Budapest's transport
Just as land values rise in cities and wsted space becomes an impossibility, in the same measure, please note, time becomes more precious there, too. Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, 1924
Rapid economic growth, falling maintenance costs and the convenience of the private car mean that motoring will continoue to be the choice for many of the trips in emerging countries. But if traffic levels continoue to rise in urban areas, traffic congestion will become soon a severe problem in Eastern Europe. Applying benchmark solutions may, however, help flourishing towns, like Budapest to avoid the trap of exacerbating traffic jams. Comments and ideas on my articles are very-welcome!
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Download my data if you want to know:
How many cars run on Budapest's streets?
How long is the metro network in European cities?
What is the peak hour traffic speed in Budapest?
Download all data in excel format.
Traffic simulations with Netlogo
NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment for social sciences. Run my Netlogo simulations in your browser and observe the manoeuvres of plenty cars in network, and their speed or waiting time. The traffic lights or speed limits can be flexible adjusted. The results are particularly interesting and well illustrates traffic problems in Budapest. As the number of cars increases, drivers have to keep an eye on more and more vehicles, they need to brake more frequently and intensively. As a result, traffic speed decreases due to safety reasons. Indeed, too many cars leads to traffic jams and gridlocks.
Netlogo simulation results in excel charts.
Erhart, Sz.: Motorist Conquest in Budapest
Acta Oeconomica, 2/2009
Economic growth requires well functioning transport systems. The paper deals with the problems associated with ever-increasing car use and traffic jams in Budapest. Car scarcity was the major problem that impeded car use two decades ago which has transformed into road scarcity since then. Road capacity is limited in the Hungarian capital, only the public transport can help to satisfy medium run travel demand of residents. As motorization and car use grow congestion related time loss, petrol and pollution costs put a heavy burden on Budapest. International experience shows that restrictions on cars can mitigate congestion. In many large cities introduction of road pricing in central areas has become one of the most successful traffic management solutions. Experience in London and Stockholm confirms that citizens support car use restrictions even if they are placed on car use.
Download chartbook of the study and the data in excel format.
Riding a bike is freedom
I ride my bike everyday. If the bicycle were more popular as a way of urban traveling, the quality of the transportation in Budapest would develop enormously. As a natural born rider I attempt to make special efforts for this development. I managed to establish a cubicle in the Hungarian Central Bank for those using their bicycle as a way of transportation. As a result, the number of riders (coming by bike to work regularly) increased from 5-6 to approximately 20 in 2006. In addition, I also organized the application of the Hungarian Central Bank for the "Bicycle Friendly Employer" prize.
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