As part of the Baross Gábor Rail Development Plan, the 50-year-old suburban rail carriages will be replaced, with the procurement process for the renewal of the entire HÉV fleet on the H5 Szentendre, H6 Ráckeve and H7 Csepel lines due to be launched this year, Dávid Vitézy, the transport and investment minister, wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
42 new suburban rail carriages
He said 42 new, modern, 120-metre-long trainsets will be purchased using EU funds returned to Hungary. The necessary tender will be issued later this year, and the first trains could enter service in 2030.
The fleet will be upgraded with fully accessible, air-conditioned, modern vehicles, offering passengers a more comfortable, faster and more reliable service, he added.
He said that in recent years hundreds of thousands of people have moved from the countryside to Budapest, and from the capital to the surrounding commuter belt and outer districts, often without adequate public transport links. As a result, traffic has continued to grow, and Budapest’s inner city has become increasingly difficult in which to live.
The only real remedy, he wrote, is high-quality public transport, and one of the key conditions is that HÉV should offer a genuine alternative to the car in terms of comfort, quality and speed.
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