Sky-high deficit: trams, buses, metros will stop in Budapest?

The public transport company of Budapest calculates a HUF 35 billion (EUR 91 million) loss for this year. Ambrus Kiss, Budapest’s vice mayor, told the Inforádió how they would survive.

According to infostart.hu, the partner website of Infórádió, Mr Kiss said that buses and trams would not stop in Budapest because of the very high deficit. That is because of Budapest’s energy purchase policies. The deficit’s cause is the high energy prices and the high cost of vehicle maintenance, Kiss added. He cleared that the deficit does not mean a lack of money. It shows the value of the outdated vehicle fleet they cannot substitute.

He said that Budapest did not sign long-term contracts to purchase electricity for HUF 300/kWh. Instead, they used a so-called “Budapest model”, and were successful since they buy energy at a daily price. That is now at HUF 100/kWh.

Regarding the utilisation of the Chain Bridge, Mr Kiss said they would conduct a public consultation on the issue. But the government still has not paid its contribution to them, which is problematic. Furthermore, they did not transfer any money to the jointly operated theatres in Budapest, which may result in problems already in April.

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Source: infostart.hu