In 2026, the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture awarded the Silver Decoration of Merit to Andrus Niliski, the Executive Director of the NGO North-Estonian Public Transport Centre (IIL), whose consistent work has significantly modernised the organisation of public transport in Harju County, Rapla County, L\u00e4\u00e4nemaa and L\u00e4\u00e4ne-Viru County.<\/p>\n
Silver decoration<\/strong><\/p>\n The Silver Order of Merit of the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture is a high national award given to individuals, for effective cooperation with the Ministry or for successful work in the Ministry, in an institution or in a field within the scope of government<\/strong><\/p>\n Andrus Niliski, Head of the North-Estonian Joint Transport Centre was awarded the <\/strong>mark will be presented with a token of appreciation at a reception to mark the 108th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia in 2026:<\/p>\n He has made a major contribution to the development of public transport in Northern Estonia and to strengthening regional cooperation. His greatest achievement is the development and management of a strong and well-functioning organisation, the North-Estonian Public Transport Centre, which coordinates public transport in four counties on the basis of common principles. Under his leadership, a unified period ticket and trip planner has been created, linking Elron's train lines, Tallinn City Transport's urban lines and the county bus lines, improving the ease of use and transparency of the service. It has also launched real-time bus tracking on county lines and increased the focus on sustainable vehicles in procurement. In addition, it has intensified cooperation with local authorities and developed a clear strategic vision to support the development of high quality, reliable and modern public transport throughout the region.<\/p>\n Andrus Nilisk - from background to managing director<\/strong><\/p>\n Andrus Nilisk is a logistics engineer, graduated from Tallinn University of Technology in 2001.<\/p>\n Prior to joining the North-Estonian Public Transport Centre, Nilisk worked as Deputy Mayor of the municipality of Kose, where one of his main tasks was the organisation of public transport in Kose municipality. He has also been an active citizen of Anija municipality, a member of the Anija municipality council and chairman of the economic committee.<\/p>\n The lessons of private sector logistics are clearly visible in Niliski's management style. Long-term experience in supply chain optimisation has brought a data-driven mindset to public transport planning: routes, timetables and connections are not immutable, but primarily a system tailored to the needs of the passenger. The private sector's customer-centric approach, where understanding the reasons why passengers choose the bus rather than the car is as important as the cost of the route, has brought a fresh perspective to public service design.<\/p>\n Starting work at the Centre<\/strong><\/p>\n On 3 August 2020, Nilisk took up his new position as Executive Director of the organisation. Nilisk applied for the post with a clear vision: quality of service is not less important than price, and better interoperability between different modes of transport, train and bus, should be the way forward.<\/p>\n \u201eI applied for this post with the idea of managing and organising public transport in a non-political way. In my vision, there needs to be more cooperation between the different modes of transport; and, if the financial means are there, more buses on the routes, which means more frequent timetables.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n explained Nilisk on his candidacy in 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n Achievements in the organisation of public transport<\/strong><\/p>\n Under Niliski's leadership, the NGO North-Estonian Joint Transport Centre has grown to become one of the most important regional organisers of public transport in Estonia, providing bus transport in four counties for more than 11 million passengers a year. In 2025, a brand renewal was carried out, during the course of which the organisation received a new public brand IIL.<\/p>\n Under Niliski's leadership, the Centre has migrated to a modern zone-based ticketing system, expanded card payment options and developed digital travel planning solutions to enhance passenger convenience. He has actively proposed consolidating public transport in the Tallinn region, among others (but not only), showing that the current fragmentation between the City of Tallinn, Elron and the Centre is not in the interest of passengers. In addition, there have been changes to the route network and the opening of new routes in response to the changing needs of passengers.<\/p>\n \u201eThe future of the IIL is not just about bus services, but about integrating all modes of public transport into a coherent whole.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n stressed Nilisk on the renaming of the organisation in June 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regionaal- ja P\u00f5llumajandusministeerium tunnustas 2026. aastal H\u00f5bedase teenetem\u00e4rgiga Andrus Niliskit, MT\u00dc P\u00f5hja-Eesti \u00dchistranspordikeskuse (IIL) tegevdirektorit, kelle j\u00e4rjekindel t\u00f6\u00f6 on oluliselt kaasajastanud \u00fchistranspordi korraldust Harjumaal, Raplamaal, L\u00e4\u00e4nemaal ja L\u00e4\u00e4ne-Virumaal. H\u00f5bedane teenetem\u00e4rk Regionaal- ja P\u00f5llumajandusministeeriumi H\u00f5bedane teenetem\u00e4rk on k\u00f5rge riiklik tunnustus, mida antakse v\u00e4lja isikutele, tulemusrikka koost\u00f6\u00f6 eest ministeeriumiga v\u00f5i eduka tegutsemise eest ministeeriumis, valitsemisala asutuses v\u00f5i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iil","category-uudised"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 09:35:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4263"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4273,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions\/4273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iil.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}