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During the school holidays in Vienna, on Sundays and public holidays, as well as on 2 and 15 November, children and youths may travel free of charge on Wiener Linien’s network until the age of 15. However, free travel does not apply on so-called school-free days (schulfreie Tage) that are approved by the respective school.

In the case of older pupils (excluding vocational pupils) who attend a state school in Austria or a private school with public status, this free travel rule applies until they turn 24. The school ID card is recognised as proof.

1. Go to the green SOS cube – directly beneath this you will find the safety-related systems.
2. Press the emergency call button. You will be connected to the control centre.
3. Describe the situation. The control centre will turn on the cameras in order to assess the situation and send emergency services to the station.

Stay close to the person who needs help – not being alone has a calming effect.

No. As a rule, Wiener Linien passengers require a valid ticket before beginning their journey on public transport. Mobile tickets must always be purchased before starting your journey. It can be determined when a mobile ticket has been purchased.

Our drivers are happy to lower the bus. Please ask them to do so if your wish to board happens to be overlooked. In the case of short distances between stops and regular use, the pressure in the hydraulic system during the journey may be too low. In these rare cases, it is not possible to lower the bus.

Wiener Linien drivers are required to help you board with a pushchair. Please only use the doors at the very front when boarding older trams.

Young passengers who do not go to school yet travel free of charge. Free travel with Wiener Linien also applies until the end of the academic year in which the child turns six. The rules of the ÖBB are different here: the sixth birthday is the cut-off date. Outside Vienna, free travel when accompanied by an adult ends when the child turns six.

There are safety-related systems installed on every platform that are easy to find, located directly beneath the green SOS cube. The emergency call point is located next to the emergency stop button. Both buttons are red, highly visible and accompanied by with instructions.

If you activate the emergency call function, you will be immediately connected to an employee in the control centre. The emergency stop button brings inbound and outbound underground trains to a halt. The drivers receive a signal and are either no longer allowed to enter the station or are instructed to proceed at a very low speed. An alarm also sounds.

The air conditioning is used when the outside air temperature exceeds 25 degrees. The temperature in buses is reduced by a maximum of three degrees compared to the outside air temperature. On the underground and trams, the temperature is reduced by up to five degrees. In addition to this, the air is also dehumidified. The air conditioning is fully automated, which means that our drivers have no way of individually setting the temperature in the vehicles.

In an ULF tram without air conditioning you can open the windows and the windows are equipped with ventilation fins. In an air-conditioned ULF tram you cannot open the windows.

1. Go to the green SOS cube on the platform – directly beneath this you will find the emergency stop and emergency call button.
2. Activate the emergency stop – this will prevent trains from arriving or departing.
3. Notify the control centre via the emergency call button. It will send the emergency services.

Never go onto the tracks yourself. Stay close to the person who needs help – not being alone has a calming effect.

No. It is widely believed, incorrectly, that only police officers may physically stop people who run away. Wiener Linien employees may also stop people running away. This is particularly the case if the individual in question endangers other passengers while trying to escape.

In total, three quarters of all journeys on Vienna's public transport system are already air-conditioned. This means that three out of four times you are travelling "with air conditioning". On our buses, you are always travelling with air conditioning. On the underground, two out of three journeys are air-conditioned, on the tram it is more than half. 

The primary reason is weight. Older vehicles are not designed to carry an additional air-conditioning unit on the roof – an air-conditioned tram weighs half a tonne more than a tram without air conditioning. In the case of newer vehicles, the additional weight was taken into account during construction. There are no plans to retrofit older vehicles for cost reasons.

You were probably travelling in a first-generation ULF, which are not equipped with air conditioning. The second generation of ULF trams is air-conditioned and so are all Flexity trams and every other newly acquired vehicle. 

Wiener Linien’s fleet of vehicles is being progressively modernised, with old trams being replaced by new ULF (ultra-low-floor) trams every year. In the meantime, care is being taken to ensure that ULF trams are spread as evenly as possible across the network.

Nevertheless, even though the deployment of ULF trams is carefully planned, factors such as road traffic accidents, bad parking, faulty trains and many others may result in the trams being redeployed. In such cases, the intervals between the ULFs may be longer.

In order to make sure that services keep to timetables and planned connections with other lines take place, the allocated amount of time spent at each stop must be strictly adhered to. Our drivers will, of course, wait for individual passengers if possible, but it is often the case that they cannot do this.

Wiener Linien regularly assesses the demand for public transport in its area of operations by monitoring traffic and counting passengers. The data collected in this way are used to determine the intervals of the services and the vehicles to be deployed. The aim here is to ensure the best possible service to passengers while, at the same time, making responsible use of financial resources.

Every vehicle communicates its position to Wiener Linien’s master computer at regular intervals. The master computer analyses the geodata received and calculates the distance of the vehicle to the stop. This distance is then converted into a time value, taking into account the average speed for the respective time of day and the line in question. This time value, i.e. the countdown until departure, is used for passenger information displays, departure monitors or the public transport app, qando, among others.

This means that the distance of a vehicle from a stop is given in minutes. If the position of a vehicle does not change for any reason – such as if there is a delay because of particularly heavy traffic or other circumstances – the distance to the stop does not change either. This means that the value shown on the countdown display remains the same. If this remains the case for a longer period of time, a disruption message is displayed for the line in question.

It is important to know that the way in which the air conditioning of public transport works is very different to how buildings or cars are cooled. It is impossible to find the perfect temperature for every passenger. Passengers generate heat, and hot or cold air rushes into the vehicle at every stop when the doors open.

Moreover, trams and buses, and sometimes even the underground, travel above ground, which means that they are completely exposed to the elements. Bright sunshine and high temperatures, together with the factors stated above, reduce the performance of the air-conditioning system.

You can find out more about this topic on our blog (in German).

In air-conditioned vehicles, stickers on the tilt windows indicate that it is only possible to achieve a pleasant temperature if the windows remain closed. If there is no sticker on the window, then the vehicle does not have any air conditioning. In such vehicles, all windows should remain open when temperatures are high.