BUDAPEST REGION - Strengthening the gateway to South-East Europe
FREEPORT OF BUDAPEST LOGISTICS, KTI INSTITUTE FOR TRANSPORT SCIENCES NON-PROFIT LTD.
Corridor Capitalisation Plan (EN)
In the Budapest region, as in the case of all urban nodes along the Orient/East-Med corridor, there is the need to provide an attractive mobility system that is both economically and environmentally sustainable and able to cope with the ever-growing transport demand. Also, supporting economic growth and transport-oriented regional planning is a crucial task.
Through the elaboration of the Corridor Capitalisation Plan a professional platform for coordination between transport infrastructure and spatial planning has been facilitated, supporting the connectivity of intermodal hubs and inland ports through better railway access and increased capacity for rail freight. The main lesson learnt is that coordination between different stakeholders is a must to reach efficient optimal solutions.
Challenges addressed
To create an attractive mobility system in the Budapest region, there is a need to facilitate cross-sectoral cooperation between stakeholders, leading to mutual involvement in the elaboration of plans and concepts. To shift significant transport volumes to more environmentally friendly modes, to remove bottlenecks and to strengthen the hub function of Hungary for Central and South-East Europe, it is necessary to facilitate multi-governance level cooperation, enabling stakeholders to share their thoughts and to identify possible synergies, and to integrate local, regional and national development concepts.
To create commitment on lower levels, experts responsible for smaller administrative territories should be involved in higher level development plans as well. This approach should result in jointly elaborated, aligned development plans, making the best use of development opportunities.
Process and organisation
Stakeholders were involved in the process of elaboration of the Corridor Capitalisation Plan through a series of four online workshops from March until June 2021. Due to the wide stakeholder consultation process, decision-makers from different administrative levels and different sectors could take part and cooperate on the issues discussed. The first and the final workshops were organised on a larger scale, to include more participants and to provide broader publicity for the developed Plan.
To elaborate on the contents of the Plan, interactive methods for discussion and for the ranking of problems have been applied, enabling all participants to actively share their insights and opinions.
Results and recommendations
Based on the discussion of development challenges and considering the Budapest Transport Development Strategy 2014-2030, the Budapest Rail Node Study (BRNS) and the Budapest 2030 Long-Term Urban Development Concept, existing project ideas have been identified. After in-depth discussion, they have been grouped into three sequential action plans:
- Action plan 1 – Business-as-usual scenario (BAU), based on the patching of the current transport system according to official and valid decisions;
- Action plan 2 – New Plans (NP), including planned and proposed measures from the Budapest Rail Node Strategy;
- Action plan 3 – Rail Freight Development, including measures necessary for the service of local and corridor-based freight operations.
The Corridor Capitalisation Plan supports the removal of crucial bottlenecks through additional tracks on Danube bridges and a new Danube tunnel, the improvement of the feeder network and the upgrade of important junctions. Additionally, it supports faster rail freight flow across the Budapest urban area, considering plans for the “V0” rail freight bypass as well as small-scale investments for better rail access to important logistics sites and a better served urban logistic system.
Several elements and objectives of the Plan were already adopted and agreed upon by the Budapest Municipality and the Hungarian Central Government, which approved the Budapest Agglomeration Railway Strategy by the Governmental Decree 1994/2021 (28/12/2021).
Since the Corridor Capitalisation Plan includes all planned developments foreseen for the Budapest Region within a holistic concept, it may serve as justification for the support of project developments. If policy makers need to rank project ideas by necessity and importance, it may also serve as a decision-support tool.
