Under the supervision of the Ministry of National Development and the Hungarian Transport Administration and as a result of broad groundwork laid by experts, the draft of the National Transport Strategy (NTS) has been prepared. Social consultations on the document, starting on 19 November 2013, are to continue for a month.

The primary goal of the strategy, to cover the period 2014-2050, is to ensure that, by efficiently serving economic processes, the transport infrastructure should facilitate increasing competitiveness to the greatest extent possible. Its major functions are to exploit Hungary’s role as a transport hub, ensure the conditions for sustainable growth while considering social demands and coordinate the occasionally conflicting environmental and economic as well as national and EU interests. 

Setting strategic goals may primarily foster creating a scheduled framework for the development of the transport system. The practical reason for the timing of preparing the strategy is that the availability of a comprehensive strategy in the sector is a condition for the approval, in Brussels, of an Integrated Transport Development Operational Programme (ITOP) for the EU planning period starting next year. According to the transport policy efforts of the EU, it is environmentally friendly alternatives, primarily the railways, that are preferred in the allocation of development funds. At the same time, there is evidently increased economic and social demand in countries of the Central European region for extending the public road network (connecting rural areas, relieving settlements) and reducing the development gap as regards its quality. In the programmes to be launched within the framework of 2014-2020 operational programmes or from national budget funding, the right balance must be found between the railway friendly approach also shared by Hungarian sectoral policies and the justified public road development expectations.

In the course of the public consultations on the NTS, the documents to be commented on are accessible on the homepage of the Hungarian Transport Administration (www.kkk.gov.hu). It is after the one month of social consultations and the processing of the comments received that government discussions on the strategy may commence.

(Ministry of National Development, Communications Department)