St. Petersburg administration has introduced new kinds of travel cards for the city’s public transport which are in effect as of January 1, 2017. The general idea behind them is an attempt to shift residents from paying for a single trip to using travel cards and passes. If you will prefer single trip payment instead of buying cards, you will pay through the nose.
The news No. 1 for all residents and guests here is that travel cards are not just cheaper than buying a ticket for a single trip from a check taker or a token at a ticket office at subway. They are much cheaper.
Just compare:
— a metro trip by token costs 45 rubles while a trip by the Podorozhnik travel card costs 36 (or less depending on a number of trips). Of course, the Podorozhnik itself costs 60 rubles, but anyway you’re likely to make more than one trip.
— a tram, bus or trolleybus trip costs 31 rubles by Podorozhnik against 40 rubles if you buy a ticket from a check taker.
So, if you are going to stay here for a few days and getting around the city by public transport, consider buying the Podorozhnik. We wrote about where to buy the card and other details of St. Petersburg public transport in our post here.
The news No. 2: for the first time, the St. Petersburg public transport system gets time limited travel passes for 1 to 7 days. They are valid for every transport mode including metro and give you unlimited travel across them.
All main St. Petersburg travel cards and travel passes and fares for 2017 are listed in our post here. You can download information on fares and travel cards of St. Petersburg as a PDF file.
We calculated to figure it out whether time limited travel passes are attractive for visitors or not. We came to conclusion that if you are going to make at least three trips by public transport a day, it makes sense to buy a time limited ticket. The exception is only a 1-day travel pass which starts to payback from 5th trip by metro or 6th trip by bus (tram, trolleybus) or somewhere in between if you combine subway and ground transport.
Just make your own calculations what’s the best for you, the Podorozhnik travel card or a time limited travel pass, it entirely depends on number of trips you make.
Read also our post on St. Petersburg’s subway system.