Peter Bradley of the London Tourist Coach Operators Association (LTCOA) reflects on London coach challenges after a carefree trip to Budapest
My wife and I recently visited Budapest, the capital of Hungary, for four days to help celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. I took a very keen interest in the public transport network.
Firstly, I was impressed by the ease of purchasing an all-encompassing ticket at the airport to cover our entire stay.
We opted for the seven-day ticket, which was still cheaper than a one-day and three-day pass together (4,950Ft; currently around £14.40). This covered all modes of transport (Metro, tram, bus, trolleybus and the river during the week) without having to pay any supplementary fares.
That started me thinking about the benefits to the tourist in having something very simple that is easy to use. Even in London with its fantastic travelcard, there are some restrictions (like its validity on the river or the Emirates Airline), and if your language skills are not great, you can get yourself into trouble if a ticket is suddenly refused or you have to pay a supplement.
I appreciate the back-office complications of reimbursement that might present themselves if you had a ticket that was valid on all public transport in the capital, whoever provided it; however, the benefit to the tourist should not be understated.
Total integration
Secondly, I was impressed with what seemed to be, on the face of it, total integration for all modes of public transport. Outside St Stephen’s Basilica, there is a large space that buses, tourist buses and coaches all appeared to use with relative ease.
Wearing my LTCOA hat, and while understanding the problems that London, and especially TfL, face in providing more facilities for coaches, I did marvel at the relative ease in which this appeared to be accomplished in Budapest.
I suspect there is still a ‘not our problem’ in certain areas within London when dealing with coaches. I just wish that all those involved could see that accommodating them is a solvable challenge rather than, in some cases, hoping they just disappear.
Enthusiast’s dream
Thirdly, I simply enjoyed using the public transport in and out of Budapest each day to our accommodation in the Buda Hills. It was great using the tram on its dedicated track along the main highways in the city.
OK, so it is not fully accessible, and more needs to be done in this respect, but it was great fun and we were able to see so much from our vantage point on the vehicle.
For those who are real transport enthusiasts there is much to see and experience on the network, including a cog-wheel railway to Széchenyi Hill, a network of trolleybus routes and express bus services all complementing each other.
It also has the third oldest underground railway in the world, opened in 1896, and the second oldest to use electric traction.
My highlights were visiting the Ter with the Fisherman’s Bastion and our boat trip up the Danube River, which was included in the price of our travelcard.
