Local services
Today the first Junior Debrecen City Cards were handed over, which in addition to the free DKV season ticket, also offer a number of other benefits to the card holders. So far, 11 250 registrations have been received, which is the number of children who will certainly be able to travel for free on DKV trains from the 1st of April.
Mayor László Papp said that the registration for the Junior Debrecen City Card started at the beginning of February, and in the past month the number of applications has been as expected, so the number of registrations has already exceeded 10,000, and today the delivery of the cards will start, first at the Petőfi Sándor Primary School, where the application rate has already exceeded 90 percent.
“The growth of the city’s economy opens up many opportunities for us,” the Mayor said, adding that “this is now a tool which, thanks to the development of the city, will ensure that we give back to the families of Debrecen the results we have achieved at city level”.
“The city assembly decided to make public transport in Debrecen free of charge for students under 14 and kindergarten children over 6 years old,” he emphasised.
László Papp pointed out that registration is ongoing, but those who register by the 15th of March can be guaranteed to receive the Junior City Card in early April.
He recalled that the free travel entitlement was linked to the city card because it was important to ensure that, in addition to the free travel entitlement, card users could also benefit from more than 50 other discounts, be it zoo or beach entrance, restaurants, pastry shops or entertainment venues. Since the launch of the Debrecen City Card in 2020, more than 22,000 cards have been issued so far, and this number is set to grow even further.
The Mayor underlined that this option is also family and family budget-friendly, since they are better off by HUF 57,600 in the case of one child, HUF 115,200 in the case of two children, and HUF 172,800 in the case of three children, as if they had to buy student passes every month, so the families of all students in Debrecen or Debrecen achieve significant savings.
Director of the Debrecen School District Centre László Türk said that the Junior City Card offers children an experience, parents financial relief and teachers simpler logistics. The card will help more children in the 28 institutions of the school district to go on extra-curricular activities such as ice-skating, table tennis, swimming or on excursions.
He pointed out that thanks to the successful cooperation, several schools in the School District Centre have already applied for the Junior City Card in a similarly high proportion. The city, the headmasters and the class teachers have a big role to play in this cooperation, successfully convincing parents to register. And these cards also make the experiential education advocated by educators easily accessible.
CEO of DKV PLC Szabolcs Tóth pointed out that currently 11,250 kindergarten children and students are registered, which is about 65 percent of the eligible. The production of the cards is ongoing.
“It will also make it easier for children to get to school, as parents will not necessarily have to drive them in the morning. We expect this to increase our passenger numbers, but at the same time make urban transport a little easier. We continue to believe that public transport is an important tool for urban mobility. We also hope it will become an even more popular tool by educating children about it,” Szabolcs Tóth said.
Registration is possible on the debrecen.hu website, in the Junior City Card registration sub-menu. It is not necessary to apply for a new one for those who already have a city card, the free travel entitlement can be added to the existing one.
Source: debrecen.hu
