The State Motorway Management Co. Ltd’s sales data reveal that the number of e-vignettes purchased by road users during the first seven months of the year increased in comparison with the same period of last year. The first quarter of this year was the first period that saw an increase in sales since the outbreak of the global economic crisis, and the trend appears to be ongoing as four months later the numbers still exceed last year’s figures.

It can be concluded on the basis of SMMC Ltd’s sales data that, similarly to the first quarter, more e-vignettes were sold between January and July this year than in the same period last year. It should be noted, however, that although the number of vignettes sold is on the rise, the generated sales revenue trend (especially the net amounts) shows no signs of a definite turnaround, as the sales revenue still remains at the 2009 level. This is partly due to the fact that the VAT content of road use authorisations grew from 20 to 25% last July. As such, while in the first seven months of 2010 motorists purchased 2% more road use authorisations than in the corresponding period last year, the increase in revenue is negligible at 1%. Compared with the 2009 sales figure of HUF 33.67 billion, gross revenues reached HUF 34 billion in 2010.

Sales of single-day e-vignettes for trucks (D2, D3 and D4 categories) produced the highest rate of increase, as much as 8%, compared to last year. The reason behind that significant growth is most probably due to the fact that the economic crisis hit these categories the hardest and apparently cargo transport is now embarking on an expansion path of the same magnitude, if compared to the low level of 2009, which is indicated by the increase of turnover seen in the first quarter.

In contrast to the categories above, in other categories the increase rates are only one or two percent. The only exception is monthly e-vignettes sales as the sales of this type of e-vignette dropped by 3 percent. It can be concluded on the basis of vehicle category data (D1, D2, D3 and D4) that the D3 and D4 categories saw the highest growth in sales. In the D3 and D4 categories, the number of vignettes sold e-rose by 10% and 7%, respectively, compared to last year’s data. This growth also signals a possible weakening in the  impact of the crisis, as these categories are mostly used by businesses, whose turnover is directly linked to the volume of production and trade.

In addition to the mild increase in sales figures, traffic on the motorway sections under the supervision of SMMC did not change much in the first seven months of 2010 compared to last year. While the overall traffic of the network is stable, there are significant differences between the different motorways. On highway M0, which is particularly important for transit traffic across Hungary, and on the M1 and M7 motorways there was a 1% increase in traffic as compared to the same period of last year. However, there was less traffic on motorways M3 and M30: on the M3, traffic decreased by 1.9% and on the M30 by 5% between January and July as compared to 2009 figures. There were high increases of traffic on the M15 and M70 highways (approx. 18% and 20%, respectively), which are signs of heavier transit traffic.