In such a small country like the Netherlands where you can drive from North to South or East to West in 3 hours, it’s not a big deal if you don’t have your own car (or can’t afford one!!). Go with public transport and forget about traffic jam!

Together with Amsterdam, Rotterdam is the city which has the most convenient public transportation with bus, tram, metro and taxi. The network of bus, tram and metro covers almost the whole city and suburbs.

In the city you can easily find tram stops or metro stations in the neighbourhood. They cover main streets. For metro, there are 2 lines Erasmuslijn (or blue line) which travels north-southand and Calandlijn (red line) goes east-west. The crossing point of those 2 lines is at Beurs – the shopping centre. You can change to different direction here. It depends on time, the average frequency of metro is 6-7 times/hour. In rush hours (7:00-8:00 in the morning and 16:00-17:00in the afternoon) the frequency is higher in order to transport people to work, school and back.

There are about 10 lines of tram, they spread to busy areas which don’t have metros. The convenience of tram is that it’s mostly closer to your house than metro. However the average frequency of tram is about 3 or 4 times/hour, and it’s really annoying for somebody who is not very patient when trams sometimes don’t follow the timetables correctly.

Bus, of course, carries people who live in likely “remote” or “less busy” areas. I am not gonna choose bus if there is another transport because for most of buses, their frequency is only twice an hour. Imagine you miss a bus in seconds and you have to wait another half an hour. However Nachtbus – night bus is a very good solution for “going out and going home late” people. They transport people even when it’s 3:00 or 4:00 in the mornings when there is no other public transport.

The last one is taxi “expensive and available at any time”. Taxi is also convenient if you need to carry big stuffs. Picking you up in front of your door and bring you to wherever you want to, just perfect for moving but expensive.

Another thing can’t forget about public transport “strippenkaart”- ticket. For bus, tram and metro you can use the same kind of ticket, you stamp it according to how many zones you travel. Automatic ticket machines are available at all metro stations, or you can buy tickets in post offices, RET customer service points, supermarkets. Don’t forget to have valid ticket otherwise you have to pay 30 euro for a penalty if you are caught by controllers.

For more information, check out www.ret.rotterdam.nl

For public transport planner, go to www.92920v.nl