Debrecen4U
March 11, 2026
The City Management Centre will propel Debrecen’s traffic management several decades forward in a single leap
The Hajdú-Bihar County Regional Organisation of the Association for Transport Science, in cooperation with DKV Zrt., organised a conference entitled “21st Regional Transport Current Issues — Opportunities for Cooperation in Transport” in Debrecen on 11 March 2026. At the event, the Municipality of Debrecen was represented by Deputy Mayor Ákos Balázs, who delivered a welcome address.
As the deputy mayor emphasised, this conference—long based on cooperation—has a strong tradition in the city. Today cooperation is becoming increasingly important, and one of Debrecen’s greatest strengths is that on important matters the city’s stakeholders can always think together and then act together to build the city. This conference once again provides an opportunity for such collaboration.
According to the Deputy Mayor, Debrecen has had fantastic years recently, as several long-held dreams have come true. One of these is the environmentally and nature-protection-focused Civaqua programme, which will create a ring of water around the city. Another such dream—already discussed at earlier transport conferences—is the creation of an integrated fare system between national and Debrecen’s local public transport. In cooperation with the MÁV Group and DKV Zrt., this has now also become a reality, meaning that all conditions are in place for Debrecen this year to continue building on developments in public transport and achieve significant results.
In recent years and decades, Debrecen has become a major economic, cultural, educational and commercial centre of its region. The aim is for further development to take place in a sustainable manner. In this respect, transport—and within that, the organisation of public transport, ensuring its flexibility and adapting it to needs—is one of the greatest challenges in terms of the quality of life of the city’s residents. In recent years the municipality, working together with professionals active in the field, has invested considerable effort into creating a realistically achievable and sustainable urban mobility plan for Debrecen. Some elements of this plan have already been implemented, while others are awaiting implementation. Addressing future challenges will require large-scale and complex work: infrastructure and road network developments, vehicle developments, and the creation of regulatory frameworks such as those required for the establishment of the integrated fare system. In this process, transport professionals, lawyers, city leaders and the city’s residents must cooperate. As an example of the latter, Ákos Balázs mentioned a discussion held a few days earlier with secondary school students from Debrecen about how cycling could become part of the city’s public transport system. Members of the next generation can therefore already actively participate in shaping the city’s future—including its transport.
According to the Deputy Mayor, the development taking place in Debrecen is extremely rapid and dynamic, and it is very difficult to keep pace with it through infrastructure developments and the associated regulatory background. This requires intensive work, and taking this into account, planning for the City Management Centre began several years ago. The centre is also part of one of the city’s strategic documents, the Green Codex, and played a significant role in enabling Debrecen to be shortlisted among the top three settlements in the 2025 competition for the European Green Capital Award with its transport development plans.
The City Management Centre—the city’s “reflex”—will represent a milestone in the development of transport in Debrecen. The municipality’s 2026 budget allocates nearly HUF 1.4 billion for the establishment of the City Management Centre. This will include a physical centre with a computerised database, monitors and technicians, as well as cameras and sensors monitoring and counting traffic at junctions. All possible and relevant traffic-related data will be collected and, within the framework of cooperation to be established with the University of Debrecen, analysed and evaluated with the help of artificial intelligence in order to improve traffic organisation and traffic control. In recent years, the city’s traffic lights have been replaced with LED technology for operational safety and energy-efficiency reasons, and the computers controlling traffic lights at municipally managed junctions have been standardised with those controlling junctions managed by Magyar Közút Zrt.. As a result, in the future the municipality will also take over the operation of traffic control signals at state-managed junctions, creating a unified traffic management system across the city. This will represent a very significant step forward, as results in traffic management can only be achieved through unified regulation. At the same time, this year the city will begin developing a new traffic model which will determine, among other things, where traffic should be made more dynamic and where priority should be given—for example to public transport—and based on this the traffic lights will be programmed accordingly. Naturally, appropriately qualified specialists will also be required to carry out this work. Compared with the current situation—which is already outdated—the activities of the City Management Centre will propel Debrecen’s traffic management several decades forward in a single leap.
According to Ákos Balázs, the technical background required for the operation of the City Management Centre will be in place by the end of 2026, and the first steps towards a transport organisation and traffic control system supported by artificial intelligence will take place the following year. Among the possible traffic management solutions under consideration is the possibility that on 2×2-lane roads, during the morning peak period three lanes could operate inbound towards the city and one outbound, with the arrangement reversed in the afternoon. In addition, there are already numerous ideas on how to develop regional transport around the city, for example with regard to railway connections towards Józsa and Hajdúböszörmény.
The Deputy Mayor once again stressed that the outlined process requires very close cooperation among professionals involved in the field, and that this circle already includes vehicle drivers as well. The city also counts on the opinions of everyone involved in transport and participating in traffic on a daily basis.
Experiences with the integrated fare system introduced in Debrecen at Christmas have been positive; negotiations are currently under way regarding the accession of Miskolc, while several other settlements have also expressed interest in the opportunity. This was also discussed at the professional conference on current issues in regional transport, alongside current transport-related tasks, development directions and good practices. One such practice is the integrated fare system, which has been operating in Debrecen since Christmas, as reported on the event by Dehir.
“We were looking for opportunities where interurban and local transport could meet. It may be more attractive for residents and passengers to be able to use services both locally and regionally with a single value coupon. I believe this example will be contagious, not only in the city of Debrecen,” said Szabolcs Tóth, President of the Hajdú-Bihar County Regional Organisation of the Association for Transport Science.
The event also discussed the experiences of the transport fare reform. Today nearly one million county passes are sold, while approximately 300,000 county and national day tickets are sold each month.
According to experts, this has significantly reshaped travel habits and the operation of public transport. The establishment of the integrated fare system further strengthens this process: after Debrecen, negotiations are currently under way regarding the accession of Miskolc, and several other settlements have also expressed interest.
“As the second city in the country—and the first among major provincial cities—we managed to conclude such an agreement with Debrecen. The system has been operating for two and a half to three months, and the initial experiences are fundamentally positive,” said Tamás Bálint Szabó, Head of the Transport Services Department at the Ministry of Construction and Transport.
The programme of the professional conference also included several presentations: participants could, for example, hear about developments in the public transport system of Oradea.
Source and photo credit: debrecen.hu
