City Harbor, will start operating out of the Transiidikeskus AS terminal at Muuga in October, Tallink said on Wednesday.

The CEO of Tallink Grupp, Janek Stalmeister, said that given Tallink's constantly growing cargo volumes the company must offer new opportunities to customers to achieve additional growth. Expanding the service to Muuga will broaden the range of services and give Tallink a competitive advantage, he said.

"Muuga allows our customers to avoid traffic congestion and save time. Also our customers traveling with a passenger car will win from this, as the number of trucks in the city center will decline and traffic in the port area and around it will become smoother. The Muuga service will take four kilometers of trucks out of the city center every day, Tallinn will become a greener city and urban traffic will improve," Stalmeister said.

"For Port of Tallinn this is a symbolic milestone, which will reduce the much talked about traffic load in the Old City Harbor and liven up Muuga Harbor," Port of Tallinn CEO Valdo Kalm said.

"Good infrastructure has been developed at Muuga, which means that in order to launch the new ro-ro service after a six-year pause we and the other parties just have to complete some changes concerning the organization of work and technicalities. Looking further ahead, the Muuga-Vuosaari ro-ro service will offer us additional opportunities in increasing north-south freight flows and will also prepare for the extension of Rail Baltic to Scandinavia," Kalm said.

The CEO of Transiidikeskuse AS, Vladimir Popov, described the joint decision of the sides to launch the ro-ro service between Muuga and Vuosaari as a good example of public-private sector cooperation. He said the decision has a positive effect on further increases in freight flows without damaging the environment and the infrastructure of Tallinn.

"Our terminal's infrastructure allows to serve several ro-ro ship routes every day," he said, adding that the launch of the new service can be viewed as the first practical step in developing the long talked about north-south project, the main partners in the implementation of which are the state and the private sector.

The 152-meter Sea Wind, which has capacity for one thousand lane meters of trucks, will make two trips on the route daily. Compared with the Old City Harbor situated in the city center, Muuga can be reached faster from the main roads leading to Tallinn, including the Via Baltica, using the Tallinn Ring Road.

Muuga Harbor, the biggest and deepest commercial harbor in Estonia, lies at a distance of 16 kilometers from Tallinn's city center. Of the port's 29 quays three have been built for ro-ro vessels. The last ro-ro service out of Muuga discontinued its operation in 2011.

AS Tallink Grupp operates six different routes with 16 vessels under the Tallink and Silja Line brands. Ships of the company carry 9.5 million passengers annually and cargoes carried by the ships grew 6.5 percent year over year to 328,000 units in 2016.