I've been buying our Deutsche Bahn tickets for legs of our trips where IC trains are advisable, and have been purchasing the spar preis instead of the super sparpreis because they are cancellable (- a ten euro fee and then you get a voucher usable for the next three years) and they come with a city ticket at the beginning and end of the trip. I'm wondering about how straight forward it is to use the city ticket, which allows use of public transportation in the cities in question. Does one have to use it right after the train has arrived? What if one got on at a stop quite a bit away from the train station? How far can one use it? The description of its use seem kind of vague from what I've seen.
Posted by
Augsburg, Bavaria
2338 posts
It's true, the rules are a little obscure. But you can know with a little effort: In DB's list of cities participating in the City Ticket (download the PDF) you will find the city areas in which the ticket is valid; you can then check the details with the individual city transport authorities. However, this effort is unnecessary, because there applies a simple rule: the ticket is valid for the entire city area. For example, Munich: it is valid in zones 1-4, but not for MVV destinations outside the city area, e.g. Dachau.
Can you provide a list of destinations in question? we surely can help.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19099 posts
Munich: it is valid in zones 1-4, but not for MVV destinations outside the city area, e.g. Dachau.
SLA, you're confusing me. If the city ticket is valid for MVV zones 1-4, why would it not be valid for Dachau, which is in zone 2, just barely outside zone 1.
Or, instead of zones 1-4, did you mean Rings 1-4, which make up the Innenraum, or Zone 1, in Munich. See Munich tariff ring map.
Except for the Freising and the airport, KZ-Gedenkstätte in Dachau, and the air museum in Oberschleißheim, almost everywhere to stay and everything to see in Munich is in Rings 1-4.
Update: I see the City-Ticket Tarifgebiete to which you referred says Innenraum Munich, so it is Zone 1, or Rings 1-4. Just for reference, none of the trams and only a little bit of one U-Bahn line, U6 to Garching, go out of the Innenraum.
Posted by
Augsburg, Bavaria
2338 posts
SLA, you're confusing me.
Sorry, that was non my intention. You are correct, it's rings not zones. I'm always confusing them (without risk since I always have a Gesamtraum ticket).
Posted by
OP
Greater Sacramento
571 posts
Sla, thanks for link of validity area. What I'm wondering about are the following scenarios. In Dresden we will use the city ticket to get from either Dresden Neustadt or Hauptbahnhof to our hotel in the Altstadt. No confusion there. The question is, could we still use the ticket, say three or four hours later, but on that same day, to get from the Altstadt to somewhere else in Dresden. By that time there really is no linkage of our use of Dresden public transportation with our original train trip, so would that still work? In another case we will have use of it in Nuremberg, but may end up walking to our hotel, so again could we use it after that point, in which case our IC bus trip from Prague might have been possibly several hours in the past?
Posted by
Germany
268 posts
The city ticket is valid for one trip to your departure station, and one trip from your arrival station to the final destination of your journey. As you are the one who decides where your final destination is, and as the terms and conditions do not say that you have to leave the station immediately after your train arrives (as confirmed here: https://community.bahn.de/questions/1305250-city-ticket-gleich-anschluss-ganzen-1-geltungstag), you do have a bit of leeway. However, I would consider going from your hotel to somewhere else in the same town as a different trip. This is unlikely to be enforced. But say you end up going towards the train station with the ticket that is supposed to get you away from the station: good luck explaining that to a ticket inspector!
Also: Pay attention if you use the city ticket in Berlin. It is not valid in the entire city, but only within the S-Bahn ring line. This covers the area relevant to most tourists, but there are sights outside that zone.