Free public transport transfers will be tested in Lviv on Monday, 1 July.
The decision was approved today by the executive committee of the Lviv City Council. First, the free transfer function will be launched for students with LeoCards to see if everything is working correctly and to eliminate any shortcomings if there are any. And after that, the transfer will be opened for holders of all general LeoCards.
“First, we want to test the free transfer function. Now we have 18,000 students with LeoCards. We need a few days, up to a few weeks at the most, to test in practice whether everything works correctly and, if there are any shortcomings, to eliminate them. After that, we will launch the transfer for holders of all general LeoCard cards. As of today, there are 114,000 such passengers,” said Oleg Zabarylo.
As a reminder, it will be possible to transfer to another bus, tram or trolleybus without additional payment within 40 minutes after the first validation in the first vehicle. The official noted that this is the average travel time for city routes from the accessed hromadas to the city centre or to a transfer hub.
“For example, if you need to get to the bus station on Stryiska Street from Bryukhovychi, you take bus 8a, get validated and have 40 minutes to change to bus 3a. In bus 3a, you enter the bus, get validated, and if you do it in 40 minutes, the trip to Stryiska Street is free.
40 minutes is the average time it takes to get from each final stop in the hromadas to another transport interchange, transfer hub or city centre,” explained Oleh Zabarylo.
It will be possible to transfer to trams, trolleybuses and buses of any city route. The number of physical transfers is unlimited. The main thing is to have time to transfer and be validated in another transport within 40 minutes. You can check the time of the trip registration through the validator in the vehicle – in the “Ticket information” section.
Important! All transfers must be registered in each vehicle. If the trip is not validated during the transfer, it will not be considered a transfer trip. In this case, it is a separate unpaid trip for which the passenger may be fined.
You also need to keep track of your LeoCard balance and have funds on your account for validation in each vehicle. At night, the system summarises information about all public transport trips for the day, and if a passenger has managed to change public transport within 40 minutes, the account will be charged as if it were one trip – only UAH 6.5 with a student LeoCard and UAH 13 with a general one. So, with a city transport card, a passenger will save a lot of money. At the same time, the possibility of free transfers with LeoCard will further popularise the non-cash payment method.
“This is a new stage that we are launching in the electronic ticket. People will be able to save their money. This, in turn, will increase the popularity of public transport. The launch of the transfer is a consistent effort by the city to minimise cash fares. Currently, 18% of all public transport passengers in the city pay in cash. The transfer will make it possible to minimise cash payments even further,” said Oleg Zabarylo.
Please note once again! Starting next week, the transfer will be available only to student LeoCards holders. We will inform you about the possibility of transferring for all cardholders later.
If a passenger needs to obtain detailed information about the trips made, he or she should contact the Passenger Service Centre (10 Gorbachevskoho St., Lviv) by making an appointment by calling the hotline – 0800 303 007.
By the way, today 65% of passengers in Lviv public transport validate their travel with general and personalised LeoCards.