Padar: people need parcel terminals and fast highways

Kaido Padar. Photo: Raul Mee

The Road Administration became a thing of the past this year. Now it is the Transport Administration, which is headed by Estonia’s highest-paid civil servant Kaido Padar for the past five months. And as the name hints, the new institution no longer covers only roads, but also maritime and air traffic.

Postimees met with the man who launched state ferry traffic years ago and asked about his attitude towards the cuts of the state budget strategy, plans for public transport and about what is wrong in Estonia’s traffic.

Kaido Padar, I have heard that you stood out with a stronger and future-oriented vision as you applied for the head of the Transport Administration. How do you see the role of the Transport Administration as a promoter of Estonia’s traffic sphere?

This is a good question. I just presented the new structure of out organization Friday morning, which will come in force on July 1. The main message is that the Transport Administration must become a domain-based competence center. While we used to concentrate on the subjects – maritime, air and road traffic – we shall clearly concentrate on competences and content in the future.

Secondly it is important to aim toward all kinds of future solutions and developments. These are becoming more important all the time. We have to strive towards smart traffic on our roads; we must make public transport travel where people need, so that regardless the mode of transport a person could reach safely, comfortably and quickly from point A to point B.

How much operating and labor expenses can the structural change save?

Some people will leave indeed but this is not significant. What matter is that if a person is highly competent in maritime traffic, I want to employ his knowledge in road and air traffic as well. It is important to abolish the ivory towards where everybody sits on their own. Their brilliance would never show that way.

But it naturally means financial savings as well. According to the state budget strategy the Ministry of Economy and Communications has to make 6.8 million euros worth of cuts next year. Since we are the largest administration under the ministry, I estimate that the Transport Authority will have to save up to five million. We shall have to see how to be as efficient as possible in the organization. While the director general currently controls 15 departments or services, the new structure will have only eight.

How to cut operating expenses?

Eighty-six percent of people use e-services to contact the Transport Authority. We have to think about what kind of bureau network we really want. But I would like to tell the readers that we currently do not have any plans for closing some bureaus. These are the questions about how to use the taxpayers’ money the best way.

You have a fancy new name – the Transport Administration. Elron made eight million trips before the pandemic. You do not cover rail traffic at all.

The Transport administration is executing the policies and the budget. We do not make the policy. But if I may think a bit outside the box, for example level crossings, traffic safety and accident prevention are all such things which could be together. The government certainly has something to think about here.

Let us talk about an integrated traffic chain. A personal example: I used to travel to Tartu by bus but now mainly by train. But I changed the mode of transport because the Tartu bicycle exchange system brought the railway station spatially closer from its inconvenient location.

Tartu and its public transport are often cited as an example. They carried out a mobility study in their city; something we want to do nationwide next year. The results will give us an idea of how people are actually moving around.

On the other hand, Tartu still has room for improvements. I saw how a train arrived in the station but only the first two passengers off the train caught the bus as it drove off. This is a place requiring an analysis of whether the departure of the bus could be moved backward for five minutes.

But the question about combining the modes of transport is quite correct. The shape of the future is bicycles, electric bikes, cars and public transport form chains of mobility. At present we are having heated arguments about public transport and a network of light traffic roads.

Light traffic – very good. When shall we be able to see the network of Estonia’s light traffic roads on a map? I do not really know now where these roads run.

To say honestly, I cannot answer that question. It is a surprise to me that such a map does not exist. I shall certainly take this idea back with me. I think that this is an idea worth addressing. Thank you!

The state budget strategy and its cuts have been the most controversial issue lately. The roads were hit hard. How do you look at that?

We take it calmly: our priority is to complete in coming years the projects on progress. Another clear priority is to prepare in advance as many project as possible. We can use them if there should be a situation where road building becomes topical again.

How do you plan road building if they talk about four-lane highways at one moment and then cancel the funding?

I would give a broader answer. I would say that the Estonian people want three things: fats and safe roads, parcel terminals and fast Internet. If these things are there, they are willing to live 100 kilometers away from population centers. Therefore and the head of the Transport Administration I certainly would like to say that maybe the investments in roads could be agreed upon over the parties’ heads. Four-lane highways will also help in significantly improving traffic safety.

You have to admit that all is not good in Estonia’s traffic: sixty traffic fatalities per year. The state’s target is less than 40 fatalities. What should we do?

Investing in infrastructure is one thing but prevention is a work which will never end. We have to remind all the time that people should not drive when under the influence. I can bring an example of hazardous behavior. We set up a wild animals monitoring system with cameras on the new Ardu-Võõbu four-lane stretch. I often drive there and I can see that the drivers do not reduce speed. There were cases when the system warns to drop speed to 70 kilometers per hour – I shall look out whether a moose is coming, but another car blasts by at 120 kilometers per hour.

The previous road maintenance plan foresaw 426 million for 2024 financing. The new plan allocates 209 million from the state budget for road maintenance. What will be cancelled?

I cannot yet say that anything will be cancelled. I believe that they will revise the investments in roads in the coming years. But if they really cannot find additional funding by 2024 and focus on Rail Baltic, nothing bad will happen. Or rather the same thing happens as going to a dentist – if you leave it too late, you will have to pay more.

European funds will be a great help in making investments in the coming years. What are the plans of the Transport Administration for developing your sphere with the allocations for the green turn?

Four-lane highways will receive 159 million. The government has also decided that the Transport administration could hold the tender for a ferry linking mainland and the larger islands.

The idea of electric aircraft should also be handled by us. And hydrogen could become an important factor in the future. The Transport Administration could be a major champion in reducing the CO2 footprint. Our influence could be very large in that process.

I recently traveled on a regional bus: all people entered from the back due to the corona hazard and you got no data on passengers. Are you actually doing anything with the validation data?

We do and we naturally want to do more. The corona has had its effect but the data of 2018 and 2019 are very important, since these times will return.

We have two very clear targets in public transport: the nationwide mobility analysis I already mentioned and a nationwide common ticker system.