Our activity in Siófok is a great example of achieving significant results with the organisational development of the public transport, by effectively involving potential passengers in the process.
Siófok’s current public transport network and timetable have been defined, structured and designed by Mobilissimus and launched on 17th July 2021. The new network has introduced several improvements for the passengers. The interval-based rail schedules to which the local buses provide connection options to/from Balatonszéplak, Sóstó and Kiliti serve as the backbone of the new system. New, direct lines have been introduced between Kiliti - Balatonszéplak, and Kiliti – Sóstó. These services have synchronized schedules on the common sections, with competitive 30-minutes frequency during most parts of the day in the direction of Kiliti and Sóstó. Since the buses run in a frequent, interval-based and synchronized schedule, transfers became easier even in the case of no direct connection.
The schedule structure of Siófok’s local transport is traditionally divided into summer peak and – fall to spring – off-season.
In addition of the summer schedule that has been introduced in July 2021, a new, off-season schedule has been launched as well in September 2021 that mainly serves the special needs of schools. Later, several additional corrections have been made to create the best possible result overall.
Mobilissimus’ follow up activity has continued afterwards, and additional timetable improvements have been done for the 2022 summer and fall season. A complex data recording was performed on a school-time working day, on a Saturday and on a Sunday in October 2022 with the aim of monitoring the passenger usage of the local lines. After processing the data collected during this period, small scale timetable-changes have been made and line 2A was introduced.
Starting from 2022, new additional timetable-periods (pre-season and post-season) have been introduced (before and after the peak summer season period), which is a special, extended variant of the off-season version. During this period, additional buses run on line 2. Starting from 2023, the timetable-periods are synchronized with the railway’s seasonal timetable-changes (this is important to keep the connections between trains and buses harmonized).
Another complex data recording was performed during the summer of 2023, on a working day and on a Saturday as well. The operating hours are usually between 4:30 and 23:30; however, during the summer, the line that serves Aranypart runs untill 1:00 in the night on working days, and all night during weekends. After evaluating the experiences and reviews received during the 2023 peak season, the following extensions of the night services have been implemented: line N2, that serves Aranypart, runs every 20 minutes till 23:00, then every 30 minutes during the night on weekends; additionally, line N5 has been introduced, which runs from the bus station to Kiliti, via Balatonszéplak and Fokihegy.
The local rolling stock has been modernized as well with our help and contribution: 4 low-entry, climatised MAN A21 buses were relocated to Siófok in the summer of 2023. These buses made possible to retire the older vehicles that used to operate within the city boundaries.
The local buses now have planned, harmonized connections to the InterCity trains to and from Budapest every hour, there are dedicated services for school students and there is doubled frequency on the lines that run next to the coast of Balaton. All those services were missing before the introduction of the new system. The results are significant: the income during the 2022 summer peak-period has increased by almost 90% compared to 2021 and the number of passengers using the local transport have long ago exceeded the numbers before the pandemic.
The new tariff system that is in use since 2023 generated further increases of passengers values for the local public transport. New ticket types have been introduced, such as the 24-hour, the family 24-hour and the 72-hour tickets, or the 7-day pass. Tickets also became available in advance, which was not possible before. The most important aspect during the revising of the ticket structure was to support long-time commitment over occasional travels.
Client:
Year of fulfilment:
From 2021 continuously