The city of Veszprém is built around the 1,000-year-old castle and has a population of around 60,000. Veszprém is a university town, a major industrial city, a tourist destination, and home to one of the best men's handball teams in Europe.
The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) of Veszprém was finalised in 2017. The city transport has been changing since, the car-based transport is no longer sustainable. Recognising this problem, the city is increasingly focusing on alternatives to road transport.
As a result, the city's transport has undergone significant changes since 2017, with a new local bus operator, major cycling and road improvements, and a changed environment: the COVID pandemic, economic problems and the energy crisis have created a completely new situation by 2022. This is compounded by the fact that the Veszprém region will be the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2023 and serving the mobility needs of the programme will be a major challenge for the local and the regional transport system. The review has therefore become not only timely but also urgent.
Mobilissimus, together with Mikroline, prepared the review of the plan. Our task was to describe and evaluate public transport and, on this basis, to review and evaluate existing and new projects.
The focus of our work was to evaluate the new local bus transport. The new urban service provider, V-busz, started its operations on 1 January 2019. The fleet, which is being completely renewed in two steps, and the decision-making powers being transferred to the city have brought an unprecedented quality, albeit at a considerable cost. Thanks to these efforts, by 2022 the decades-long decline in passenger numbers and passenger-km was stopped, unfortunately at less than half of the 2004 levels. The last phase of this development was the introduction of electric buses in the city.
Both rail and suburban bus services around the city are of high quality and the first steps towards integration have been taken. Given the characteristics of the city, the railways can play a role in long-distance transport, while the dominance of interurban buses in serving the outskirts of the city is certain to be maintained.
Several of the previous SUMP projects have been implemented (e.g., the replacement of the local bus fleet), while there is still a need for an electronic ticketing system, bus priority and fare development. The content of some projects has changed, some of the objectives have been achieved or new priorities have been set in the new situation, for example in the development of the local bus timetable, traffic management and passenger information as well as the intermodal hub. New project proposals are the development of the V-busz site, the reopening of the Lepsény-Hajmáskér railway line for suburban traffic and the upgrading of the railway line No 20 for suburban traffic.
More information and the download: SUMP of Veszprém on the website of the City of Veszprém (in Hungarian)
Client:
Consortium:
- Mobilissimus Kft.
- Mikroline Kft.
Year of fulfilment:
2022
