The extension of the southern section of M0 has been the largest-scale investment in recent years, of beyond national significance. The Ministry of National Development will continue mobilising all resources in order to continuously keep raising the standard of public roads in Hungary, Minister of State for Infrastructure Pál Völner said at a press conference held on the achievements related to the development of the ring road inaugurated this year, in Budapest on 5 December, 2013.

The southern section of M0 is the express road with the heaviest traffic in Hungary, with an average daily traffic of some 40 thousand vehicles per direction during the high season in August. Due to regular congestions and frequent accidents, there had been pressing need for increasing the capacity of the road for a long time.

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The extension between motorways M7 and M5, involving an investment cost of over HUF 55bn net, was inaugurated for traffic in September. Thank to the development, the complete southern section of the road over more than 27 km has three traffic lanes and one stopping lane in both directions. The investment has also included the construction of two new Danube bridges. The concrete surface laid down with a technology not used in Hungary before has a greater carrying capacity, making it most suitable for the significant lorry traffic.

The experience of the past couple of months has shown that, meeting previous expectations, the extension has put an end to everyday traffic jams. With an adequate service standard and given traffic with the same composition, the maximum theoretical capacity per direction has risen more than one and a half times, from the earlier cca. 1500 vehicles per hour to cca. 2.500 vehicles per hour. Thank to the investment funded by the New Széchenyi Plan, access times have considerably shortened. Congestions due to vehicles with technical failures have been reduced almost to zero. Thereby the risk of the most typical accident along the southern section, crashes from behind, as well as the number of lane change crashes have considerably fallen.

“Only this year, the National Infrastructure Development Co. Ltd. (NID) has launched or is to launch public procurement tenders worth almost HUF 500 billion”, Head of Communications of the company Dániel Loppert said. “Contracts worth HUF 437.1bn have been signed already; public procurement tenders worth almost HUF 39.2bn are in progress, while preparations are underway for further procedures worth HUF 13.2bn.  Within the framework of the developments, 67km of express roads, 29km of motorways and 72km of ring roads are to be constructed. Already existing roads of 388km are to be supplied with a reinforced road surface designed to carry vehicles of 11.5 tons, furthermore, and five new roundabouts are also to be established.”

“Funds of the New Széchenyi Plan Transport Operational Programme have financed the construction of 340 km of motorway and road development in Hungary, already completed, to be completed or in the planning phase. The National Transport Strategy currently being worked out targets the construction of the missing connections of motorways for transit traffic up to the country borders as well as the joining of developing regions and county seats into the expressway network”, Pál  Völner emphasised.”

(Ministry of National Development Communications Department)