VIENNA METRO IS NOT CHEAPER THAN THE BUDAPEST ONE – CONSTRUCTION COSTS OF METRO 4 FALL IN THE INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE FIELD

From time to time, the press posts news about sensationally cheap foreign metro constructions, which cost only a fraction of the Budapest metro 4 investment. The DBR Metro Project Directorate attends to all these news, and up to date in all these cases it turned out that the numbers referenced under the examples are incorrect. Unfortunately for most of the time, until we obtain the appropriate, credible information, the incorrect statement has already spread all over the press, and it is almost impossible to refute. We would like to prevent a similar case through our statement as follows.

On Sunday in the TV2’s Napló program Mihály Kupa economist, former Finance Minister was talking about the costs of the metro 4 construction. Mr. Kupa presumed to know that the Budapest metro project cost three times more than the Vienna one, and “the ground is even worst there”. This statement is not true, it is certainly based on an error.

Now in the Austrian capital the extension of the U1 line is taking place. The Vienna metro line 1 will be extended with 6 stations, in a total length of 4.9 km. The project’s budget is 860 million Euros, which includes neither the surface projects, nor the new vehicles and the building of the depot. Thus, from the amount noted 6 new stations and the tunnel linking them will be built, with an average price of 176 million Euros per kilometer. The construction that is starting in these days will be completed by 2015 as per the plans, and the costs are funded by the Austrian state and Vienna together.

The first section of metro 4 being built costs approximately 1,380 million Euros, but this price besides the building of the tunnel and the stations include the associated surface projects - like rehabilitation of the Kiskörút -, the depot and the vehicles, and respectively the European Union’s contingencies. This represents an average price of 184 million Euros per kilometer, which is accompanied by a much more complex technical content comparing to the Vienna project. If we consider the contingencies, and the costs of the vehicles, depot and the surface projects, as well as the VAT costs being 5% higher than the Austrian, the unit costs of the Budapest project is lower than that of the Vienna project. And as for the more favorable ground conditions: the Vienna metro is not going through under the Danube, which on the other hand increased the costs in Budapest.

Some metro constructions are cheaper, some are more expensive than the one in Budapest (diverse soil conditions, surface crowded with old buildings, presence of the Danube, etc. are raising the costs here). Recently metros were built in London and Berlin with a much higher unit price than in Budapest, while in Vienna, Barcelona or Amsterdam the prices are similar, and lower in Madrid as well as in the preferably referred Mallorca, although everyone knows that the latter one is a low capacity “crust-railway” and not a metro. In an international comparison on an average price per kilometer basis the metro 4 is in the middle filed: in a theoretical scale of 10 its value would be 6.

More information on the Vienna metro: Answer Lang / Wiener Linien / Telefon: 00 43 1 7909 14200

Budapest, 4th November 2009

DBR Metro Project Directorate