Prague Buses to Be Equipped With Contactless Payment Devices

All Prague buses, electric buses, and trolleybuses will be equipped with contactless payment terminals in the coming days.

At the moment they are only available in trams and underground entrance halls. The announcement was made by Daniel Šabík, DPP’s spokesman.

Prague has purchased the terminals for its entire bus fleet of about 1,200 vehicles.

“In every bus, electric bus and trolleybus, the self-service terminals will be located near the second door. Passengers will be able to buy 30- or 90-minute tickets, as well as 24-hour tickets. The purchase is available with Europay, MasterCard, or Visa,” said Šabík.

The terminals will also allow payments through the Apple Pay and Google Pay apps.

There are also discounted fares for children and seniors for CZK 12, CZK 16, and CZK 55. After buying a ticket from the terminal, the printed ticket is already validated and therefore there is no need of its additional validation.

If the transaction is denied, the payment card is not working, or the payment terminal of the dispatching device is out of order, the passenger is not entitled to free transportation.

In such cases, the passenger is obliged to obtain a valid ticket in another way (e.g. by validating a ticket purchased in advance, by purchasing SMS ticket or a ticket from MA).

In some Czech cities, such as Ostrava, Karlovy Vary, and Liberec, contactless card payment devices on the public transport network are already up and running.

Prague has over 800 trams according to the DPP website, with the T3 model and its variants, introduced in 1960, still the most common and accounting for over half of the fleet.

The more modern 15T accounts for about one-quarter of the fleet.