Today we are raising the theme of public transport in Bratislava.
For many people, especially for people from the countries of the former Soviet Union, there is an opinion that without a car it is very difficult to move around. And for our countries this is really true. Our public transport is malfunctioning, its technical condition is better, it goes with interruptions and not always on time, there are a lot of people in the transport and so on.
Let’s see how things are with public transport in Slovakia. In Slovakia, in order to move around the city or between the cities of Europe, it is not necessary to have a car, because public transport works perfectly here.
Public transport in Slovakia runs right by the minutes, it is very convenient, it is ecological and very simple to use.
Therefore, most people use public transport. There is also a problem, especially in the central part of the city, it is a problem with parking a car. Parking is very expensive, for example, in Bratislava, in the center cities, one hour of parking costs 3 Euros. Therefore, count if you arrived at a business meeting for an hour, then Ok, but if for a whole working day, for 8 hours, that for 3 Euros, it comes out very expensive.
But this does not mean that the car can not be used at all. Of course, you need a car, especially if you have a big family, children, you need to go to the shopping center, buy food, or you are a businessman and you need to be mobile, travel all over Europe, or you like to just travel, then in such cases you need a car . By distance to Budapest, from Bratislava, 200 km, to Prague 320 km, and to Vienna 80 km. Therefore, movement between countries in the European Union is like moving at home between regions.
So, we return to the question of how public transport works in Slovakia, how to buy a ticket, how to buy a travel ticket, how to look at a route, and what penalty will threaten you if you have not bought a ticket.
Travel documents, tickets are purchased in special machines that are installed at public transport stops. They come in a new model, sensory, ultramodern and old model, mechanical. But the principle of the ticket purchase algorithm is the same on all machines. On touch machines you can choose language of the machine menu and this greatly facilitates the use of the machine for foreigners. The ticket is bought for the time you spent on the road, and the cost depends on the area of ticket use. There are several zones in Bratislava. The whole city is covered by two zones, the first and second, all other zones, this is the remoteness of cities from Bratislava. At each stop there is a map and if you need to go out of town, you can see in which zone your final destination is. The minimum ticket price, for an adult, is 15 minutes on the road, 70 Cents. The ticket is valid for all types of public transport, and you can even switch from one route to another, from a bus to a tram or trolley. And your ticket will be valid all the time for which you purchased it from the moment you validate it when boarding the first mode of transport. There are tickets for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour and the whole day. There are tickets for adults, there are for children and senior citizens. When buying a ticket, you can pay with a coin machine or credit card. You can also purchase a monthly pass, or three at once. A monthly pass costs 27 Euros, for three months 72 Euros. The site https://www.dpb.sk has a list of places where you can buy a travel card. It is issued once every four years, there is your photo on the travel card, so transferring it to another does not work, and in the future you simply replenish it at special points of sale or using a credit card and the Internet. If you don’t travel very often, but don’t want to buy tickets all the time, that is, a prepaid card for which you deposit money and pay for the fare directly in the vehicle, applying it to the composter and choosing the desired fare (travel time). Payment from such a card is more profitable than buying a ticket. Savings from 10%.
You can also buy a ticket using SMS on your phone. At each stop, a phone number and SMS text is written to remove the necessary sum from you for the proposed trip. Money is withdrawn from your mobile account and the ticket starts from the moment you send SMS. Therefore, it is correct to send SMS before boarding the public transport.
You can also pay for travel using the special IDS BK mobile application on your phone. This application can be installed on your phone, make some kind of bag of money there and make a fare payment in the application itself. In the same application, you can get directions if you know which stop you need to leave and which stop you need to get to. With that on this application, you can see the Bratislava public transport movement per minute.
Another very important question that the guests of Bratislava are faced with is how to use the right program, and with what program, to get directions from point A to point B? There are several options. The easiest way is when you come to a stop and look at the schedule of the necessary transport on the schedule, it is at every stop. The schedule shows the arrival time at this stop and a list of stops from where the transport arrived and where it goes on. But you will not see the connection if you have a transfer route.
The next option for laying a route, which we recommend our customers use, is Google Maps. In the beginning of 2017, these maps began to support the Slovak public transport schedule. When you set the desired address, Google Maps will show where the nearest stop is, how long to get to it, how many minutes there will be the necessary transport, where you need to change trains and how much time it will take you all.
We also recommend downloading the Ubian application or IDS BK, which we already wrote about above. They perfectly pave the way through them. You can pay the fare.
You can also refer to one of the types of public transport bikes for hire. There are automatic bike rental points throughout Bratislava where you can, by downloading a special application on your phone and paying a deposit, get a bike unlock code and get to the right place in such an ecological way. The final calculation will take place at the moment when you return the bike to the rental point at the end point of your trip. You can see the map with such rental points on the map of the special application.
What other features of using public transport exist?
The purchased ticket is invalid until you have validated it. You can buy a ticket today, and use it later, if necessary.
Doors in public transport themselves do not open at stops. There are special buttons on the doors, both inside and outside. This is done in order to keep the climate inside the vehicle cool from the air conditioner in the summer and warm in the winter.
Also on the door there is a special button, a sign of a disabled person. When this button is pressed, the driver exits to help the disabled passenger get into or out of the vehicle. In public transport there are special places for strollers, you can fix it and safely reach your destination.
You can transport your bike for free on public transport. There are special places for this. You can transport one bike in one transport. And if you see that someone is already riding a bicycle, then you need to wait for the next transport.
There are also places for strollers.
Transport operates around the clock. The interval between the arrival of the transport of one number to the stop is very short, from a couple of minutes. But it happens up to an hour, depending on the route, a working day or a day off and day or night. At night, transport often runs only on the main routes, and on the secondary interval more, sometimes up to an hour between transports.
In transport there is free WiFi.
It is possible to charge the phone.
In public transport, controllers work, which in appearance do not differ from ordinary passengers.
The penalty for traveling without a ticket is 50 Euro if you pay immediately and 80 Euro if I write you a fine to pay later.
We wish you not to fall into such situations.
Come to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, in this cozy, interesting and beautiful city.
