Getting Around Stuttgart

Stuttgart is known to be an auto­mo­bile city, with the head­quar­ters of both Porsche and Mer­cedes-Benz (and their respec­tive muse­ums) locat­ed in town. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the population’s love of cars leads to quite a lot of traf­fic in the city, despite many ini­tia­tives to reduce it.

If you’d rather not sit behind the wheel and stress out dur­ing con­gest­ed times, have a look at the many oth­er trans­porta­tion options Stuttgart has to offer!

Public Transportation

First and most impor­tant­ly, Stuttgart has a very exten­sive pub­lic trans­porta­tion net­work that includes bus­es, under­ground trains, over­ground trains, and region­al trains. Trans­porta­tion runs from ear­ly in the morn­ing until pret­ty late at night, depend­ing on your des­ti­na­tion, and night bus­es run through the night on week­ends. For sched­ul­ing infor­ma­tion and to buy tick­ets, you can use the VVS app (for Apple or Android). Month­ly and year­ly mem­ber­ships are also avail­able with a poly­go card. At night there are also shut­tles that serve as an exten­sion to the pub­lic trans­porta­tion net­work. You can search your route and see what com­bi­na­tion of trains, bus­es, and/or shut­tles will serve you best by using the SSB Flex app (for Apple or Android).

Cars

Taxis

If you pre­fer door-to-door car ser­vice, you can always call a taxi. Of course it’s easy to find a taxi at key loca­tions, espe­cial­ly the air­port or main train sta­tion, but you can use apps to bring you the next avail­able taxi just as con­ve­nient­ly. We rec­om­mend the local Stuttgart Taxi app (for Apple or Android) or the Euro­pean-wide FREE NOW app (for Apple or Android).

Ride Sharing

Uber is best known as a ride-shar­ing ser­vice, but in Ger­many Uber dri­vers must be licensed like a taxi dri­ver and use a com­pa­ny rental car rather than a per­son­al vehi­cle. You can use the app (for Apple or Android) to set your des­ti­na­tion and pick-up point; view the pro­file, rat­ing, and license plate of the dri­ver; and pay via Pay­Pal or cred­it card. Uber X offers stan­dard cars, Uber Green pro­vides ful­ly elec­tric vehi­cles, and Uber Taxi just serves to help you book a nor­mal taxi.

Car Sharing

With car shar­ing you get the con­ve­nience of a pri­vate vehi­cle at a frac­tion of the cost (or has­sle). Nev­er wor­ry about pay­ing for main­te­nance, insur­ance, or—particularly expen­sive in Stuttgart—parking! Plus you know you’re help­ing reduce cli­mate-chang­ing emis­sions. The two most pop­u­lar ser­vices in Stuttgart are Stadt­mo­bil and SHARE NOW (for­mer­ly car2go and DriveNow).
Stadt­mo­bil offers many rental sta­tions in and around Stuttgart and charges for booked time and num­ber of kilo­me­ters dri­ven. They are a part­ner with the pub­lic trans­porta­tion network’s poly­go card and have an app for Apple or Android. SHARE NOW works with­out fixed rental sta­tions, so you can pick up and leave a car wher­ev­er is con­ve­nient for you. They charge a low per-minute, all-inclu­sive fee through their app for Apple or Android.

Bicycles

A clas­si­cal­ly eco-friend­ly but more ath­let­ic way to beat traf­fic is tak­ing a bicy­cle around town. If you don’t want to buy your own, there are plen­ty of shops that will rent you one. Deutche Bahn offers the Call A Bike ser­vice so that you can ride the train into a new town and seam­less­ly con­tin­ue on your way by bicy­cle. They offer day pass­es for tourists and part­ner with the poly­go­card as well. In Stuttgart bicy­cle paths are some­times in sep­a­rate lanes, in shared lanes on streets with cars, or even shared on pedes­tri­an sidewalks.

Electric Bikes and Scooters

Elec­tric bikes and scoot­ers are increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar in Stuttgart and offer the per­fect com­pro­mise among con­ve­nience and eco-friend­li­ness. Stel­la is a local ser­vice offer­ing Ves­pa-like scoot­ers that run on elec­tric pow­er (app for Apple or Android). Voi offers a range of elec­tric kick scoot­ers and bicy­cles (app for Apple or Android). Three oth­er com­pa­nies have fleets of elec­tric kick scoot­ers dis­trib­uted all over Stuttgart: Bolt (app for Apple or Android),  Circ (app for Apple or Android), and Lime (app for Apple or Android).

Mobility Unlocked

Not sure what your best option is for any giv­en trip? Try using a mobil­i­ty aggre­ga­tor app! They present a vari­ety of options in one con­ve­nient tool. We rec­om­mend urbi, an app for Apple or Android that includes car shar­ing, pub­lic trans­porta­tion, and bicy­cle or scoot­er rental options.