Hamburg local train tickets and passes

Hi,

Having recently moved to Hamburg with my wife (aunda, Art supplies in Hamburg) I've discovered the fantastic U- and S-Bahn systems. What I haven't discovered though is any real explanation of the various passes and tickets you can buy. Our complete and utter lack of German language skills (our first classes at the Volkshochschule begin shortly!) means that we can't read the HVV website (no English version for ticket/pass info) and everyone we've asked who lives here tells us that it's confusing and even they don't know. Could anyone illuminate us on the different passes you can buy (incl. student passes - apparantly if I see the student union and fill out some forms then my ISIC card is valid), what zones are, and all of those really important train things? Thanks!

It's important to work out how many zones you're going to be travelling through. This will save you cash if you're mainly using it for short, regular journeys. Obviously for greater Hamburg, it will cost more. I have a Monatskarte (Monthly ticket) that covers the whole of Hamburg as my journey to work goes through all the zones. Check out the map with the zones on the HVV website. You can buy weekly, daily, 3 day tickets too. I've never bought any of these in Hamburg, but as you probably know a single costs 2,50, so any saving on that is a bonus.

Can't help you with the student thing, sorry.

Aaah, I didn't know a single cost 2.50 - I've been getting the 1.55 one (Einzelfahrschein, I think). My usual trip is Reeperbahn to Dammtor, and I'd rarely go out of the inner Hamburg area. My wife, however, does need to go all over the place, but still not very often to the Greater Hamburg area. Where can I find the HVV map? I tried looking, but poor German and all ...

The 1.55 ticket only works for short journeys (I think it's normally 2 s/u-bahn stops, at least in the centre). This is shown on the big tables of destinations which you might find next to the ticket machines, a '2' means it's a short journey, '3' means you have to use a 2.50 ticket. However a day ticket, if you are travelling between 9am & 6pm or weekends, is usually cheaper than 2 singles. Called a 9-Uhr-Tageskarte, it's 4.90. A Gruppenkarte is the equivalent of this which up to 5 people can use.

Most of the time, you'll only need a Grossbereich ticket, however if you're going out on R- lines or the A-bahn, you may need a 3, 4, or even 5ring ticket.

If your employer has a ProfiCard deal, you can get a monthly ticket at reduced price, and it's taken from your salary. These let you take 1 person &kids with you free at the weekends.

The map is downloadable from: http://www.hvv.de/pdf/fahrplaene/schnellbahn-regio-plan.pdf

and there is a good planner at: http://www.hvv.de/fahrplaene-strecken/pers...rplan/index.php

Thank you! I'll check that out. The map doesn't have the zones on it, though, and the only one I've found that does is the one at the stations. I found geofox.de, which told me that my Reeperbahn-Dammtor trip is 1,55 EUR, so at least I haven't been using the wrong ticket.

Are monthly/weekly/other passes expensive? I try to walk as often as possible, but my wife might need a monthly pass or something as she uses the S- and U-Bahns a lot.

one advantage of having the monthly pass is not having to worry each day about whether or not you need a ticket. and hamburg is a bit too big to be able to walk everywhere. when i lived in munich, i sometimes bought week or monthly passes depending on how much travelling i did. that is probably your wifes first step. you should also know, the price of the pass gets cheaper the higher you go up. so a monthly ticket is cheaper than 4 week tickets. i don't live in hamburg, but it's the same everywhere.

i moved and because of my job, i have a monthly "job" ticket, which is subsizied by my company. it's actually a great deal cause i can even travel as far as kaisterslautern (65 km away) with this ticket and nearly the whole way to karlsruhe (about 70 km from mannheim). it covers quite a lot. normally, it would cost 125€ a month though.

If you use the hvv journey planner it also tells you how much a single ticket is, and if you click right under the price on Tarifberater then you find out what other tickets are also valid.

I paid 43euro for a monthly off-peak ticket, and now I have a Proficard which is about the same price but covers all day.

The other prices are here: http://www.hvv.de/fahrkarten/wochen-monats...rten/index.html
You can, if you're sure you'll be using them often, get a subscription card, which is then a bit cheaper but you need to keep it for a while (might be a year, I'm not sure).

