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Regular tickets in Germany


Regular tickets in Germany

Old (keypad) and new (touchscreen) DB ticket machines
Old (keypad) and new (touchscreen) DB ticket machines
There are a few locations you can book your tickets:
  • Online. The engine will automatically look up the cheapest possible fares according your requirements, including any applicable early-booking discounts. Pay online, print out your ticket, bring it along and you can ride (you must print the ticket on paper, showing it on a computer screen is not acceptable).
  • At a vending machine. If already at the station, find a new (touchscreen) ticket machine, tap the British/UK flag, and then navigate through the menus. Like the online engine, they will automatically suggest the fastest routes, and credit cards are accepted. The machines sell all DB train tickets including some international tickets, network tickets and tickets for local VB. The new touchscreen machines accept credit cards, but the old ones do not. Ticket machines for the local Verkehrsverbund are yellow, white or gray. They can be used on all local transport in the area, including DB trains, but are not valid outside it. On secondary routes, vending machines placed inside trains are becoming a common sight, usually leaving smaller stations without vending machines. If a station is not equipped with a vending machine, you are allowed to buy your ticket inside the train. If there is no vending machine either, you are obliged to ask staff what to do: the same applies if the ticket machine is not working.
  • At a manned ticket counter. Head to any major train station (Hauptbahnhof) and find the Reisezentrum. You will need to queue and pay a small surcharge. It is quite uncommon to buy tickets at the counter, because ticket machines are situated at least at all medium-sized and large train stops.
  • On the train. If in a hurry, just run onto the train and grab any non-reserved seat, then buy a ticket from the conductor for about 10% extra. Almost all conductors and every main conductor, called the Zugchef ("Train Boss"), speak English. However, tickets are not sold on local trains so you need to buy them at the station. Signs on the platform or on the train itself saying Einstieg nur mit gültigem Fahrausweis mean that you have to have a ticket before you board or pay €40 extra. Drivers on buses and trams, though, usually do sell tickets, but the assortment may be limited .
  • Now, if you're traveling on local trains, things can get confusing. The basic unit of confusion is the Verkehrsverbund (VB), or "tariff union", which is basically a region around a large city that has a single tariff system. Examples include VBB around Berlin and RMV around Frankfurt. Any travel within a single Verkehrsverbund is "local" and usually quite cheap; but any travel between Verkehrsverbunds requires either a special (within North Rhine-Westphalia) or the full DB fare and will usually be considerably more expensive. The catch is that DB trains often cross between Verkehrsverbunds with no warning at all, and your "local" ticket stops being valid the instant you cross the invisible line. With many local machines and old DB machines, figure out the four-digit code for your destination, found on a panel of densely packed print nearby. Poke the flag button to switch to English, punch in the code for your destination station on the keypad, then hit the appropriate button in the left ("adult") row below to pick your ticket. The first button is always one-way single (Einzelfahrausweis). A price will be displayed: feed in your money (quickly, since the timeout is quite fast, and the machine will spit out your tickets and change. For new blue DB machines, select the local tariff union in the top menu, and the rest is easy. If you buy a local VB ticket, you will usually have to validate it by timestamping it at the bright yellow punch machines located on platforms. If you have no valid ticket or an unpunched ticket, you will be fined as a fare dodger. Ticket validity varies randomly from one VB to another: usually, there is either a zone system (the further you travel, the more you pay), a time system (the longer you travel, the more you pay), or most commonly a combination of these two. Unlimited transfers between trains, buses, etc. are usually allowed as long as your ticket remains valid. Discounts may be given for return trips, and one-day tickets (Tageskarte) are usually cheaper and much less hassle that single tickets, although zone limits apply to them as well. You can often pick up brochures attempting to explain all this, usually with helpful maps, and occasionally even in English, at a local Reisezentrum (ticket office). Regional train tickets are point-to-point, with the destinations written on the ticket. They are valid on only trains (but in North-Rhine Westphalia, they are also on certain other means of public transport), although for long-distance tickets, you may have the option to add on a local transport ticket at your destination for a few euro extra.

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    Germany Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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