Hungary
Hungary has a undergoing decision process to join the European Accident Causation Database.
Hungary is strengthened cooperation with other EU countries through the euro-regional project CONNECT, where public authorities, road administrations and traffic information service providers from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia work together to improve cross-border traffic and transport through implementing harmonised and synchronised ITS applications on the high level road network in this area.
The RTTI systems have high priority in CONNECT. Several projects at national level deal with RTTI issues: internet-based route-guidance systems considering multi-modal and inter-modal aspects; internet-based route-guidance systems considering multi-modal and inter-modal aspects; parking control system in Budapest; implementation of a traffic control and information system using VMS on a selected section of the motorway network.
Hungarian experts are working in the euro-regional "Evaluation" expert-group to develop a methodology to assess the potential impact of intelligent integrated road safety technologies in Europe. Although Hungary does not participate in any test-fields directly, Hungarian private companies participate in EU founded projects where operational tests are planned (for instance the company Ramsys is a CVIS partner).
As for the undergoing work on a European digital road map database with road safety attributes, Hungary, both at private sector level as well as at governmental level, participated in the Digital Road Map Working Group, The Ministry of Interior is in charge for establishing and operating of future eCall system. But still no official commitment came from the signature of the MoU.
To what extend environmental traffic management strategies & operations are used in your country on national, network or local level The UTMET-project (road weather information system) should be mentioned (on the motorway network as well as on the main road network.
In Hungary quite a lot of project are coping with ICT for Environment:
o The UTMET project, launched in 2000, has the aim of collecting weather and road surface information to be dispatched and give warnings to the drivers. It includes roadside meteoric stations (with solar cell or wired power supply road data collection units, weather and traffic sensors), the UTMET centre (collection and process of data, data store, exchange with the meteoric centre) and terminals at the maintenance centres, and in a later phase, VMS for the road users.
o The projects of CONNECT phase II., have not only the goal to improve the traffic flow and the traffic safety, but also the environment quality, through the realisation of a comprehensive, integrated harmonised monitoring system. Environmental aspects are taken into consideration also in the project “Parking control system in Budapest (study, model)”.
Roads and road safety
Travel by road remains the primary mode of transporting goods and the most popular form of individual travel in Hungary. Hungary has 160, 000 km of roads of which 19% are national. Approximately 81,680 km of these are paved (including 468 km of expressways). The entire expressway network, except the ring road around Budapest and other short bypass stretches, is regulated by toll. The EU has made extensive funds available to upgrade the quality of the pan-European corridors, but these roads make-up only a small fraction of the total road network in Hungary.
Vehicle fleet
The vehicle fleet in Hungary has grown to 3.14 million (from 2.5 million a decade ago), 83% of which are passenger cars. The car fleet is considered relatively modern in comparison to many other Central European countries (the average age of the cars in the register is 11.7 years). The heavy goods vehicle fleet used in international transport must meet much higher standards than those transporting goods domestically. Tachographs are mandatory in vehicles over 3.5t.
Road safety
In comparison to its neighbours, Hungary has a relatively long tradition with road safety. The countrys hands on involvement with road safety began in the 1970s at the Institute for Transportation Sciences (KTI), established in the 1930s for research in the field of road transportation. Further, Hungary was one of the first countries to join the Geneva Convention of 1958, establishing unified standards for traffic signs and basic traffic rules as we know them today. In the early 1990s, the country was often mentioned as a model in traffic safety work in Central and Eastern Europe.
Despite this impressive tradition, Hungary currently struggles with a deteriorating road safety situation. According to national statistics, in the past decade (1993-2002), 192,311 crashes have been recorded on Hungarian roads in which 14,132 people have died and 249,376 have been injured. The relative political and economic stability and the opportune geographical location of the country have led to a rapid growth in motorisation, international transit transport, and traffic volume. These combined with factors such as the relatively poor condition of the roads and road signs have resulted in a worsening of the road safety situation.
While the Hungarian government was swift in acting to reverse this trend in the early 1990s by establishing the Interministerial Committee on Road Safety and implementing a national road safety strategy, the situation has recently begun to worsen. Enforcement of traffic laws by the police has been strengthened, however, an important problem persists: the general absence of awareness among the public of the road safety risk.
The risk of dying in a road crash in Hungary is fairly high: the accident exposure is currently 14 per 100,000 inhabitants (2002), the fatality rate is 4.6 deaths per 10,000 vehicles (2002) and the risk in terms of number of fatalities/billion vehicle km is 3.01 (2001) (the EU average is 1.17). The dedicated government led efforts of the early 1990s have slowed and the original road safety plan, introduced in 1993, ended as planned in 2000. At the same time, the number of crashes and injuries has begun to rise. Many of the priority areas set out in that plan remain important in continuing efforts to improve road safety in Hungary. These include:
- reducing the speed limit in built-up areas to 50/km;
- significantly increasing the enforcement of traffic laws, especially in regards to speeding and drinking and driving;
- launching large-scale traffic safety information and publicity campaigns on key issues;
- establish a detailed expenditure plan for road safety;
- establishing a financing plan with sustainable funding for road safety targets of the plan.
The plan also aimed at a 25 % reduction in fatalities and severe injuries by 2000 (this goal was actually achieved by the mid 90’s, but the situation has again worsened).
In the current transport policy, the Hungarian authorities’ objective is to reduce the number of crash victims on Hungary’s roads as follows:
- From 2001 to 2010 Personal injury and road deaths by 30%
- From 2010 to 2015 Personal injury and road deaths by 50%
The Ministry of Economy and Transport has launched a ten point road safety plan beginning in 2006, based on the current road safety programme of the European Union.
Road safety coordination
The Ministries of Economy and Transport and the Ministry of Interior are the lead government agencies responsible for road safety. The State Secretaries of Transport and Interior co-chair the Interministerial Committee (IMC) on Road Safety and share leadership responsibilities with the police in the National Accident Prevention Committee (OBB.) A small Road Safety Department in the Ministry of Economy and Transport supports the IMC with administrative tasks.
A variety of local and international private sector companies are active in road safety. These include: Shell, Renault, 3M, Michelin and Allianz Hungaria Insurance Company.
Until May 2005, there was only one civil society organisation (NGO) focused specifically on road safety, the Hungarian Traffic Safety Association. There are a number of transport, health and academic oriented groups working on road safety issues. GRSP Hungary was officially established on 3 May 2005 with 16 founding members. It was officially registered on 4 August 2005 as an independent Association under Hungarian law.
There are also numerous interest groups such as the Bicycle Association and Motorcycle Association, which represent the interest of their members in the OBB. The organisations working within the local road safety councils (MBBs) are diverse and differ from county to county. Most are active on the local level and a few are included in the membership of the OBB and MBBs. They include the Hungarian Automobile Club, the Hungarian Red Cross, research institutes (especially KTI), individual insurance companies, GRSP Hungary and GRSP partners in Hungary.
Relevant Links:
The Institute of Transport Sciences (KTI) is a Hungarian national research institution with the objectives to study, adapt and publish the theoretical and practical aspects needed for the development and operation of transport, to satisfy social and economic demands. http://www.kti.hu/angol/indexa.htm
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Transport - Hungary
http://212.108.197.140/dokk/main/gkma
http://www.fd.cvut.cz/Czech/Events/Sbornik/2003/Doprava_a_Telekomunikace/lindenbach.pdf
|
