6 ms·

When I was in Budapest a few weeks ago, I heard from multiple locals that the metro system was owned by some sort of mafia. I wonder if that explains the subpar

by beters 9y ago

When I was in Budapest a few weeks ago, I heard from multiple locals that the metro system was owned by some sort of mafia. I wonder if that explains the subpar security and overreaction to the bug report. edit: a few weeks ago, not this past summer that is still occurring

atleta 9y ago
I'm not aware of any actual mafia. They were almost certainly metaphorical and they must have been just bashing the local government. Because what they do is really a shame. One of the lines is de facto in a life threatening condition. Trains caught fire multiple times. Instead of being replaced, the 40 year old cars are being refurbished/modernized. This has something to do with the EU (they gave money for this, but not that). There was a tender, but miraculously it was the Russians who won it, despite their offer was quite a lot more expensive than that of the Estonians. And of course, as it happens with corruption, they failed to deliver a properly working version, so after a few weeks of testing, the first few trains were sent back. About the security (or rather the extremely low quality) of the eTicket system: that was developed by a 3rd party that belongs to the Deutsche Telekom group, and that company is indeed quite a high profile system integrator working with a lot of large companies, banks, etc. So it's a bit of surprising (even if corruption is involved) that they released it in this form. Actually I'm surprised by these bugs even for a prototype that was forcefully pushed out of the door, because you just never do these things in the first place.
- inferiorhuman 9y ago
  > Instead of being replaced, the 40 year old cars are being refurbished/modernized. Age seems like a bit of a red herring to me. Here in San Francisco BART cars are about that old, Muni runs 90 year old Italian trams and American ones that are close to 70 years old. And, of course, the cable cars. BART bears about the worst of it because many parts are no longer available.
  - atleta 9y ago
    Interesting point. Don't forget that this is 40-50 year old Soviet technology :). And cars are actually in pretty bad shape, well over their planned lifetime of 30 years (AFAIK). Full of rust, sometimes catch fire. The drive system is also problematic, because it doesn't have regenerative breaking so the cars heat the tunnels quite a lot which is pretty bad during the summer. They are in such a bad shape and/or hard to rebuild that not much remains of the original during the refurbishment.
    - kodfodrasz 9y ago
      Actually the Russian company and the tender has received attacks that the cars are actually new, only some identifiers have been transferred from the old cars, as Metrowagonmash had a dozen or so surplus cars of the type the used cars were supposed to be upgraded to.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  Actually yes, the EU some money for refurb, not new trains. The Russians didn't magically win the tender, i think it was realpolitik. They manufactured them originally in the first place, they have the means to do the work, and without knowing if the proposals were technically equivalent, Hungary needs to maintain a good relation not only to its neighbors, and fellow EU members, but to Moscow. Also the trains are not in a worse working condition than the Siemens Combino trams or the Siemens and Alstom technology at Metro 4 line, which also had integration problems during the first months of operation. The problems will be addressed by the russian firm as well as as the western firms addressed those problems.
  - atleta 9y ago
    Well, only if you want to explain away the fact that the Estonians should have won the tender based on the official scoring and criteria. In other words, you are rationalizing. There's a reason why tenders always have a fixed scoring system. And this is it. Maintaining good relationships with the Russians wasn't part of it, of course. We'll pay them enough for Pask2 (awarded without tendering). But even if not, because enough does not exist, more is always better, if this is the price of a 'good relationship' then we already have a bad relationship with them. I.e. they are blackmailing us. (Of course, it's not the case, but they are probably more willing to pay back than the Estonians...) No, these problems are not like other problems, though Siemens and Alstrom were also both involved in corruption cases (I mean outside of Hungary), these are more serious and didn't happen with the others. It's not simply only integration problems.
- posterboy 9y ago
  Nothing like the cars build for berlin that were slightly too big for the narrowest part of the tunnels.
kodfodrasz 9y ago
Please don't spread fake news! The metro system is owned by the city, and ultimately the government. With all its problems, it is still not a mafia. Although you are in a different part of the world, but when visiting the poor and backwards Eastern Europe, please use your common sense, or at least do some fact check.
- grimskin 9y ago
  TBH in Eastern Europe something being owned by government usually means that it's being ran (basically owned) by mafia.
  - kodfodrasz 9y ago
    This is simple demagogue populism. This is not a critique of the problems, and does not start any fruitful discussion, and will not lead eventually to better conditions.
    - Sawamara 9y ago
      Oh, you seem to be using the code words of state-sponsored media pretty well. Demagogue and populism in the same sentence, nice! : ) Lets not pretend that the tenders made by the BKK is any more lawful or fair than the rest of the tenders that dominate the market around here.
    - grimskin 9y ago
      Actually that is a critique of a problem. Because one of the biggest problem of Eastern Europe is corruption which leads to many different problems, that eventually result in such stories.
      - StreamBright 9y ago
        The biggest problem in Eastern Europe is corruption? Citation needed. In the USA you can influence politicians, even elections and it is called lobbying. The result is that roughly 70% of the legislation passed for companies. In Eastern Europe people keep re-electing politicians who are corrupt than it is on the voters not on the corrupt politicians. I think the real issue is exactly that, people cannot use their power (voting) too well and have limited knowledge about the economy so they are easy to fool. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
kowdermeister 9y ago
Someone probably misunderstood something. Our government is usually referred to as a mafia government because of their tactics and modus operandi. The Metro is state owned and with a bit of a stretch I can understand where this is coming from.
- voidz 9y ago
  You remind me of the Dutch railroad system. It has a monopoly despite having been privatized, and the majority stockholder is.... the Dutch government.
beters 9y ago
Since I can't edit the post, apologies to any offense I may have caused. Although I did hear this from locals, it was likely a communications breakdown.

