In early October, members of the Rail Baltica Business Network Estonia held their season’s first meeting and joint discussion at the HQ of AS Tallink Grupp, the largest passenger ferry operator in the Baltic Sea.
The participants were welcomed by Harri Hanschmidt, AS Tallink Grupp Management Board Member who reflected that the Baltic Sea’s leading shipping company was eagerly awaiting the launch of the new transport corridor and sees the huge future potential of Rail Baltica in the context of the development of international trade routes.
Håkan Fagerstrom, Group Head of Cargo at Tallink Silja, delivered a presentation on the new cargo corridors in the globalizing world, focusing on the carriage of goods heading from the North to the South on the Baltic Sea and in the Baltic countries. Mr Fagerstrom is currently working on his doctoral thesis on the same topic at Aalto University in Helsinki.
In addition, Karmo Kõrvek and Kristjan Kaunissaare from Rail Baltic Estonia OÜ presented an overview of a study of the Tallinn Old City Harbour tram line connection. The new tram line aims to connect the Old City Harbour’s passenger terminals to the city centre, to the future Rail Baltic passenger terminal and via the new terminal to Tallinn Airport at Ülemiste. Just like the new tram line between the airport and the city centre, completed a few years ago that has become exceedingly popular among travellers, this public transport node will be financed from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) within the framework of the Rail Baltica project.
