Saint Petersburg has an extensive network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas(minibuses), some of them following the city bus routes (and usually having matching line numbers). Buses carry up to three million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes.
City runs a wide underground network, 16th busiest metro system in the world. At the moment it has 67 stations and this number will hopefully get up to 70 by 2015. Central stations are beautifully decorated and are definitely worth seeing. All the stations, exits and interchanges have clear signs both in Cyrillic and Roman letters. Metro can get overcrowded at peak-hours but with trains departing each 3 minutes it is the most reliable transport.
Public transport costs:
Underground (Metro) ticket cost: 31 rubles (0.5 €)
Bus, tram, trolleybus: 28 rubles (0.4 €) – paid onboard to a conductor
Marshrutka: 35 rubles (0.5€)
Taxi: average cost of getting from the airport to the city center is 900 rubles (14 €)
Oyster-like pay as you go card (Podorozhnik) can be purchased – it makes payments in public transport a bit cheaper and easier. Most marshrutkas accept podorozhniks, but not all of them.
