Buses, trains and charging points across Lithuania

Weekday departures cluster in the largest cities

The simplest measure of service is the number of public transport departures on a weekday. Vilnius City Municipality has 227,091 of them and Kaunas City Municipality has 121,394, while the median municipality has only 1,855. That gap is so wide that the national picture is mostly the picture of a few cities.

Population size explains much of this order. Vilnius City Municipality has 607,404 residents, Kaunas City Municipality has 303,978 and Klaipėda City Municipality has 160,885, making them the most populous municipalities in the country, and the figure below shows the same three at the head of the departures table.

Three district municipalities beside these cities, Vilnius District Municipality, Kaunas District Municipality and Klaipėda District Municipality, also appear in the figure, with 148, 132 and 63 routes departing from their stops, against a median of 46. Lying beside a large city is a likely explanation, since routes serving the city tend to cross the surrounding territory.

Stops tell a similar story with a twist. Kaunas City Municipality has 814 stops with weekday departures and Vilnius City Municipality has 734, against a median of 166. In stops per unit of area, Kaunas City Municipality is ranked 1 of 51, helped by a compact territory of 157.0 km², whereas the large district municipalities spread their stops over much wider areas. Not every municipality has a transport figure, so these comparisons cover only the municipalities for which one exists.

Per resident, smaller cities hold their own

Dividing by population changes the order. Measured as departures per resident, Kaunas City Municipality is ranked 1 of 52 and Vilnius City Municipality is ranked 2 of 52, so Vilnius City Municipality does not give each of its residents a denser timetable than Kaunas City Municipality does. Next come two cities of modest size: Druskininkai Municipality, with 20,079 residents, is ranked 4 of 52, and Alytus City Municipality, with 50,741, is ranked 5 of 52.

Each of these two cities records more departures per resident than Vilnius District Municipality, the district municipality surrounding the capital. Because departures are counted at the stops located in each municipality, a municipality crossed by intercity routes can score well without offering a dense local service, so the ranks are best read as an indication, not as a verdict.

Price is a separate matter. Bus fares for a standard long-distance trip vary far less than the level of service: the median municipality charges 10.2 €, with Švenčionys District Municipality at 5.8 € and Joniškis District Municipality at 14.5 €.

Sunday timetables mark out the resorts

A weekday count hides how much service survives at the weekend. The ratio of Sunday departures to weekday departures has a median of 35%, which means that in the typical municipality the Sunday offer is a modest fraction of the weekday one.

The seaside resorts stand out. Palanga City Municipality keeps 98% of its weekday departures on Sunday and Neringa Municipality keeps 86%, far above the median. Both are places whose population swells with visitors in summer, a pattern that fits a timetable that changes little between a weekday and a Sunday.

An unexpected name is Šalčininkai District Municipality, where Sunday departures reach 71% of the weekday level, a share above the 55% recorded in Kaunas City Municipality. At the other end of the figure, Marijampolė Municipality and Biržai District Municipality share the lowest ratio, with 10% of weekday departures on a Sunday.

Rail follows a few corridors

The country has 1,622 passenger train departures on a weekday, yet the median municipality has only 4 and many have none. Rail is a service of corridors, not of a network spread evenly over the map.

Vilnius City Municipality alone has 265 departures. The three municipalities with the most trains, Vilnius City Municipality, Trakai District Municipality and Vilnius District Municipality, are all in Vilnius County.

Small places can be well served by rail: Trakai District Municipality has 9 stations with passenger departures and Švenčionys District Municipality has 6, in municipalities of only 34,863 and 21,459 residents. The cities Druskininkai Municipality and Alytus City Municipality, with 20,079 and 50,741 residents, have no passenger train service.

Charging points: big totals in cities, high density in resorts

The country has 5,907 public charging points. Vilnius City Municipality has 2,027 of them and Kaunas City Municipality has 685, so these two cities hold a large part of the total, as their populations would suggest.

Per resident, the order is different. Small municipalities that receive many visitors figure prominently in the figure below, among them Palanga City Municipality, Birštonas Municipality and Neringa Municipality. The highest density, 5.55 ‰, belongs to Palanga City Municipality. The capital is ranked 9 of 60 once its residents are taken into account, and Kaunas City Municipality is ranked 13 of 60.

Charging speed varies as widely as density. The median share of fast charging points is 51.7%, but Vilnius City Municipality has 2,027 points of which only 16.9% are fast, a share below the national median. Small totals make such shares unstable: Rietavas Municipality has 24 points and all of them are fast, which gives a share of 100.0%.