by beters 9y ago

atleta 9y ago

I'm not aware of any actual mafia. They were almost certainly metaphorical and they must have been just bashing the local government. Because what they do is really a shame. One of the lines is de facto in a life threatening condition. Trains caught fire multiple times. Instead of being replaced, the 40 year old cars are being refurbished/modernized. This has something to do with the EU (they gave money for this, but not that). There was a tender, but miraculously it was the Russians who won it, despite their offer was quite a lot more expensive than that of the Estonians. And of course, as it happens with corruption, they failed to deliver a properly working version, so after a few weeks of testing, the first few trains were sent back. About the security (or rather the extremely low quality) of the eTicket system: that was developed by a 3rd party that belongs to the Deutsche Telekom group, and that company is indeed quite a high profile system integrator working with a lot of large companies, banks, etc. So it's a bit of surprising (even if corruption is involved) that they released it in this form. Actually I'm surprised by these bugs even for a prototype that was forcefully pushed out of the door, because you just never do these things in the first place.

inferiorhuman 9y ago
> Instead of being replaced, the 40 year old cars are being refurbished/modernized. Age seems like a bit of a red herring to me. Here in San Francisco BART cars are about that old, Muni runs 90 year old Italian trams and American ones that are close to 70 years old. And, of course, the cable cars. BART bears about the worst of it because many parts are no longer available.
- atleta 9y ago
  Interesting point. Don't forget that this is 40-50 year old Soviet technology :). And cars are actually in pretty bad shape, well over their planned lifetime of 30 years (AFAIK). Full of rust, sometimes catch fire. The drive system is also problematic, because it doesn't have regenerative breaking so the cars heat the tunnels quite a lot which is pretty bad during the summer. They are in such a bad shape and/or hard to rebuild that not much remains of the original during the refurbishment.
  - kodfodrasz 9y ago
    Actually the Russian company and the tender has received attacks that the cars are actually new, only some identifiers have been transferred from the old cars, as Metrowagonmash had a dozen or so surplus cars of the type the used cars were supposed to be upgraded to.
kodfodrasz 9y ago
Actually yes, the EU some money for refurb, not new trains. The Russians didn't magically win the tender, i think it was realpolitik. They manufactured them originally in the first place, they have the means to do the work, and without knowing if the proposals were technically equivalent, Hungary needs to maintain a good relation not only to its neighbors, and fellow EU members, but to Moscow. Also the trains are not in a worse working condition than the Siemens Combino trams or the Siemens and Alstom technology at Metro 4 line, which also had integration problems during the first months of operation. The problems will be addressed by the russian firm as well as as the western firms addressed those problems.
- atleta 9y ago
  Well, only if you want to explain away the fact that the Estonians should have won the tender based on the official scoring and criteria. In other words, you are rationalizing. There's a reason why tenders always have a fixed scoring system. And this is it. Maintaining good relationships with the Russians wasn't part of it, of course. We'll pay them enough for Pask2 (awarded without tendering). But even if not, because enough does not exist, more is always better, if this is the price of a 'good relationship' then we already have a bad relationship with them. I.e. they are blackmailing us. (Of course, it's not the case, but they are probably more willing to pay back than the Estonians...) No, these problems are not like other problems, though Siemens and Alstrom were also both involved in corruption cases (I mean outside of Hungary), these are more serious and didn't happen with the others. It's not simply only integration problems.
posterboy 9y ago
Nothing like the cars build for berlin that were slightly too big for the narrowest part of the tunnels.

kodfodrasz 9y ago

Please don't spread fake news! The metro system is owned by the city, and ultimately the government. With all its problems, it is still not a mafia. Although you are in a different part of the world, but when visiting the poor and backwards Eastern Europe, please use your common sense, or at least do some fact check.

grimskin 9y ago
TBH in Eastern Europe something being owned by government usually means that it's being ran (basically owned) by mafia.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  This is simple demagogue populism. This is not a critique of the problems, and does not start any fruitful discussion, and will not lead eventually to better conditions.
  - Sawamara 9y ago
    Oh, you seem to be using the code words of state-sponsored media pretty well. Demagogue and populism in the same sentence, nice! : ) Lets not pretend that the tenders made by the BKK is any more lawful or fair than the rest of the tenders that dominate the market around here.
  - grimskin 9y ago
    Actually that is a critique of a problem. Because one of the biggest problem of Eastern Europe is corruption which leads to many different problems, that eventually result in such stories.
    - StreamBright 9y ago
      The biggest problem in Eastern Europe is corruption? Citation needed. In the USA you can influence politicians, even elections and it is called lobbying. The result is that roughly 70% of the legislation passed for companies. In Eastern Europe people keep re-electing politicians who are corrupt than it is on the voters not on the corrupt politicians. I think the real issue is exactly that, people cannot use their power (voting) too well and have limited knowledge about the economy so they are easy to fool. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

kowdermeister 9y ago

Someone probably misunderstood something. Our government is usually referred to as a mafia government because of their tactics and modus operandi. The Metro is state owned and with a bit of a stretch I can understand where this is coming from.

voidz 9y ago
You remind me of the Dutch railroad system. It has a monopoly despite having been privatized, and the majority stockholder is.... the Dutch government.

beters 9y ago

Since I can't edit the post, apologies to any offense I may have caused. Although I did hear this from locals, it was likely a communications breakdown.