Tickets in Poland

by Agata Deresinska

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    The public transport exists in many Polish cities and towns. In the last few years many private companies have been founded. Each company, public or private, has its own tickets.

   After the second world war the tickets were the same in all cities and towns (they were different before the war). Now it is impossible to travel in Warszawa with a ticket bought in Krakow.

   The most popular vehicles used in public transport in Poland are buses and tramways. There are also trolley buses in Gdynia, Tychy and Lublin and one underground line in Warszawa (Warsaw).

   Usually there are no differences between the bus, tramway, underground and trolley bus tickets in the region attended by one transport company. The single tickets are valid for one journey without changes (in the towns and some cities) or a given period (in the cities). It is good to buy a ticket for more journeys (from 4 to 12) if they exist in the town or city you travel in - usually it is cheaper than buying the same number of single tickets.
Some time ago there were two independent companies (PKT and KZK GOP) and two different kinds of tickets in Katowice - the first one for tramways and the second one for buses - but they have united (named KZK GOP) and now there is only one kind of tickets there.

   Interesting is the solution in Poznan. The bus and tramway tickets are valid 10, 30, 60 or 90 minutes there. But the buses waste a lot of time standing in the traffic jam, so the transport company (MPK) introduced separate bus tickets - up to 10 and over 10 bus stops regardless of the duration of the journey. The tramway tickets are valid in buses as well.

   The tickets are in general made of paper (the Warsaw tickets have a magnetic stripe like the ones in Paris or Madrid) and have to be punched before the journey. You do not punch the season tickets (unless the daily and some weekly ones). Many companies offer various season tickets which have different validity: one day; one week; one decade; one month; 3, 6, 9 or 12 months (e.g. in Poznan); 1-12 months (e.g. in Krakow - Cracow). Sometimes it is possible to buy a season ticket for one given line or route. The monthly tickets in Krakow, Rzeszow, Opole and Lubin are made of plastic. With different pictures they look like telephone cards. In some towns and cities it is necessary to have an identity card to travel with a season ticket.

   The patterns of the tickets change sometimes very often (e.g. in Gdansk), from time to time or have not changed for some years (e.g. in Krakow). On average once a year the prices for the tickets rise (but not all at once - every company establish its prices).

   It is impossible to describe the diversity of the Polish tickets in such a short article. But I hope that I managed to give you a review and to make you interested in this subject.


Agata Deresinska