The official opening ceremony of Sillamäe Truck Parking and Rest Area (futher TruckStop) will take place in Sillamäe on September 2nd, 2011.
The construction of the Truck Stop is a result of collaboration between the European Commission, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia and the company Port of Sillamäe . The creating a safe and comfortable trucks parkings inside and near to the borders of European union is one of the long-term priorities and was based on the detailed analysis of the problem of border crossing, which have been made by the working group in the frame of dialogue between the Russian Federation and the European Union on transport topics.
Taking into account the importance of the mentioned topic, the European Parliament has allocated funds to improve living conditions for drivers, waiting to border crossing, and to create the truck parking and rest areas.
The TruckStop will eliminate the queue of trucks, waiting to cross the border on the highway, and will improve the road safety. It also helps to improve the living conditions of drivers and provide an opportunity to compliance mode by drivers work and leisure.
The implementation of the project will also have the positive impact on the functioning of the maritime post of border crossing. The new office building was also built in the frame of the project. This new office building is equipped with everything necessary for Customs Service- there are rooms for the customs officers, declarants, a cafe, rest area and other necessary facilities.
With welcoming speaches on the opening ceremony will speak the Chairman of the Management Board of Silmet Group Tiit Vähi, Vice-President of the European Commission Siim Kallas, Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications Juhan Parts, Minister of the Interior Ken-Marti Vaher, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russian Federation Nikolai Asaul and mayor of Sillamäe Elena Korshunova.
The general contractor of the TruckStop and an office building is the company Nordecon.
The planner is Alver Arhitektid Ltd, the futher operation of the building is entrusted on the company Silport Kinnisvara.
The system of electronic queue for border crossing GoSwift will be used in the process of the functioning of the TruckStop.The mentioned system works in all land border crossing posts in Estonia (Narva, Koidula, Luhamaa) on the border with Russian Federation and was designed to make the process of border-crossing more convenient and without unnecessary downtime.
TruckStop in Sillamae will service only trucks. Located in Narva parking area will continue to service cars, buses and trucks, which depart from the city of Narva and its surroundings.
Parking area in Sillamae is united with the port of Sillamae and a maritime customs post. This circumstance in the future will permit drivers to choose the opportunity for border crossing - to cross the land border, or go to Russia by ferry.
The advantages of Sillamäe truck parking area is also a possibility to make a customs clearance, to fill customs declaration forms, to send digital information across the border to speed up border crossing from Russia and so on.
The cost of TruckStop is 2, 47 million euros, of which 1,15 million euros was allocated by the European Union. The other part of the complex, which was not financed in the frame of project, was covered with the funds of the Port of Sillamäe.
Commenting on this project Tiit Vahi said: "All this contributes to developing the trade between the two economic spaces - the EU and CIS countries - and helps to develop a political dialogue and that's why we do this."
