Serving the public to the fullest (Trams & Buses in Amsterdam)

Member Name: twinkling_star

Product:	Trams & Buses in Amsterdam
Date:	23/01/09 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very frequent,excellent network

Disadvantages: Bit expensive

After being here in Amsterdam for 7 months and not being a good driver ,i have made use of the public transports over here very well.It has an excellent public transport system consisting of buses, trams and express trams.

GVB
GVB is the public transport company of Amsterdam providing integrated metro, tram and bus service throughout Amsterdam and its surrounding areas.Their official website is www.gvb.nl where you can find all the information about the public transport. The route maps, fares, bus or tram lines, their stops , types of fares and so on. The best part of this site is that it has an English translated version too and so tourists can make full use of this. To all those who are planning to visit Amsterdam i do strongly recommend to visit this website at least once.

9292ov.nl
Actually i heard about this site from a friend of mine and when i started using it i found it so useful even for my routine travels.This is a subsidiary website of GVB. You can either visit this site directly or through the link in GVB.nl . This is a wonderful site which will give you all the information about what tram or bus to take, what is the nearest stop to get one and get down, time taken for traveling etc just by giving your start and destination addresses.
Destination addresses will have a street address or could be a shopping centre (centrum), a tourist attraction or a train station whatever it may be 9292ov will tell you how to get there and at what time you will reach there if you give the starting time or vice-versa
The only problem is that this site does not have an english version but we can easily navigate through the website with the help of Google translate and a little determination. After all we have to enjoy during a holiday right and dont want to get lost in finding routes . So its better to do some homework before starting.
But let me tell you even if you miss one dont worry you will find another one coming right in another 10 to 15minutes connecting many of the suburbs like Amstelveen, Uithoon etc or even to Schipol airport,which is very near to Amsterdam.

Traveling in night
Do you want to explore the excellent night life Amsterdam has in store for you , but worried about getting back to your place at night. No probs! Amsterdam includes night travel in their public transport system and there are night buses exclusively running for this purpose after 12:30am till 7:30 in the morning that is when there is no regular day time bus service. But the fare differs.More information is given in www.gvb.nl.

Fare
I cant say traveling is cheap in Amsterdam.But when travelling is worth it then lets forget that. The fares are according to the zones that you pass during the travel. The zonal information again is in the GVB's website.
U can pay for your tickets to the driver or have a strippenkaart(Strip Cards) which will be stamped by the driver in the bus or by a ticket checker in most of the trams. There are some trams where you will have to stamp the card. The ticket is stamped on the strip after the number of zones we pass during travel. To get an idea of the fare i can tell you if you are passing one zone during your travel it will take two strips from your stippenkaart or otherwise
Strippenkaarts (Strip Cards) are valid on all buses, trams and metro lines in the city and is the most economical option.U can get a Strippenkaart from all rail stations, newspaper shops, post offices and all Albert Hein grocery stores.
There are also seasonal tickets 24, 48 and 72 hour passes which are available at all stations or at www.vbn-bv.nl
Hope you enjoy your days in Amsterdam

Summary: Amsterdam easier to explore using the public transport but just have to do a bit of homework.