Public transport in Debrecen, Hungary, is provided by ''DKV'' (short for ''

Debrecen Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and i ...

i Közlekedési Vállalat'' – Public Transport Company of Debrecen; complete name is DKV Zrt.) Volvo B9LA Alfa Cívis 18 3

Before mid-2009 two companies provided public transport in the city:

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

s and

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

es were operated by DKV while

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es were operated by Hajdú Volán, which provides transport in the rest of Hajdú-Bihar county. DKV took over bus transport on 1 July after winning a tender. DKV has 140 buses (40 of which are

articulated bus An articulated bus, also referred to as a banana bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, wiggle wagon, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, (either a motor bus or trolleybus) is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usua ...

es). All buses are Low-floor and airconditioned.

DKV

Debrecen Kosuth tér 2018 CAF Urbos 3 villamos 514, 520

The company was founded in 1883 under the name ''Debrecen Local Tramway Company''. They started providing public transport on 2 October 1884 with horse-drawn and steam-powered trams. The first electric tram started operating in 1911. From 1906 the town of Hajdúsámson and later, the town of

Nyírbátor Nyírbátor () is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. With its historic atmosphere, this city is known for its 15th- and 16th-century ecclesiastic and secular architectural heritage an ...

were connected to Debrecen by municipal railway, also operated by the same company. By the 1940s there were already ten tram lines. On 2 June 1944 the city was bombed, and the tramway system was seriously damaged. It was repaired by 1947, and seven tram lines served the city until the 1970s, which brought a decrease in the popularity of trams. Tramways were demolished all over the country, the role of trams was taken over by buses. Today Debrecen is one of only four Hungarian cities to have a tram line, but even here only one line survived. The importance of DKV decreased, and the company lost its leading role in the public transport of Debrecen. Trolleybuses started operating in 1985, taking over several lines which used to be tram-operated until the 1970s. The company became state property on 15 July 1950. Today it is owned by the city.

Trams and trolleybuses

Between 1970 and 1984 21 ''FVV'' trams entered service. The same tram type was used in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Miskolc Miskolc ( , , ; Czech language, Czech and sk, Miškovec; german: Mischkolz; yi, script=Latn, Mishkoltz; ro, Mișcolț) is a city in northeastern Hungary, known for its heavy industry. With a population of 161,265 (1 Jan 2014) Miskolc is the ...

and

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

, trams for the latter two cities were built by DKV. The company still owns eight of them, but they can rarely be seen on the streets. The typical blue trams (KCSV-6) of Debrecen were built between 1993-1997. There are only 11 of them in the whole world, all of them in Debrecen. The company also owns an old nostalgia tram. The trolleybuses

ZiU-9 ZiU-9, or ZIU-9 (Cyrillic: ЗиУ-9) is a Soviet (and later Russian) trolleybus. Other names for the ZiU-9 are ZiU-682 and HTI-682 (Cyrillic: ЗиУ-682 and ХТИ-682). The ZiU acronym stands for ''Zavod imeni Uritskogo'', which is a plant nam ...

were manufactured in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, 26 of them entered service since 1985. The four

articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were someti ...

trolleybuses have been in use since 1991. New Solaris Trollino buses are being bought since April 2005, in place of the old Soviet buses. In October 2011 the Spanish firm CAF will be in charge of supply of 18 32-metre

Urbos The CAF Urbos is a family of trams, streetcars, and light rail vehicles built by CAF. The Basque manufacturer CAF previously manufactured locomotives, passenger cars, regional, and underground trains. In 1993, CAF started building trams for Met ...

low-floor trams delivered from 2014, for the second tram line which was opened in late February 2014.

Buses

Since 2009, bus services have also been operated by DKV (expect the three "CORA" bus lines, which is still operated by Hajdú Volán). Currently, there are over 50 routes (only about 30, if routes with A/Y/I/E or 1 signed bus lines are not counted) and 3 bus types:Volvo Alfa Civis 12,18,

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...

Conecto G and ITK Reform 500LE (there only 1 from the last type).

Map of tram network

References

External links

DKV official site
(Hungarian/English)
Hajdú Volán official site
(Hungarian)

* ttp://public-transport.net/bim/Debrecen.htm Tram in Debrecen(English, German) {{Hu-transport Public transport companies in Hungary Debrecen

Public transport in Hungary