Yeah, it's a confusing system. Even the zone map doesn't make much sense when you look at it for the first time. I've a monthly card that covers 2 zones at all times during the week and all zones at the weekend, plus at weekends I can bring a partner & 2 kids at no extra cost. Costs €43 per month. The best thing you could do, and this is what I did, is to visit the HVV customer desk in the main train station (Hauptbahnhof). They are friendly and if you tell them where you will be travelling within Hamburg they will tell you what the best options would be. There are alot of options. If your wife is flexible and can avoid peak time travel she can get a reduced cost ticket.

Edit:
Just following up on the pricelist. You can pay cash every month (Monatskarten) or you can setup a direct debit (Abonnement ticket) from your a/c. The latter can save a lot of money, I would have to pay €10 more if I just bought a ticket each month but I think you can't cancel within the first 12 months - not fully sure on this bit!

Important: if you decide to ride without a ticket (riding black) you risk getting done for €40. Inspectors seem to have regular purges on certain lines from time to time.

And here is the zone map... have fun trying to make sense of that!!

http://www.hvv.de/pdf/fahrplaene/tarifplan_alle-linien.pdf

Actually this is probably a better one to make sense of, but it's just for inner Hamburg

http://www.hvv.de/pdf/fahrplaene/tarifplan_alle-linien.pdf

Maybe helpful:

If you're lost somewhere and don't know wich is the fastest resp. shortest way home, or you just dont have a possibility to check any Fahrplanauskunft (time table information) you can use the SMS-Fahrplan-Service from geofox (also good to know, don't know if any different from the hvv site though: Geofox - also available in English and other languages).

You can send an SMS to Geofox and get a time table back via SMS within 5 minutes (usually instantly).

Type the address or station you want to go from and an exclamation mark, then the station or address you want to go to and exclamation mark. then you get the next available train/bus etc.
You can also add a time, if you don't want to go immediately.

Example:

You want to go from Mönckebergstraße 10 to Reeperbahn at 6 p.m.:
Mönckebergstrasse 10!Reeperbahn!18:00!

Send SMS to following numbers:

D1 net: 0175/3609999
D2net: 0173/8829999
E-Plus net: 0178/4554588
Viag/ O2 net: 0179/4534588

The cost is for a normal SMS (normally you have a cheaper tariff if you send a text within your own net)

The only hiccup: it shows you the closest station, so in the above example you are being sent from U3 station Mönckebergstraße to Landungsbrücken and then via S-Bahn to Reeperbahn, but normally it would be better to take a short walk from Mönckebergstraße to either Hauptbahnhof or Jungfernstieg and take the S-Bahn so you don't have to change.

However, I think it's a great service and really appreciate it, when my PC at home is switched off it's much faster to use the SMS service than boot the PC...

Thank you graham_d, Expat Mat, jester, Elfenstar, and Hammonia! That has made it all a lot easier to understand. Geofox really makes things easy too.

Just checking, does the 9 o'clock day ticket (4.90) work for travel all day after 9am? Similarly, does the whole-day ticket (5.80) work for the entire day? Cheers.

The whole day ticket is valid til 6:00 a.m. NEXT day and is for 1 adult plus up to 3 children. It is transferable.

The 9-o'clock-day ticket is valid from mo-fr 0:00 to 6:00 and from 9:00 til 6:00 a.m. next day. Sat, sun and holidays the whole day. It is for 1 adult plus up to 3 children. It's also transferable.

I do find the 9uhr ticket amazing, esp as I live in Klecken which is the last stop southbound that you can use it on (15 minutes on an RB from Harburg). It makes such a mockery of the charges in england. I have paid more to do a single minute journey from Burgess Hill to Haywards Heath

For real amazement try the Schones Wochenende Ticket 28€ from a machine and several adults (up to 5?) can go anywhere in Germany for the day (albeit on slow trains only). Similar value from the Schleswig Holstein and Mecklenbergvorpommerm tickets as well.

Hi mrloop, mmm I'd forgotten about that ticket. My wife used to use it a lot back in 95-97 when she was studying over here. Apparently back then it worked for the whole weekend. I haven't heard of the other two you mention.