An annual Glasgow Zonecard costs £45 more than similar travel cards for Rome, Barcelona and Lisbon combined – and it still wouldn’t get you to the likes of East Kilbride, Neilston, Newton Mearns, Uddingston or Coatbridge.
We can reveal the shock cost of travel around the city after we compared the prices for annual city travel passes for major cities – leading us to conclude that Glaswegians are being forced to fork out – with transport costs among the highest in Europe.
Unlike in other major European cities where metro passes incorporate local tram and train networks as well as more extensive metro networks, Glaswegians require a SPT Zonecard to travel throughout the city boundary on different modes of transport.
The ZoneCard is a flexible season ticket for unlimited travel by ScotRail, Subway, most buses, and some ferries in the Strathclyde region. ZoneCard may be used wherever you see the ZoneCard logo – except for First Glasgow and Stagecoach night bus services.
By buying a minimum of three ‘G’ zones, Zonecard holders will be permitted to travel in all eight Glasgow ‘G’ zones that make up the city boundary – meaning that to do so would cost you £1,076.00.
Seem expensive? Well it is when compared to other major cities with their own – much bigger – metro systems. A similar annual Zonecard for Rome, the ‘annual pass Roma’, provides unlimited journeys within the territory of Rome on buses, trams and trolleybuses, metro lines and regional trains. It costs just €250 or £213.41.
That means that you could buy five annual passes for Rome for the same price as a Glasgow Zonecard – and still have £11 to play with. An annual ‘urban’ travel card for Milan, with ATM, will set you back a little more than it does in Rome in €330 or £281.
Meanwhile an annual travel card in Barcelona or Lisbon via the ‘T-USUAL 1 ZONA’ card and ‘Viva…