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I've bought a train ticket from Bremen to Juerich city without any BahnCard. On the ticket, it says "Bremen+City Jülich-Forschungsz., mit IC/EC"

Does it mean, I can take any train from my home (in Bremen North) to Bremen HBF (in Bremen center) and then starts my journey here?

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The 'City-Ticket' in Bremen covers public transport in fare zones 100 and 101.

If you live within one of those zones, the ticket will cover the trip from your home to Bremen main station.

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  • Thanks, that is what I'd like to hear :). – Bằng Rikimaru Feb 14 at 16:42
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Yes, because "tarifliche Gleichstellung" (station grouping) applies. In such a case, you get a ticket that does not have the name of a specific station as start or endpoint, but the name of a station group. You can see that this applies to your case because the startpoint is listed as "Bremen" (the name of a station group) instead of "Bremen Hbf" (the name of a specific station). So you can start your trip at all stations in the station group of Bremen, which you can find on page 7 and 8 of this list in the second-to-last column. In the case of Bremen, the station group goes as far north as Bremen-Farge.

Explained differently, station grouping means that for long-distance tickets (> 100km) all stations in certain sets of stations are treated as if they were identical. The regulations for station groups are in this PDF in Section 3.7.

As mentioned by Tor-Einar, the City-Ticket option often also allows traveling to your startpoint. There are some important differences though:

  • City-Ticket is valid for all public transport, with station grouping you must use trains only.
  • City-Ticket is not included in super saving fares (Super Sparpreis), station grouping is.
  • City-Ticket is available only in about 130 cities, station grouping also exists in many other smaller cities and towns, some of which have only a few thousand inhabitants.
  • The covered area can be different. City-Ticket is usually valid in some specific zones of local public transport (current list), whereas for station grouping a different list of stations applies.
  • City-Ticket is indicated by the explicit "+City" marker, station grouping is visible through the use of a name of a station group. However, the latter can be difficult to notice because there exists cases where the name of a station group is the same as the name of an existing station (e.g., "Hamburg-Harburg"), in which case you would need to check the trip distance to find out whether station grouping applies to your ticket.
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  • @Jan No. The station group 'Bremen' covers all railway stations in the city of Bremen (all of which are in fare zones 100 and 101) and allows the passenger to go by train. The city option is valid for all kinds of public transport, including trains, so it covers not only trains, but also buses and trams. This answer is rather unnecessarily complicated and convoluted. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Feb 15 at 13:31
  • @Jan Perhaps I don't understand what you are asking. Bremen-Nord is a district in Bremen (within zone 101) and not a station. Your question sounded to me as if you assumed the combination to be required and that the city option only covers buses between home and somewhere in Bremen-Nord and that the station group is required to get from Bremen-Nord to the main railway station. That is not the case and what I answered 'no' to. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Feb 15 at 13:46
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Ah, my mistake, I read the question as if Bremen North were a station. It all stops making sense now! Deleting my comments. – Jan Feb 15 at 13:48

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