[German: Der öffentliche Verkehr in Wien]
Every city has its good points and its bad points. The public transport system is definitely one of Vienna’s good points. Cheap, frequent, fast, clean, efficient, and rarely overcrowded.
- Wiener Linien is the municipal transport authority
- Their tickets and passes cover all city train and subway services and nearly all tram and bus services
- Buy network passes for cheap, peace-of-mind travel
- Book a Vienna Welcome Card* travel pass
- See also:
- The Vienna Pass (sightseeing pass with travel card option)
- The Transport Museum
- Hop on Hop off buses
How the system works
(The latest generation of Viennese trams)
The four main forms of transport are U-Bahn (subway), Schnellbahn or S-Bahn (local train), Straßenbahn (tram) and Autobus (bus).
Vienna works on an honesty system with no ticket barriers at stations and no formal, permanent ticket checks on the subway, local trains, trams and buses. You just jump on and off.
This doesn’t mean public transport is free, though. You do need to buy a ticket.
Now I daresay you may be wondering why you’d bother buying a ticket. And you wouldn’t be the first to think that.
Leaving the ethics and legality aside for the moment, a lack of formal ticket checks does not mean there are no ticket checks.
You may encounter a conductor wandering down the city train. Or run into spotchecks at the end of a subway platform. Or find the unassuming gentleman next to you on the tram pulling out his transport authority ID and asking to see everyone’s “Fahrschein.”
These undercover agents are impossible to spot and they’ve heard all the excuses before. Travelling without a ticket incurs a fine, not to mention a whole heap of embarrassment.
So, yeah, buy a ticket.
How do tickets work?
Nearly all forms of public transport fall more or less under the same municipal organization (the fabulous Wiener Linien), so the tickets or network passes you buy are independent of your mode of travel.
If you buy a single ticket from A to B, for example, it doesn’t matter if you take the tram, city train, subway, or catch the bus. Or use all four to make the journey (provided you don’t take any detours or long breaks).
There are very few services you can’t use with a ticket or pass (mainly selected airport transfer services, the Westbahn rail service, and tourist services like the hop on hop off sightseeing buses).
If you have children, those under six do not need a ticket. Trams, buses, and subway also remain free until the end of the academic year where the child turns six.
Those under fifteen qualify for reduced-price single tickets.
Under 15s go free on Wiener Linien’s trams, buses and subway trains if it’s a Sunday, public holiday or official school vacation period in Vienna (e.g. the summer holidays). This applies to all nationalities, not just locals.
(The U stands for U-Bahn and indicates a subway station entrance)
Which tickets should you buy?
Sightseeing and tourist discount passes for Vienna may come with an integrated travel component that saves you having to organise public transport tickets separately. For example:
- The Vienna Pass (my review) is a 1, 2, 3 or 6-day sightseeing pass that offers one-time free entry to numerous attractions. You can add on a 24, 48 or 72-hour network travel card if ordering a physical pass (rather than a smartphone one)
- The Vienna Welcome Card (my review) is a new pass that works as a 24 hrs, 48 hrs, 72 hrs or 7-day network travel card that includes discounts or similar deals on additional transport options like taxis and scooters as well as on selected attractions
- The Vienna City Card (my review) is a 24, 48 or 72-hour or 7-day network travel card for the city that also qualifies you for numerous discounts across a 7-day period
Otherwise, Wiener Linien offers various alternatives to fit your needs…
Standard tickets & network cards
Buy your tickets from ticket offices in the main stations, ticket machines in stations, the Wiener Linien online store or app, and (for some very basic tickets) from Trafik newsagents/tobacconists.
Machines on trams also sell some tickets, provided you have the coins (the transport authority is migrating to multilingual ticket machines for trams with cashless payment options, but this may take a while before every vehicle has converted).
Some of the tickets you buy need to be validated in a stamping machine before boarding. Whether you need to do so should be relatively clear from the ticket.
You validate a ticket by putting it face up into the yellow or orange slot on the small boxes (see photo for an example) you find in trams and buses, and at the entrances to U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations and platforms.
(Trains don’t have validation boxes on board.)
Tip: If you get lost or forgot where your hotel is, show your stamped ticket to a tram driver or station attendant. They can often tell you where you stamped your ticket, so you can retrace your journey back to the beginning.
Wiener Linien has a lot of ticket options for travelling around Vienna. Here are the main ones of interest to visitors (at the time of writing). Check the Wiener Linien website for up-to-date details on alternatives, prices, conditions, where to buy tickets, online purchase options, etc.
- Single ticket (Einzelfahrschein): Once validated at or for point A, lets you travel to any point B within Vienna. The only restriction is the journey must be direct, with no pause. You can change buses, trams and trains as you need, provided you’re taking a continuous journey to your destination
- 24/48/72-hour network card (24/48/72 Stunden Wien): The relevant time period starts from the moment you first validate the ticket (or the time you specify if buying online). In that period, you can go where you like, as often as you like, within the city limits
- 7 Tage WIEN network pass: Entitles you to city-wide travel for a seven-day period with a starting day you choose
- 31 Tage WIEN network pass: Entitles you to city-wide travel for a 31-day period with a starting day you choose
Tip: I recommend you buy one of the network passes, a Vienna Welcome Card or a Vienna City Card. They save you money once you make more than a couple of trips in a day, and simply make life easier.
A few important notes:
- The network cards and passes are transferable; they’re valid for the bearer and not for any one particular person, unless they carry your name (which is the case when purchased online)
- The weekly and monthly passes do not require stamping since they come marked with the period of validity in question. Same for 24/48/72-hour network cards purchased online
- At the time of writing, a 72-hour network card costs only a little less than the 7-day network pass. So consider the latter as a strong option
Incidentally…if you move permanently to Vienna, the annual pass costs €1 a day, which is the definition of cheap travel. Over one million passengers have such a pass.
And the Viennese are big public transport users: surveys reveal, for example, that around 70% take the bus, tram and/or subway daily or several times a week.
In total, some 34% of all journeys made by locals in the city are on public transport (compared with 25% in a car).
The quality of the system, which carries almost 2.4 million passengers a day, is one reason Vienna ranks so highly on global livability surveys.
If your interest in Vienna’s municipal transport goes beyond the practicalities of tickets and getting around the city, then drop into the Wiener Linien museum.
Travel zone validity
One final note…
City-wide travel means exactly that. The Vienna city zone covers just about anywhere you’re likely to go as a visitor. You’ll probably only leave it if you visit one of the surrounding towns or villages. Note that Vienna airport is outside the city transport zone. For details, see: