Unlike many European capitals, Tallinn still has no official public transport mobile app, while critics say the official site at transport.tallinn.ee is getting outdated and is not very user-friendly.

"The people who should know how best to do these things haven't done anything. This is the kind of thing that was being done in 2010, and in 2026 we really shouldn't still be dealing with something like this," said Kaspar Sanglepp, creator of the Go Now app, one of the competing products.

"To quickly see bus times, you have to go to different websites and click through a lot of things. I wanted to be able to get that information with one click," Sanglepp said.

"The visual design is 10–15 or more years old. It takes so much time just to get to the route planner," said Sander Pukk, creator of another app, called Mis? Kuhu? ("What? Where to?").

All public transport vehicles in Tallinn and Tartu send their location to the system every 10 seconds. Using this publicly available data, developers have created three different free apps. Despite not being advertised, between them they have amassed over 2,000 daily users.

The newest app on the scene, Tallinn Live, garnered 4,000 views in four days.

"Tallinn Live project, it's very simple: you just are going to the app, you are just using it. That's why it's basic, and that's why people love it," Taha Yasin Erel, creator of Tallinn Live, told "Aktuaalne kaamera".

"I got lots of, hundreds of comments, hundreds of new ideas, and I started with these ideas, and people started to like it more," Erel went on.

Most public transport stops in Tallinn are still old school in that they lack display boards and have only printed timetables. At peak times and with all the ongoing roadworks in Tallinn, there is often a difference between when a bus, trolleybus or tram is scheduled and when it actually arrives, something which apps can help with.

"Real-time information has definitely been the main thing. Many stops still don't have those display boards, so being able to see whether a bus is running late or not has been the subject of the most positive feedback," Pukk went on.

According to Deputy Mayor Joel Jesse, however, surveys show that people are satisfied with Tallinn Transport's website. The city nevertheless plans to update it.

"The Transport Department (TLT) is currently carrying out the relevant analyses, and we certainly plan to update it in the coming years to make it more user-friendly, with an app or a mobile view," Jesse said.

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