Volán’s parts supply has reached a critical level

For those working in the Volán sector, it will hardly come as news that parts supply has posed a serious challenge for some time. The highly centralised system for procuring parts and materials has slowed supply in recent years as well, but Transport Minister Dávid Vitézy told Parliament that severe parts-supply problems have now developed at several depots in the bus division of the MÁV Group. According to the minister, resolving the situation and reorganising procurement and logistics processes is one of the most urgent tasks.

According to the trade unions, the situation has now become so critical that dozens of buses are standing at some vehicle-maintenance depots awaiting repair. Mechanics are sometimes forced to keep the fleet in serviceable condition by using parts removed from other vehicles, while it is not uncommon for buses only a few years old to be out of service for weeks, or even months, because of a lack of parts. The situation is also becoming an ever greater challenge in terms of maintaining the timetable and ensuring the required vehicle output. In many cases, considerable efforts are needed from Volán staff – from vehicle-maintenance specialists through traffic control to drivers – to keep scheduled services running.

At more than one depot, daily operations have to be organised without any spare buses, and in some cases even with a vehicle deficit. In such a situation, if an unexpected technical fault, accident or other event takes a vehicle out of service, the options for providing a replacement are extremely limited.

In response to the situation, Transport Minister Dávid Vitézy told Parliament that the ministry is also aware of Volán’s parts-supply problems, and described resolving them as one of the most urgent tasks. He stressed that public transport is kept running above all by the committed work of those employed in the sector, who in many cases maintain services even under difficult conditions.

According to the minister, his ministry inherited a system in which acute, crisis-level parts-supply problems had already developed at several Volán depots. He said the procurement, materials-supply and logistics system created under the previous transport administration — one that was extremely centralised and stripped companies of their autonomy in every respect — had contributed significantly to the emergence of the problems, and that its transformation had already begun.

He added that reorganising parts-procurement and logistics processes is a time-consuming task. As he put it, in a situation where processes have been artificially suppressed, postponed, over-bureaucratised and over-centralised, it is extremely difficult to make the parts-supply, logistics and procurement chains operational again from one day to the next. According to the minister, these processes had been functioning at an ever lower standard for years, which has now effectively pushed Volán’s operations into a crisis.