Bus travel in Monaco is an important feature of daily life. You only have to travel on buses in other cities to appreciate how clean, safe and punctual our buses are. Except they are no longer free. The several months long temporary free trial is over. Are you getting on the bus and having to be reminded to start using your ticket again and pay? For a while we had to get in the habit of not paying which was nice but felt strange. Now we have to pay again.
Second surprise: the ticket distributors on the street don’t work. What’s going on! Monaco’s going digital and getting rid of unnecessary paper tickets. One more little step in favour of the environment.
That means if you were buying up to ten tickets from the machine on a paper card there will be new digital ways of paying… using your mobile phone or bank card or a rechargeable bus card are the obvious easy ways.
And those unsightly distributor machines can disappear and go into retirement which will be aesthetically pleasing.
From Paper Tickets to Digital
There’s no stopping progress, change is relentless. It’s a little uncomfortable for some of us who are not so handy paying with our phones or bank cards or putting “Apps” on our phones.
But if you get stuck and need a helping human hand… for a while you can always pay cash and buy a ticket from the driver on the bus itself or or go to the bus company commercial office at 22/24 Rue de Gabian in Fontvieille (CAM) and they’ll help you with the different options for buying tickets.
Horses once disappeared from our streets and so now will the ticket vending machines which were aging anyway. In the meantime, be advised they don’t work.
To support users, the bus company is reinforcing the promotion of Open Payment, the Monapass application and the online store.
For example, with Open Payment when you get on the bus, you simply validate your transport ticket with your bank card. And when using this option, the most attractive fare will be applied automatically. So, if you take the bus four times a day, you’ll pay the discounted fare … not four times 1.5 euros or six euros but the day rate of 5.5 euros. And the same logic for discounts is automatically applied over the week, depending on the number of journeys made. The same for the calendar month too.
If you are ready to join the new digital world go to the website which has been modernized and create an account. On the “App” or on the site, it is possible to recharge your card, buy transport tickets or renew your subscription.
Go bus, go digital!
