📋 Tender Overview
Budapest January 16 2026 - The new year has brought an unprecedented amount of snow not seen in 10 years followed by persistent sub-zero temperatures causing serious disruptions in transportation across Europe. Several railway companies were forced to suspend their passenger services for varying lengths of time. The fact that the Hungarian state railways were not among them was due to targeted measures that prepared the transportation company for the two biggest challenges of the winter period: the surge in passenger traffic during the holiday season and the extreme weather.
The data from last December not only improved compared to the previous month but also compared to the same month a year earlier: it resulted in one of the most accurate months in recent times. In December 2025 trains operated with a punctuality of 83.57% which is nearly 7% better than the previous month and more than 5% better than December 2024. During the peak holiday traffic period around Christmas and New Years Eve trains operated with about 3% greater accuracy than the previous year. Moreover the second day of Christmas ended with a record high 90% terminal punctuality for train services Another positive development is that we were able to reduce the number of delayed trains in every time slot. (The only exception was the increase in delays exceeding 120 minutes which was mainly caused by delays from international entries particularly from Ukraine Slovakia and Austria.) At the same time the number of inaccuracies exceeding 20 minutes in delay insurance also decreased: only 2.5% of trains operated with delays reaching or exceeding 20 minutes which is more than 1 percentage point better than the annual data. It is also a favorable result that the improvement was uniform across regions characteristic of the entire network: the punctuality of all main lines improved compared to November while the train services in Bekescsaba Miskolc Hidasnemeti Satoraljaujhely Keszthely Nagykanizsa Tapolca and the suburban region of Budapest towards Veresegyhaz became significantly more punctual - thanks to several summer and autumn track maintenance works as well as the large number of high-performance modern electric locomotives transporting IC trains. (Some network reorganizations also affected the improvement in punctuality: for example the decision that resulted in the new independent operation of trains traveling from Austria to Transcarpathia and Transylvania.) In December bus services followed the usual pattern: during the first two-thirds of the month lower punctuality was due to the very high road traffic before the holidays while high punctuality was characteristic during the days between December 24-31. The accuracy of the Budapest suburban services deteriorated compared to the last month of 2024. The HEV performed at the usual level of 99.7% and even the senior-age FenyHEV trains operated accurately The volume of long-distance traffic at the end of the year is indicated by nearly 1 million sold train tickets and the surge in Hajdu-Bihar county passes is due to the acceptance of county passes on the trams trolleybuses and buses of the Debrecen Transport Company since Christmas. The complete monthly report can be viewed here. We wish all our dear passengers a Happy New Year
