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New BKV Chief Admits They Don't Like Passengers
Continuing with their new plan of not getting you where you want to go, Budapest public transport operator BKV has not only changed routes and line numbers, but now may not even get you there provided you find the vehicle you want, reports tabloid of record blikk.hu. New BKV big cheese István Kocsis admitted that the BKV is keeping operations going by a shoestring, and that they don't have extra buses or trollybuses to throw into action should one break down, which is more likely to happen in the wintertime. In terms of the company, Kocsis stated that he wants to break down the services so that bus, tram, metro etc. all function as separate companies within a company, as well as introducing a more "pay-as-you-go" type of monthly pass. He added that he hopes that in about 2-3 years, the BKV will be passenger-friendly. Good to see a public transport service finally figured that part out.
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COMMENT!As much I enjoy not having to pay for the services of the glorious BKV fleet I'm starting to get the impression that someone in management has finally adjusted his thinking past '89. At last, maybe in another 10 years or so, someone will actually introduce Oyster cards, gates and other cunning modern things to actually get people to pay for using public transport here.
I buy a monthly ticket without fail, simply because I'm not a fare-dodging shitcake, still, I imagine the BKV pays things such as fuel taxes which the government could always aim to knock off.
They could always try using their Jegyellenorzes (sorry, no accents on this keyboard) on places other than the metro... I reckon the Buda buses that go in and out of Moszkva (or Szell Kalman as it should damn well be called) would be a be a bloody goldmine.
It seems to me that BKV are scared of their drivers. Surely a normal public transport service (and I include those in Veszprém, Miskolcs and Pécs) would insist that drivers check all tickets and passes when passengers get on the bus. But no, not in Budapest. I notice they've also dramatically cut evening services in the new timetables, perhaps because the drivers demand too much to work evenings? And from travelling on Budapest buses every day I know that the drivers are not exactly Swiss-precise when it comes to respecting departure times.
I'm aware that bus driver is not the world's most exciting or glamorous job, and there probably aren't hordes of people lining up to work on the buses, but they are paid pretty well (double the salary of a first-year teacher, I believe?) and have better job security than many of us. So I think BKV should stop indulging them - make them a benign but firm face of the company and fare-dodging would become a lot less of a problem.
