Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation, Port, Tourism, Transport

Six of Hiiumaa's businesses informed the rural municipality of the damages they experiences, while their direct loss during the failures in ferry traffic from the end of February to the beginning of April was approximately 25,000 euros. The largest loss, more than 15,000 euros, was experienced by OU Hiiu Autotrans, a company that offers transport services both between the island of Hiiumaa and the mainland as well as internationally. The work of the company was disturbed during 15 working days, not including solitary instances of missing a ferry due to volume restrictions during another period.

Reili Rand, rural municipality mayor of Hiiumaa, said in a press release that the rural municipality after the crisis has held work meetings with the Road Administration and ferry service provider TS Laevad to agree on principles on how to act in possible emergency situations in the future.

"Among other things, we have agreed that it will be stipulated in the type terms of the contract of carriage between the carrier and the state that activity in emergency situations will be coordinated with the rural municipality of Hiiumaa," Rand said.

The rural municipality is now working to fix concrete steps for activity in emergency situations -- for example a regulation concerning the description of critical or vital cargo that the service provider must give priority to in cases of volume restrictions. The rural municipality is applying for an amendment to the contract concerning the refunding of tickets in cases of emergency situations, as in the last months, the refunding of unused tickets caused additional expenses to both the residents and visitors of Hiiumaa. "We are also working to improve communication so that the information of different means of transport comes from one source," Rand said.

The web questionnaire was available on the website of the rural municipality of Hiiumaa from March 9 to April 5. Altogether 310 responses were gathered during that time and respondents included 191 residents of Hiiumaa, 53 companies based or linked with Hiiumaa, 23 residents of the island who live there during the summer, 16 people from Hiiumaa who live or work on the mainland, 12 visitors of the island and seven students of the vocational educational institution of Hiiumaa.

Connection problems did not affect 13% of respondents. The respondents cited disruptions concerning work meetings, going to school and training, going to the doctor and doctor's appointments at the hospital of Hiiumaa, family gatherings, funerals, the arrival and departure of visitors to Hiiumaa. It was said in the comments that what was most lacking was information and information concerning bus service was especially lacking.

The respondents also described direct expenses that were mostly concerned with accommodation, additional transport expenses and unreceived income. One entrepreneur said that some of the agreed work meant for the company went to other companies in the city of Valga and in Latvia. An accommodation business owner said that some Finnish visitors did not arrive to the guesthouse as there was no foreign language information both on the foreign language website of TS Laevad or the port of Rohukula.

One respondent was also a representative of the hospital of Hiiumaa, who said that the discontinuation of ferry service was a great challenge to the hospital in many fields. The transport of patients to a higher stage hospital and the return of patients to Hiiumaa for aftercare suffered. Ambulatory appointments were cancelled due to the ferry service, apologies had to be made to the patients, their displeasure had to be heard and new suitable appointment times had to be found for both the doctors and the patients.