This is why there will be no BKV boat service in Budapest this year!

2022 will see no BKV boat service in Budapest partly because the government siphoned away too much money from the city’s budget. It seems that the capital’s large-scale boating dreams have ended. The Budapest Transport Company (BKV) only calculates a ferry service running between Csepel-Királyerdő and Soroksár Molnár Island.

Quality and sustainable Danube boat service in Budapest?

According to Népszava, the BKV and the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK) business plans do not include boating for 2022. The reasons are the decreasing public transport revenues and the government’s measures. BKV suspended this service in 2021 because of the pandemic. The current plans show that only one ferry will remain in service between Budapest’s 21st and 23rd districts. Interestingly, this service alone produces a 44 million HUF loss per year.

Last autumn, the professional opinion of BKV was that they established a high-quality and sustainable Danube boat service. The grounds for optimism was an operator tender. The winner, Magyar Kikötő Zrt. offered a favourable price for boarding passengers, operating piers and mending boats. However, the contract has never been signed. Both the Hungarian Competition Authority and the Public Procurement Authority have started an investigation into the matter which is still ongoing. 

It could not become an integral part of the city’s public transport system

The issues with Danube boating did not begin this year. The service kicked off in 2013 thanks to an EU project Budapest won. The average number of passengers was 346,000 back then but it decreased to only 260,000 by 2019. In 2020, it was already hard to find an operator for the service, and the pandemic entirely killed the season. Interestingly, BKK acknowledged in 2015 that boating could not become an integral part of Budapest’s public transport. That was the original goal of the EU project.

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They credited their decision to the unsuitable boats, the long journey time, the slow boarding process and the disadvantageous traffic connections of the piers. As a result, revenues decreased to 50 million HUF by 2019, covering only 30 pc of the operating costs. The BKK wrote several development concepts, but they could not purchase new ships. Therefore, the average age of the boats remained above 40 years.