For transportation options connecting Trieste with nearby destinations, please see arriving/departing.

Trieste has a solid bus system that can reach almost anywhere in the city within a reasonable time, with frequent busses for popular routes and popular times.

Parking for cars can be a challenging in the City center and even outside of it, so it is common to move around by busses.

Busses within the City

While Trieste is quite walkable in terms of distances (if quite a bit hilly), a very good network of busses is run by the local transit agency, Trieste Trasporti.

Trieste Trasporti fortunately has an English version of its website 🥳! However, it would appear that not all sections of the English website have been kept up to date unfortunately (currently, it would seem that the timetables are still from 3 years ago ☹️).

For route planning, Google Maps’s public transit option is recommended, but you can also see a formal listing/timetable of each bus line on the website in Italian (there is an English version of the timetables, but it is not kept up to date and so would not recommend using it).

Bus layout, how to board and exit a bus

Busses have two entrances and one exits. The entrances are at the front and the back, and the exits is in the middle.

To board a bus, you should go to its stop (bus stops are yellow and marked with the bus number on it) flag down the bus when it arrives (though often busses will stop anyway at busy stops). Busses can be flagged down by holding out one’s hand (in a way one may flag a taxi in say New York).

To exit a bus, you will need to press the red buttons installed throughout the bus to make it stop at the next stop. On modern busses the next station will be indicated on a screen.

Busses can be crowded so if you need to make your way to the exit you may want to say “Scusi” (pronounced “sku-see”, meaning “excuse me”) to let people know you need to get through.

Bus etiquette

Some seats are marked as reserved for elderly passenger by the use of a blue plaque, but in general it is customary to offer one’s seat to any elderly passenger, pregnant woman, or other person who look like they may be struggling. You are under no obligation to do so however unless the seat is marked with a blue plaque nearby, but most people do (and some elderly passengers can be quite vocal and cranky about the fact that they deserve a seat).

Paper and app bus tickets

Tickets cannot be bought on the bus, they must be purchased before boarding!

There are two main types of tickets:

• traditional paper tickets
• electronic tickets purchased via an App (there are also tickets purchased through an SMS via one’s carrier, but that’s only available to those with Italian carriers and specific contracts so not really useful for most visitors)

Bus ticket durations and prices

Ticket prices change yearly, and the most up-to-date listing is always available on the official website in both English and via Google Translate from Italian. Prices normally change with each year, so if the English listing is not referring to the current year, you may want to check the Italian one.

The main ticket types you may be interested in would be:

• Hourly ticket, allowing one to travel for up to 60 minutes on any bus from the time the ticket has been validated
• Hourly ticket for 10 runs, this is the same as above but has 5 slots to validate on each side of the ticket, allowing you to use it up to 10 times and receiving a small discount over purchasing 10 individual tickets (currently about 10%)
• Daily ticket, allowing one to travel on the entire network for the day. Must still be validated upon boarding the first bus.

There are also subscriptions that can offer quite substantial savings for 15 days or for a month. However, they require going to a specific office (which is far from the City Center) to have a specific ID released that you will need to use together with the subscription. So it is probably not practical to do so unfortunately.

Purchasing paper bus tickets

Traditional paper tickets can be purchased from two types of vendors:

• A ticket vending machine (few are available, but they run 24/7)
• At most “Tabaccheria” (tobacconist), shops relatively unique to Italy where newspapers, cigarette, and bus tickets may be purchased. You may recognize them by the black “T” insignia shown outside the shop. There are other places that sell tickets such as some bars/cafés, but it is more hit-and-miss. See the map below.

A map of both is available from the Regional Transit website. Look for the word “Emettitrici” for the vending machines, whereas the others are all tobacconists or other shops.

Purchasing bus tickets via the app

The regional transit agency has introduced an app for iOS and Android which allows purchasing tickets by linking the credit card. The app is available in partial English.

Some important caveats to note:

• This means that yes, you can click “Buy Tickets” from the main menu in English, but within it the type of tickets are only listed in Italian. So, you may need to translate outside the app to select the right ticket type.
• You will need to register for an account before making any purchases, and it takes a few steps (in Italian) to do so.
• You are expected to purchase the ticket before boarding the bus

Registering for the App

Follow the Login → Login / Register → “Registrati” (Register) flow to a page asking for your details.

Currently, the form asks for Name, Surname, Email, International prefix (if Canada, this is under “US and Canada”), and Mobile Phone number. A link is then sent to your email which may be used to set a password and activate the account. Fields stating (facoltativo) are optional and may be skipped (e.g. they will sign you up for a newsletter).

You should then be signed in!

Connecting a credit card

Thankfully, the payment side of the app is in English. I guess they really want your money, you should feel lucky! In the main menu, they may be accessed by clicking on the Profile icon in the top right (which will show Login if logged out).

You have two options for how to manage this, you may connect a card, or you made do one-off top-ups of credit to the app.

Purchasing a ticket via the App

The main tickets you want are “Biglietto Orario” (“Hourly ticket”) or “Biglietto Giornaliero” (“Daily ticket”). Within those categories, all cities in the region are listed, so look for the entry that says “Trieste” in the name. There may be multiple entries with different time. Currently, “Servizio Urbano Trieste” is the hourly ticket, and “Servizio Urbano Trieste Biglietto Orario 75 minuti” – what a mouthful – is a 1 hour and 15 minutes ticket. Daily tickets are currently just one category for the entire region.

Validating tickets

Once a paper ticket has been purchased, it must be validated once you have boarded the bus. There are normally two machines to do so (yellow boxes) where you insert the ticket with the white band facing the machine. This is where the machine will print the current date and time.

Tickets are not checked by the conductor but by specialized fare enforcement officers which will board the bus at random times and block all exits to check the fare in between stops.

Walking

Trieste’s city centre is certainly quite walkable, and its gorgeous buildings make it a recommended mode of getting around there. However, outside the City Centre, it is probably best to rely on busses for all but the most dedicated walkers.

Cycling

Trieste is quite hilly, has relatively narrow roads with few cycling lanes, and so in our opinion, cycling is probably best left to dedicated locals.