MVK Zrt.

MVK Zrt. (Miskolc Városi Közlekedési Zrt.; Mass Transport co. ltd. of the City of Miskolc; previously MVK Rt.) is the name of the transport company of the city of Miskolc, Hungary. Unlike the transport companies of many other cities, MVK Zrt. is independent from the company responsible for municipal transport in the county (Borsod Volán) and is responsible only for the mass transportation in Miskolc and the nearby town Felsőzsolca. The buses are usually dark blue; the trams on Line 1 are yellow or red, on Line 2 are dark red. Miskolc has lots of new investments in its public transportation. By the year 2016 90% of the company's vehicles are going to be low floor.

Miskolc has a long history of mass transport. The first tramway was built in 1897, and Miskolc was the first Hungarian city to have a scheduled bus line in 1903. Today Miskolc is one of only six Hungarian cities that have an own mass transport company. The city has two railway stations (Tiszai and Gömöri) and an unpaved airport which is not opened to public and plays no role in mass transport. There is also a narrow-gauge railway line between Miskolc and Lillafüred, but it has no importance other than being a tourist attraction.

The need for Miskolc having mass transport emerged in the middle of the 19th century. By this time the city had more than 30.000 residents, the railway line reached Miskolc in 1859 but the railway station was at that time quite far (2.2 km) from the city proper; the metal factory of Diósgyőr was opened in 1868, and Tapolca was fast becoming a popular tourist destination. In the 1860s it was planned that the tram line between the factory and the railway station should be built underground, but there was not enough money to carry out this plan. Had it been carried out, it would have been the first underground railway in Hungary.

From 1862 horse buses ran between the railway station and Diósgyőr, later between Downtown and Tapolca. The leaders of the city started to plan having tram lines in 1895. The project was led by dr. István Csáthy Szabó. According to the first plans the tramway line would have been 20 kilometres long, from Tiszai station to the other end of Diósgyőr, but the ministry agreed to finance only the constructing of a 7 km long line.

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Wikipedia