Shipping as Public Transportation in Budapest from Earliest Times to the Present Days

Abstract

Local shipping in the history of public transportation of Budapest is the oldest story and I believe, the overview of this story can help us to analyse the role of shipping in the public transport system and establish recent and future challenges in this field. When proper laws, finance and shipyard capacity were present, local shipping was a rather integrated part of the public transport system of the Hungarian capital. Nevertheless, many other acts (e.g. building the inner-city, development of road traffic, local problems in intermodality) cause difficulties to organise the local shipping system. Although, the first Danubian steamship was operated in Budapest (then Pest and Buda) in 1820, the local shipping lost its importance in the transportation within this approximately 200 years. These months there is a significant improvement in progress in the local shipping system in Budapest supported by the European Union.