Public Transport

In Landau and its surroundings you travel within Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (VRN), the regional public transport company for Rheinland-Pfalz. To get to Karlsruhe and surroundings, you travel within Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund (KVV).
Your UniCard (your student ID card) serves as a partial semester ticket, which is valid Mon to Fri nights 19:00 pm to 5:00 am and all day on weekends (Sat, Sun) and bank holidays.  Please, be aware your UniCard needs to be validated! The partial semester ticket allows you to use buses and regional trains (RE, RB, but not ICE, IC or EC!) within a defined area of the VRN net and the KVV net. Mind that public holidays can vary from federal state to federal state and your partial semester ticket can be valid, e.g., on All Saints day 1 November in Rhineland-Palatinate, but not in the neighbouring federal state of Hesse, which is also covered by the partial semester ticket.

If you want to use the public transport on a regular basis outside these times, you can opt for a full semester ticket which is available at DB selling booths, e.g., at the main station in Landau, but also online. Depending on where you are living or where you regularly need to travel, you either opt for a VRN or a KVV semester ticket (ca. 185 euro).

The semester ticket covers an area  from Zweibrücken to Heidelberg, but also Alzey, Worms, and even Würzburg in Bavaria. Please, have your passport with you, which is usually asked for when your semester ticket is checked by VRN or KVV staff on the train or bus. The map shows the area in which the partial and the full semester ticket are valid.

You can always ask in the local tourist information centers or DB selling booths whether there are possibilities to travel at lower prices within the city or in the region. Group tickets for five people valid for one day can be bought in most cities for local travel as well as regional travel with trains, buses or trams / tube trains / metros (known as U-Bahn and S-Bahn in Germany).

Rail Service

The rail services in Germany – like in most countries – are provided by a single company that was privatized in 1994, the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG). The railway system is subdivided into different zones and associations of transport companies, around Landau, you travel with the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (VRN) or Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund (KVV).

If you have a smartphone with Internet activated on your network, you can also access all the time-tables and routes anywhere on the go. You can plan your travel with precise information about the bus connections, along with the routes where you must walk or take a taxi to reach a certain destination, with accurate animations provided on the VRN website. The Deutsche Bahn also offers some useful apps for free download, which keep you updated with the railway schedules all the time.

You can order tickets online if you have a credit card. If you prefer to buy your ticket at the railway station, you can go to the ticket counter or the ticket machine. Getting on a train without a ticket can be an expensive experience. Please do not forget to buy a ticket first. Tickets are randomly checked by the conductor.
Deutsche Bahn offers different pricing schemes to special groups: People who travel a lot are recommended to buy a Bahncard, groups or families of at least six people can take a Gruppenticket. If you are travelling within one of the German States you can buy a Länderticket. With the new Deutschlandticket, you can take the regional trains (not IC, ICE, or EC!) and busses to travel throughout Germany 24/7 for 49 euro per month. Mind, Deutschlandticket is a subscription: if you no longer need it, you need to cancel it in time. For detailed information, please refer to the ticket counters at the railway stations, or the Internet.
For almost all connections you can choose between faster (and therefore more expensive) connections and slower ones. If you take a highspeed train like the ICE (Inter-City-Express), the IC (Intercity), or the EC (Eurocity), you pay an extra charge. The RB (Regionalbahn), RE (Regionalexpress) as well as the S-Bahn (Schnellbahn) are slower, stop more often, and are less expensive. In the faster trains it is possible to reserve a seat for an extra charge. You can also choose the class in which you like to travel. In the first class you enjoy more comfort and less stress, but you pay significantly more than in second class. Both first and second class have nonsmoking compartments.

Bus Service

Bus Company:

The bus service in and around Landau is offered by different companies. You have access to route maps and bus line schedules on the website of Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar VRN.

For your convenience, it is recommended to install their mobility app myVRN.

Tickets:

As an enrolled student you can use the buses in and around Landau for free on mondays to fridays 7 pm to 5 am, and all day on weekends and bank holidays. Your UniCard serves as a partial semester ticket.
If you use buses and regional trains throughout the week and also during daytime, you can opt for a semester ticket at ca. 185 euro per semester.

Note: If you are not (yet) enrolled, you have to pay for each ride! Therefore, you can buy a single ticket directly from the bus driver. Otherwise, you can go to the service center at the train station in Landau or use the SWK Info Center and buy a monthly ticket. If you work at the university (as an assistant or post-doc, etc.) you can buy a ticket for employees of the university. It costs 34.30 euro per month.

Reaching Your Destination:

When entering the bus just present your ticket to the bus driver. Get on the bus, show / buy your ticket and sit down (if there are empty places). Before arriving at your destination, press the bus halt switch for the station where you want to get off the bus. Please do not press this button until l you are close to the station you want to leave the bus! Get off the bus and check when there will be a return bus. Please consider that at the weekends or at night the buses run at different times or not at all!