OREANDA-NEWS.  June 24, 2013. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Mikhail Akulov, Vice-President of Russian Railways and Managing Director of the Federal Passenger Company, and Ahti Asmann, Chairman of the Management Board and Managing Director of JSC Eesti Raudtee (Estonian Railways Ltd.) in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

The memorandum provides for cooperation and mutual support in developing passenger services on international routes, including optimising the use of rolling stock, and avoiding unnecessary delays and empty runs.

The parties committed themselves to work together to improve traffic safety and the reliability of technical facilities (infrastructure and rolling stock), as well as to develop proposals for the change, amendment and improvement of the legal framework governing international passenger transport and to exchange experience and assist each other in extending the range of available routes.

Within the framework of their competence, the parties also agreed to appeal to their respective state regulatory authorities to simplify border formalities for passengers travelling by rail between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Estonia.

The Memorandum was signed for an indefinite period and became effective when signed by the parties, which will implement all the provisions through a joint Estonian-Russian bilateral working group on the development of mutually beneficial cooperation between the railways of Russia and Estonia.

"Our common goal, which we formalised by signing the Memorandum, is to achieve a significant improvement in the quality of passenger rail services between Russia and Estonia," said Mikhail Akulov. "We are constantly working in this direction. That we are making the right decisions is show by the positive trend in the number of passengers travelling between Russia and Estonia over the past two years. We are reducing train travel times between St. Petersburg - Tallinn and have developed an additional timetable so that from this year, two trains between St. Petersburg and Tallinn will operate. We also see further possibilities to speed up our services by reducing the time for customs and border clearance."

"The very signing of the Memorandum indicates that we are united by a common goal to improve the quality of passenger services between Tallinn, St Petersburg and Moscow. And we will move together systematically, step by step, towards that goal," said Ahti Asmann.