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 Free2move. 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. Free2move 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.

There are sev­er­al oth­er ser­vices that offer car shar­ing as well. You can check out Miles or Finn for a wide vari­ety of vehi­cle options. Deer spe­cial­izes in car shar­ing for elec­tri­cal vehicles.

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). Two oth­er com­pa­nies have fleets of elec­tric kick scoot­ers dis­trib­uted all over Stuttgart: Bolt (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.