The European Investment Bank has under appraisal a EUR 220 million rail modernisation project in Estonia. The EUR 100 million EIB proposed finance will support a project which consists of several schemes of renewal and modernisation of the existing Estonian railway network, including the modernisation of the tracks, signalling and traffic control systems.
The included railway sections are part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). Estonian Railway develops and maintains 1229 km of rail network, of which 132 km are electrified lines.
Since 2014, Estonia has received CEF funding for the railway modernisation projects. Compared to the other transport modes, railways received the largest CEF funding (EUR 188.1 million). For 4 projects, with a total value of EUR 835 million, were EU-funded, of which three projects includes Rail Baltica and the other project envisages the ERTMS deployment.
This year, Eesti Raudtee announced its commitment to deploy the European signalling system, also including the modernisation of its infrastructure, such as West-Harju, Tallinn-Keila-Paldiski, Klooga-Kloogaranna and Keila-Riisipere lines, including their branches.
In 2017, on the Estonian rail infrastructure 12.41 million tonnes of cargo were transported, of which 7.59 million tonnes coming from transit, 0.26 tonnes from export and 1.31 million tonnes from import. 3.24 million was the domestic freight transport volume. The volume of container transport was 33 700 TEUs. Also, in 2017, 247 passenger trains used the infrastructure, carrying 7.44 million passengers on domestic routes and 105.3 thousand using rail services on Tallinn-St. Petersburg-Moscow route.
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