Three Month in... Copenhagen Transport

A month and a half on (at least it was when I started writing this 😏) and I feel that I am starting to find my feet. So I thought I would write about my experiences and exploits regarding travel in Copenhagen.

DOT Terminal

First and most important – Never, ever and I mean NEVER get onto the busses from the rear door. Unless of course you enjoy being screamed at by an irate driver in Danish! The front door is for boarding the bus, past the watchful eye of the driver, and the rear doors are for exiting. You either buy a ticket or check-in when entering using your DOT travel card. When exiting you Check Out at the terminal near the exit.

DOT Card

If you are arriving in Copenhagen I would suggest that you buy an anonymous travel card from one of the machines – the machines are easy to use, have English as an option on the front screen and can be found at every station to allow you to also recharge your DOT card. There is also one at the Copenhagen Airport and if you plan to be in Copenhagen for more than a couple of days it may actually be cheaper to get one of these than single tickets or the Copenhagen Card and the machine is generally empty whilst the machines for single tickets and the cashiers can have queues a mile long!

Check In

Check Out

The Anonymous card is basically a non personalised travel card which can be reloaded and used in all public transport around Copenhagen and greater Copenhagen. This is the easiest card to get without a Danish CPR number (Danish Social Security Number). Once you get a CPR, you can get a personalised card which learns your most common travel patterns and gives you discounts on the trips and also allows you to travel with a lower minimum balance on the card.

The key thing to remember with the travel cards is to always check in and out at the end of your journey or when changing mode of transport. If you don’t check out you will get a penalty charged the next time you try to check in. And if you don’t check in you risk getting a heavy fine if caught by random inspections. It’s just not worth the risk so pay and don’t abuse the trust system!

When checking out you only need to do this at the end of your journey on Metro’s so for example if you check in at the airport change at Christianshavn and finally end your journey at say Bella Center, then you only need to check in at the airport and check out at Bella Center. If however at Christianshavn you switch to the Bus or Water Bus, then you will need to check out at Christianshavn and check in again on the Bus or Water Bus and check out again at the end. Same if you change busses. As long as you check out and in again within 30 minutes it appears to treat the journey as one continuous trip and you don’t get charged for two trips. The cost of a trip only seems to be bumped as you move across zones. I still haven’t figured out if there is a standard unified zone system for all public transport, but each has the zone transitions cleared marked for the route you ae taking on maps in the stations, stops and on the metros and busses. Most communication is in Danish and English so not that difficult for us expats and tourists.

Generally public transport is good frequent, clean and reasonably priced. A single trip within a zone is 17 DKK. I generally pay 22 DKK to the airport and from the center that is about a 20-30 minute trip by Metros. The metro system in Copenhagen is fantastic in my view. 24/7/365 with stoppages late at night for maintenance but well planned and communicated generally. They also run between every 2-5 minutes apart and 5-10 minutes apart on Sundays and late at night and on holidays.

So far that is what I can figure out. If anyone has any further advice please feel free to add!