Is it possible to buy tickets for one transport association on the territory of another?
My family will be travelling to the Rhineland in the summer, and I am just beginning to get to grips with the idea of "Verkehrsverbünde", or transport associations. As far as I understand, these offer advantageous tickets over a fixed geographic area, including "Minigroup" tickets that would be excellent for my family (3 adults + 1 child).
On longer journeys, one can travel over the territory of multiple transport associations in a single journey, even without a change of train. In these situations, the cheapest options appears to be to be the purchase of multiple tickets, one for each association.
For example, on a trip from Koblenz to Cologne, one could buy a day ticket as far as Unkel (Minigruppenkarte, VRM association), and then another from there to Cologne (Tagesticket 5 Personen, VRS assocation).
Is it possible to purchase these tickets at stations outside of their respective territories? I am aware of possibilities for print-at home and mobile tickets etc, but this seems to be a bit of a pain (downloading apps, printing tickets, and so on...)
Best Answer
Congratulation! By digging into the world of public transport associations (Verkehrsverbünde) you have reached the Holy Grail of German ticketing art. I have a degree in transport system planning and am still struggling with this from time to time. (Having said that, Verkehrsbünde are seen as a main step in history of German public transport and make a lot of sense if you don't cross their borders.)
- Ticket sales policies differ between the associations. Some offer online ticketing.
- I am aware you wanted offline solutions. Anyway, you may want to consider to download the 'DB Navigator' app, which provides up to date travel information and - for some associations - ticketing options. You wouldn't need to print the ticket purchased through the app, but you need to create a profile on www.bahn.de first.
- The VRM is a particularly slow Verkehrsverbund and doesn't provide online ticketing options.
So what are we left with?
- As far as I know, you are not able to buy a Verkehrsverbundticket at a counter or machine outside of the association's territory.
- You can buy tickets a couple of days in advance though.
That means that in your particular case you could do the following:
- Before leaving Koblenz for Cologne, get offline VRM tickets for both traveling days.
- Get the VRS tickets online.
- Done.
You can save also the headache: The "Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket" is valid in regional trains all over Germany https://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/regio/qdl.shtml
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Answer 2
If you travel with Deutsche Bahn, they offer a City mobil ticket:
City mobil is your local public transport ticket that you can easily add to your DB ticket purchase.
You have a choice between:
- A single ticket that lets you travel from your destination station to your final destination (or vice versa from the place you are staying to the departure station)
- A day ticket for an unlimited number of trips following the trip with the DB ticket The period of validity differs from place to place (in some cases longer than 24 hours) and is specified on the ticket.
The ticket is only available for a limited number of cities and only for part of the Verkehrsverbund, usually just the fare zone around the train station. (It is similar to the City-Ticket for customers with a BahnCard.)
Booking online, you can select it at the "Tickets & options" step.
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