Dávid Vitézy
Vitézy in 2021
Secretary of State for Transport
In office 25 May 2022 – 21 November 2022
Minister	László Palkovics
Preceded by	László Mosóczi
Succeeded by	Bálint Nagy
Personal details
Born	(1985-12-01) 1 December 1985 (age 38) Budapest, Hungary
Political party	Independent
Alma mater	Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Profession	Economist, traffic expert

Dávid Vitézy (born 1 December 1985) is a Hungarian economist, transport and urban mobility expert, politician, who served as Secretary of State for Transport in the Fifth Orbán Government for a brief time from May to November 2022. He is a candidate for Mayor of Budapest in the 2024 Budapest mayoral election.

He was a prominent member of the NGO Urban and Suburban Transport Association (VEKE) from 2000 to 2010. He inaugural CEO of Centre for Budapest Transport (BKK) between 2010 and 2014. He was ministerial commissioner overseeing the development of public transport, especially the coordination of regional and long-distance relations within the Ministry of National Development for some months in 2015. He served as director of the Hungarian Technical and Transport Museum from 2016 to 2022. Simultaneously, he was CEO of Budapest Development Center (BFK) from 2020 to 2022.

Family and studies

Vitézy was born in Budapest on 1 December 1985,^{[citation needed]} as the son of film director László Vitézy (1940–2024) and his third wife, social psychologist and MEP Ágnes Hankiss (née Erdős; 1950–2021). His maternal grandfather was Péter Erdős (1925–1990), the controller of pop music life during the Goulash Communism, and maternal grandmother was Erzsébet Köves, secretary of 1956 martyr Géza Losonczy. The first husband of his mother was sociologist Elemér Hankiss (1928–2015).^[1] His paternal uncles are entrepreneurs András Vitézy and Tamás Vitézy. The latter's daughter is Rita (Dávid's cousin), spouse of actor and theater director Rodrigo Crespo (born 1973).^[2] One of Dávid's half-siblings is Zsófia Vitézy, the Hungarian Ambassador to Columbia since 2022. She is maternal cousin of Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary. That is why, contrary to the assumptions, Dávid Vitézy is not related by blood to Orbán.^[3]

Vitézy graduated from Lauder Javne Jewish Community School in 2004. He graduated in economics from the Faculty of Economics of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), majoring in regional settlement and territorial development, in 2010.^[4][5]

Professional career

Early career

At the age of 15 in 2000, Vitézy was a founding member of the Urban and Suburban Transport Association (VEKE), an NGO with the aim of improving public transport in Hungarian cities and representing the interests of passengers. He was a board member of the organization from 2002, then head of the association's transport development working group until 2010. Beside that, he functioned as spokesperson of the VEKE from 2006 to 2010. He had a prominent role in the fact that the night transport of Budapest was completely transformed and significantly expanded in 2005 with the introduction of the 900 number series night bus services. He also actively spoke out against the planned reductions in public transport routes.^[6][7]

The opposition party Fidesz delegated Vitézy as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Budapesti Közlekedési Zrt. (BKV), serving in this capacity from January 2007 to December 2009. As a member of the committee, he was the initiator of several internal investigations that led to the outbreak of later corruption scandals involving the city governance of Budapest under Mayor Gábor Demszky and Deputy Mayor Miklós Hagyó.^[8] During his activities, he was attacked several times, according to which he acts according to party political interests since his mother was a Fidesz politician.^[9] However, VEKE supported his efforts in this regard.^[10] Vitézy left the organization in 2010, following the 2010 Budapest Assembly election, when Fidesz candidate István Tarlós was elected as mayor.

CEO of BKK

Tarlós appointed Vitézy as the CEO of the newly established Centre for Budapest Transport (BKK) in November 2010.^[11] He held this position until December 2014. Under his leadership, BKK was responsible for public transport, bicycle and pedestrian transport, road infrastructure management, city parking, the regulation of taxi services and the implementation and organization of European Union projects related to transport. Under his mandate as CEO, the reorganizations and the comprehensive institutional reform of Budapest transport, which was launched when the company was founded with a team of 1,800 experts together with colleagues taken over from various Budapest companies (FKF, BKV, etc.), were completed successfully. Under Vitézy's leadership, BKK's achievements include the compilation of the Mór Balázs Plan, the new long-term sustainable mobility plan for Budapest.^[12]

During these years, the complete reconstruction of tram lines 1 and 3 was carried out, with the creation of grassed tram tracks in several places in Budapest in a previously unknown manner in Hungary; beside that the route of tram line 1 was also extended.^[13] BKK's own project was the realization of the interwoven tram network in Buda by connecting the separate tram lines and creating a new barrier-free infrastructure. In connection with this, the Széll Kálmán tér was completely renovated and expanded.^[14] An important result is the launch of the MOL BuBi public bicycle system in 2014 with more than 1,000 shared bikes.^[15] Additionally, BKK launched a comprehensive new vehicle procurement program, which marks the introduction of a hundred new modern low-floor buses, trolleybuses and trams into service in Budapest.^[16]

Under Vitézy, BKK successfully coordinated the launch of the new M4 metro line, including related infrastructure developments: a new bus station, P+R parking lots, public spaces and junctions were also established. In 4 years, BKK led by Dávid Vitézy produced a 20% increase in revenue from ticket sales with a 10% reduction in season tickets.^[16] The opening of modern integrated customer centers in several busy junctions has brought a significant quality change that is emblematic and directly perceptible to the traveling public. One of the most complex developments was the launch of the FUTÁR traffic management and passenger information system, which also made it possible to monitor the real situation of routes on a map. Route planning databases and real-time traffic data have become accessible to applications developed by third parties, including Google's travel planner.^[17] BKK installed 250 new ticket and pass machines throughout Budapest.^[16] Due to the Budapest Taxi Ordinance introduced in 2013 at the initiative of the BKK, the taxi service was reformed, as part of which the uniform yellow color was introduced for taxis, the option to pay by bank card was made mandatory in all vehicles, and strict quality and environmental protection standards were introduced.^[18][19]

Despite all this, the personal relationship between Tarlós and Vitézy was strained. Following the 2014 Budapest mayoral election, when Tarlós was re-elected, Vitézy was dismissed as CEO of BKK on 3 December 2014. Tarlós argued that BKK under Vitézy lost its role and became an over-bloated, over-expanding, autonomous company that became independent from the General Assembly of Budapest. He ironically called Vitézy as a "young, repressed genius and one-man mastermind legend", who is "almost impossible to work with because of his personality", arguing that all the realized developments were included in Tarlós' 2008 urban development program. Vitézy was succeeded as CEO by Kálmán Dabóczi on 1 January 2015.^[20]

References