Prepaid tickets will be added to regional bus transport

Travel for regular passengers in bus regional transport will be more advantageous. As part of the gradual introduction of an integrated transport system, self-governing regions in the east of Slovakia will launch subscription tickets and transfer tickets. The changes will take effect in August.

Bus transport in eastern Slovakia is awaiting changes in the types and rates of fares. The Košice and Prešov self-governing regions will introduce the so-called zone tariff, which will bring news such as a transfer ticket or a time subscription ticket from daily to annual. The new tariff will bring benefits especially to regular passengers.

“Regional buses are used by thousands of regular passengers every day for transportation to school and work, who have not yet been compensated for this. The change in the tariff will be advantageous precisely for these passengers, as we will expand the offer of tickets with advantageous subscription fares. The more they travel, the less they pay per trip. This is a proven way to make traveling by public transport more attractive and to motivate passengers to use public transport more often,” said the president of the Košice self-governing region, Rastislav Trnka.

The territory of eastern Slovakia will be divided into tariff zones, while the price of the fare will depend on the number of zones passed. Subscription tickets will be available in different variants – such as one-day, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly. The territorial validity of such tickets will be determined by the selected tariff zones, with the exception of full-network tickets, which will be valid throughout the territory of eastern Slovakia.

“The tariff change brings several practical advantages. In addition to subscription tickets, it is mainly a one-time transfer ticket for a pair of connections, thanks to which a passenger with a transport card pays the same price for a journey with a transfer as for a direct connection. The zone tariff, which we will apply to bus transport in the first phase, will finally create the possibility of expanding the integration to rail transport and urban transport so that at the end of the day, easterners can travel by public transport in our part of Slovakia with one ticket,” said the president of the Prešov self-governing region, Milan Majerský.

The regions warn that, with regard to shortening the time of processing passengers, transfer and subscription tickets will be exclusive for a transport card use.

The purchase of a one-time non-transferable ticket will remain the same as before, but the price differences will be higher when paying with a transport card versus paying with cash or a bank card. For more favorable fares, the regions therefore recommend that even occasional travelers get a transport card. The currently used transport cards (including the ISIC card) remain valid. The changes will take effect in August.

TS: KSK, PSK, IDS Východ