Demszky let him down
https://bit.ly/3eeAjbs
Stubble renovated it
https://bit.ly/3qeFVrR
Karácsony dismantled the ticket machines
https://bit.ly/3J7CifR

Dávid Vitézywritten by:
Today's picture of Széll Kálmán tér - BKK has started dismantling ticket machines.

Back in August, when the first news came out, I was trying to draw attention to the fact that it is not a good idea to dismantle ticket machines on the grounds of savings, as these are the ones that collect the bulk of the revenue. I see sadly that in recent days the vending machines have disappeared from the junctions of Budapest.

We had a lot of work to do in 2014, when more than 300 new ATMs accepting credit cards and selling passes, operating around the clock, appeared on the BKK network. In the past, people lined up in the open air for a ticket in front of the cash registers, BKV's scattered vending machines only accepted coins and only issued tickets - if at all. Through the expansion of new vending machines and sales channels, in addition to all our expectations, ticket sales increased by HUF 10 billion, and tickets and season tickets became available day and night in many parts of the city.

The vending machines will collect the majority of BKK's revenues in 2021, about 55% (!) And although the mobile application has really appeared, the vending machines and the mobile app can still develop a lot, not only at the expense of each other, because every fourth forint is still it always flows in person to BKK through sales, despite the closure of customer centers in recent years. So BKK collects tens of billions of forints through vending machines. One day, mobile sales may make vending machine sales completely unnecessary, but we are still a long way from that - it is no coincidence that there are more ticket machines in all major cities in Europe than in Budapest before they were scarce. There are twice as many vending machines in Warsaw and three times as many in Berlin and Vienna as in Budapest.

When I first tried to point out in August that dismantling vending machines was a bad idea, I didn’t even think it might end up being a cityscape issue. Yet, as we have seen in recent days, the BKK is barbarically disposing of vending machines that have otherwise been purchased from EU funds and are functioning perfectly, with their seats being vacant in many parts of the city. When renovating the Széll Kálmán tér metro building, we thought of the vending machines and they were placed as an integral part of the architectural concept - now they have a place. Elsewhere in the city, the foundations of the vending machines are empty - all as a result of a measure planned in principle for half a year.

Before referring to the lack of money, it is worth remembering: the experience gained after the commissioning of the vending machines clearly shows that the effect of the narrowing of sales channels will be a loss of revenue, so the financial position of BKK and thus the Municipality will deteriorate and not improve. With the dismantled vending machines, ticket sales are guaranteed to disappear from the system.

According to the official announcement of BKK, the monthly operating cost of an automatic machine is HUF 130,000. Revenue data can be redistributed: any member of the previous vending machine fleet collected 80 times as much revenue as it maintains, and even the worst performing vending machines have “imported” their operating costs many times over. Seeing this data, the downsizing of the vending machine network actually only sends one message: BKK is not interested in its own ticket revenues.

I have been working for years to change these conditions in Budapest, it is disappointing and sad to see this decline.

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