World-record? Hungarian trains delayed almost 4 years in 2018!

According to the Hungarian Railways (MÁV), mostly those passengers could expect delays who chose to travel on one of the regional or passenger trains.

Even Intercity trains delay quite regularly

According to MÁV’s answer to mfor.hu‘s (Management Forum) inquiry, their trains delayed 2,000,000 minutes in 2018 which equals 3.8 years. In fact,

87 pc of the trains arrived in time

and 13 pc of them fell behind schedule which is 1 pc worse than in 2017. Despite the increase, the situation is better than it was in 2012-2013 when 17-18 pc of the trains were not able to stick to the schedule.

MÁV cleared that the main reason for the increased pc of delaying trains is that in 2018, there were more lines under construction than in 2017. Analysing the different types of trains, those passengers can expect the highest pc of delaying trains who travel on regional EUREgio and passenger trains. According to MÁV,

28 pc of such trains arrive later than due.

However, delays are not completely unknown on InterCity, EuroCity, EuroNight trains since 20 pc of them could not keep to their schedule. Between the two extremities can be found inland fast and express trains with 25 pc.

Even though MÁV is often criticized because of the delays,

more and more people choose this form of public transport. According to the company, the increase in the number of passengers was 4 million in the last 3 years, mostly deriving from the suburban lines. The highest growth was in the Budapest Southern Railway Station – Tatabánya line with more than 24 pc, which was followed by the Esztergom and Székesfehérvár lines with 22-22 pc. The number of passengers travelling on the lines was consecutively 4.8, 3.9 and 9.4 million.

Passengers are surprisingly satisfied

In fact, MÁV tries to develop not only the trains but also the infrastructure. Nevertheless, according to a 2018 survey, the satisfaction level of the Hungarians with MÁV is fallen behind the EU average. However, if we examine only those who use trains regularly, we get the same numbers as the EU average. Furthermore,

regarding the simplicity of buying a ticket, Hungary is in the fourth place in the EU with a 93 pc level of satisfaction.

In the case of how frequently trains circulate, 83 pc were satisfied, whereas, this number was 77 pc regarding the trustfulness MÁV. Interestingly, both numbers are higher than the EU average (75 and 65 pc).

As we reported before, in 2017, the altogether delay of MÁV’s trains reached 1,831,556 minutes which equals 3.5 years. This means that 11.55 pc of the trains fell behind schedule while the delay per train was 15.2 minutes. According to iIndex.hu, MÁV was the least reliable railway company in Europe. In contrast, it is good to know that the most punctual trains commute in Lithuania where 99 pc of them arrive in time. Interestingly,