State-owned railway company MÁV Group expects to complete its takeover of the operations of the Budapest suburban railway (HÉV) by early 2017. The metropolitan general assembly last month approved separating the HÉV from Budapest transport company BKV and setting up a new company dubbed BHÉV, with assets exclusively for operating the suburban railway service. This will then pass to MÁV via the state. BHÉV is being established with capital of over 58.4 mil euros. The costs of the separation are estimated to be 135-145 million forints.
 

Fig. 1 Budapest suburban railway

MÁV is working closely with the National Development Ministry, the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK) and BKV on the transition. The estimated costs of operating the HÉV services, MÁV could look at previous experience which indicated that annual costs would fall in the range around 455 thousand euros.

Source: dailynewshungary.com