Hódmezővásárhely will soon become the first Hungarian city with county rights to make public transport completely free of charge, one of the promises of the town’s reelected mayor, Péter Márki-Zay.
....He told economic investigative site G7 that the decision has social reasons, citing the example of a local who rides three kilometers on a bike each Sunday for mass because the ticket price is unaffordable for him. Meanwhile, local buses -with the exception of weekday mornings and after school and work- are generally empty. “On the weekends, literally only one or two people can be found sitting on the buses,” he argued.
Márki-Zay also revealed that the total cost of the system’s operation amounts to 110 million HUF (Eur 349,000) per year. However, less than 10% of this actually comes from ticket sales. Half of the rest has thus far been financed out of state subsidies and the other half by the town’s budget.
https://hungarytoday.hu/hodmezovasarhely-free-public-transport-marki-zay/
