Public transportation in Bratislava

A ticket machine in Bratislava

Bratislava has a public transport system of buses, trams and trolleybuses, which run at regular intervals according to pre-defined timetables. Most of the public transport stops are well-marked, including the name of the stop and the timetable with a list of all its destinations. All tram numbers are lower than 20, buses are marked 20-199, and trolleybuses are with numbers starting with 200. Bratislava also has a good system of night buses which start with an N (N91, N80 etc.). They start at 11:30 pm and usually run every (half) hour. Some bus stops are “request only” which means you need to push a STOP button inside the vehicle before the stop. These stops are marked “na znamenie” in Slovak. All night bus stops are request only.

If you want to plan your journey in the city of Bratislava, we recommend you do it via the imhd.sk website (now also available as an app: imhd.sk). You can find schedules of all city buses, trams and trolleybuses here, as well as transport maps and a lot of other valuable information.

The imhd.sk website will indicate to you what bus/tram number(s) to take, the duration of the journey and the price of the ticket. Just type in your outbound and final stop (in the very top of the website), or look for all transportation possibilities from/to a given bus stop (in the top right corner: “Find”). Note: the bus stop in front of the Gathering venue is called “Ekonomická univerzita” (buses 68, 87, 88, 90, 98).

A basic travel ticket valid for 15 minutes costs 0.70 €, while the ticket valid for 30 minutes costs 0.90 €. You can buy a travel ticket in yellow coin-operated machines that are usually located at bus/tram stops (but not all of them) or in newsagents’. You cannot buy the ticket from the bus driver. You must mark the ticket immediately after getting on the tram/bus with the nearest ticket marker device located inside the vehicle by every door. No student discounts are available for foreign students. Tickets are often checked by ticket collectors (without uniforms) and the fine is 50 € if paid in cash directly to the collector, or 70 € if paid afterwards. All interactions with the ticket collector are automatically recorded on audio. The organizers of the Polyglot Gathering 2017 strongly recommend each participant always have a valid ticket when entering a bus/tram.

For more information about public transport in Bratislava see the aforementioned website: https://imhd.sk/ba/public-transport.

Taxis in Bratislava

There are numerous taxis in Bratislava, all with a yellow taxi sign on the roof. The minimum fare is usually 4 EUR which is often the price if you drive within the wider city center. Careful: taxis standing in the street or in front of the stations or the airport usually charge twice or three times as much. We don’t recommend waving them down. It’s always cheaper to call a taxi on the phone (using English) or use an app (the most widely used one is HOPIN TAXI, also in English). They are much more expensive and tend to charge foreigners even more.

Here are a few taxi phone numbers:

  • +421 918 555 555: a 5-euro taxi (the journey within Bratislava always costs 5 euros)
  • +421 216 300
  • +421 218 158
  • +421 216 321

Uber also works in Bratislava and is getting more and more popular.