A woman uses the ticket machine

Tariff zones, regions & fare categories

Tariff zones, cells and short journeys form the basis for calculating prices in the network area. A tariff zone generally comprises a city or several small towns / districts and is constituted of one of more cells. Each connection within the VRR area is allocated a price category. In addition to short journeys there are the price categories A, B, C and D. Children under the age of seven generally travel for free. Discounted ticket prices are available for children from the ages of seven to 14.

Document on fares and prices

Fares and prices 

VRR operating area

VRR fare categories

Short trips

With a Kurzstrecken-Ticket (short trip ticket) you can generally travel up to three stations or 1.5 kilometres away. They are valid for 20 minutes from the time of validation, and are exclusively for direct trips. You may only use short trip tickets in buses, trams and underground railways (U-Bahn), however not on regional express trains (RE), regional trains (RB), or urban railways (S-Bahn).

Fare category A

Fare category A is generally valid for trips within a city or town.
A1 in smaller cities and towns
A2 in eleven larger towns and cities with good public transport networks: Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Herne, Krefeld, Mönchengladbach, Mülheim, Neuss/Kaarst, Oberhausen, Remscheid, Solingen
A3 in five large cities with very dense and high-quality local transport service: Bochum, Dortmund, Essen, Düsseldorf und Wuppertal

Fare category B

In fare category B, select a central fare zone from which you can travel into the directly adjacent fare zones. Note that the central fare zone does not need to be the fare zone in which you reside.

Fare category C

Fare category C covers moderate travel distances. You can choose between 19 different regions within the VRR network.

Fare category D

With tickets of fare category D, you can travel anywhere within the entire VRR network.

Travelling into the Netherlands

[Translate to English:] Fahrten in die Niederlande

Travel information for Dutch cities

Information on journeys to Arnhem

  • Available line: RE 19 (Düsseldorf - Duisburg - Oberhausen - Dinslaken - Wesel - Arnhem)
  • There are ticket vending machines in Arnhem Centraal or Zevenaar.
  • The journey to Arnhem is included in the regional VRR semester ticket for the region “North”.
  • A semester ticket from the region “South” must be supplemented with an additional ticket.
  • Holders of a VRR NRW semester ticket do not need any additional ticket

Information on journeys to Venlo

  • Available lines: RE 13 (Hamm – Unna – Hagen – Wuppertal – Düsseldorf – Mönchengladbach – Viersen – Venlo) and 929 (Duisburg main station – Moers – Straelen – Venlo)
  • There are two Transdev/Abellio ticket vending machines in the Venlo train station that offer VRR tickets. There also is a validator for existing BarTarif tickets
  • Regional VRR semester tickets of the North and South regions also cover the journey to Venlo (but the NRW-SemesterTicket does not)
  • The VRR tariff continues to take customers to Venlo and allows use of the buses operated by Arriva in Venlo. Journeys within Venlo that are operated by the traffic company Arriva, which operates town transport in Venlo, exclusively, continue to be subject to the Dutch tariff.

Information on journeys to Nijmegen

  • Available line: SB 58 (Emmerich – Kleve – Kranenburg – Nijmegen Centraal Station – Nijmegen, HAN)
  • The ticket can be purchased right from the bus driver.
  • Nijmegen is part of the regional VRR semester ticket for the region “North”
  • A semester ticket from the region “South” must be supplemented with an additional ticket
  • Holders of a VRR NRW semester ticket do not need any additional ticket
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