Budapest Public Bicycle Service Valued Internationally

The MOL Bubi public bicycle service has been ranked among the best in Europe by Belgian experts who recently visited the Hungarian capital, the Budapest Transport Center (BKK) told MTI on Wednesday.

They said that the Belgians would like to develop a similar service in Brussels and were gathering experience in Budapest.

They added that the international attention is a major professional recognition, as Budapest was chosen as the best among 85 cities, including Madrid, Paris, Marseille, Antwerp and Ghent.

In addition to the professional aspects, the study of the MOL Bubi is also important for the Belgians because of the similar topography of Budapest to Brussels, they said.

The cooperation with the Belgians is also useful for BKK, as the research project will provide Hungarian experts with access to detailed analyses of French and Dutch public shuttle services, which will also help to improve the MOL Bubi, they said.

BKK operates the public bicycle service as a complement to public transport. This way, MOL Bubi collection points and available bicycles will be displayed in BudapestGO, and routes can be planned, even in combination with public transport. The location of the MOL Bubi collection points will also be determined to make transfers between different modes of transport as easy as possible," the statement said.

Thanks to an integrated approach and conscious branding, the popularity of the public shuttle service is unbroken: in the last winter months, monthly and average daily use of MOL Bubi increased by 60-70% compared to the same period in the previous year, and the growth has not stopped even after the rainy spring. Over five million trips have been made in two years.

Since the system was relaunched two years ago, the MOL Bubi fleet has almost doubled. In 2022, BKK put 500 new bikes into service, and after this year's 400 expansion, 2,460 bikes are now available to customers.