The story
The need for Miskolc having mass transport emerged in the middle of the 19th century. By this time the city had more than 30.000 residents, the railway line reached Miskolc in 1859 but the railway station was at that time quite far (2.2 km) from the city proper; the metal factory of Diósgyőr was opened in 1868, and Tapolca was fast becoming a popular tourist destination. In the 1860s it was planned to build the tram line between the factory and the railway station underground, but sufficient funds were lacking. Had it been carried out, it would have been the first underground railway in Hungary.
From 1862 horse-drawn omnibuses ran between the railway station and Diósgyőr, later between downtown and Tapolca. The leaders of the city started to plan having tram lines in 1895. The project was led by dr. István Csáthy Szabó. According to the first plans the tramway line would have been 20 kilometres long, from Tiszai station to the other end of Diósgyőr, but the ministry agreed to finance only the construction of a 7 km-long line.
The first tram entered service on July 10, 1897. It ran between Tiszai Railway Station and St. Anne's Church and stopped at 8 termini, including the two end termini. The tram line in Miskolc was the fourth one built in Hungary – after the tram lines in Budapest (1887), Pozsony (today in Slovakia; 1895) and Szombathely (May 1897; demolished since then) –, the third one in present-day Hungary and the second normal-gauge tram line (those in Pozsony and Szombathely were narrow-gauge). The tram stopped six times between its two end stations. On the 1st day 7615 passengers used it, which met the expectations. (Today 90,000 passengers use only the two tram lines daily; there are 430.000 trips on all bus and tram lines combined.) The tram was operated by MVV Rt. (Miskolci Villamossági Rt.; Electric Company of Miskolc.) Because of the success of the first tram line, a second tramway was built perpendicular to the first one, between Búza tér and Népkert. This line was much less popular and because of it after four months of operating MVV Rt. asked the city council to agree to demolish this tramway, but it didn't happen until 1960.
On June 8, 1903 a citizen called Mrs. Gyula Bene launched the first scheduled bus line between the city halls of Miskolc and Diósgyőr. However, the tram was still very popular, and the bus couldn't compete with that, so the bus line was abolished.
Until 1947 the operator of trams, MVV Rt. was the same company that provided electricity for Miskolc. This was not always a fortunate situation. In the 1920s the leaders of the city wanted to start bus traffic but MVV Rt. was afraid of competition and threatened to raise the price of electricity so they changed their minds.
Meanwhile, the workers of the metal factory of Diósgyőr expressed their need for the tramway line to reach the factory. With the financial help of the state and the factory a new tramway was built from Miskolc to Diósgyőr. To operate it a new company was founded, the Miskolc-Diósgyőr Municipal Railway Company (MDV Rt.). (Since Diósgyőr was not part of Miskolc at that time, the state allowed it to be operated only as a municipal railway, not as a tram.) There were plans to unify the two tram lines so that people would not have to change when going from the railway station to Diósgyőr, but MVV Rt. saw MDV Rt. as a competition and did not agree. Later MDV Rt. gave up its right to operate its tram line, because of their lack of experience of operating tram lines, and MVV Rt. took over. By January 22, 1906 the two tram lines were united and one could travel from Tiszai station to Diósgyőr without changing trams.
In 1910 the second tramway line was extended to the nearby town Hejőcsaba. Tapolca was connected to Miskolc by bus line by 1926 and Lillafüred, by 1928.
During World War II the tramways were damaged, and tram traffic completely stopped by 1942.
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In 1945 Miskolc, Diósgyőr and Hejőcsaba was unified to form Greater Miskolc. The tram lines, which connected the three towns decades before their unification, played an important role in this. Görömböly, Tapolca and Lillafüred, which were connected to Miskolc by bus lines, were annexed to the city five years later.
After the war scheduled buses began serve the city in 1948. To operate the bus lines a new company was founded in 1949, and in 1954 it was united with MVV Rt., forming MKV (Miskolci Közlekedési Vállalat; Mass Transport Company of Miskolc.) In 1951 there were already five bus lines. The company was re-organised asa public company in 1994.
During its long history Miskolc had the most residents in the 1980s; as the country's second-largest city and an important centre of heavy industry, it had more than 200.000 inhabitants. It is no surprise that the mass transport company set its records during that decade: in 1988 its 274 buses and 44 trams carried 198.7 million passengers.
In 1971 the company changed its policy of having a conductor on each vehicle, but too many people decided to take free rides, causing financial loss to the company, so in 1996 MVK Rt. answered with the much criticised move of ordering bus drivers to only open the first door and check if passengers have a ticket.
Compared to mass transport of other cities, the situation in Miskolc is quite good. On an average day 150 buses stop at a bus stop, and buses follow each other in eight-minute intervals.
In 2005 the company changed its name from "public company" to "private limited company" in accord with a new law which required all share companies choose between the company forms "public limited" and "private limited".
From Wikipedia’s article on MVK Zrt., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3