Moscow to Riga Faster

From Moscow to Riga may soon just be an overnight trip

Russian Railways is planning to cut travel time between Moscow and Riga, giving passengers a more convienent trip. The plan is to increase the speed of trains by 20% and improve the notoriously inefficient customs and border procedures, therefore less time will be spent on the Russian and Latvian borders.

The estimated time to be saved is around 3 hours and 50 minutes, with 1 hour 40 minutes saved on the border and another 2 hours and 10 minutes saved due to increased speeds en route. Currently the trip from Moscow to Riga takes around 16 hours, however the implementation of such new procedures will make for a convienent 10-12 hour overnight trip.

The train ride from Moscow to Riga covers 922km, with over two thirds of the trip over Russian territory. Speeding up the time travel between the two capitals is associated with the continuing increase in the about of passengers traveling, which has increased by 15% since 2009.