Rotterdam Transportation
From:
Rotterdam Travel Guide
ABOVE: A water taxi on the Nieuwe Maas.
Getting to Rotterdam
Rotterdam is in South Holland, 59 km (37 miles) south of
Schiphol Airport and about 77 km (47 miles) from Amsterdam.
 Arriving
by train. NS, or Netherlands Railways, operates several trains per hour
between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. From Amsterdam Centraal Station, travel time to
Rotterdam CS averages 59 minutes (or 43 minutes on the high-speed
Thalys trains that connect
Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, Brussels, and Paris.) From Schiphol Airport, travel
time is 41 minutes on normal direct trains and 26 minutes on Thalys. The
NS journey planner has an
interactive timetable.
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Tip: You'll save 50 cents by buying train tickets
from the easy-to-use touch-screen machines in railway stations, including
the station at Schiphol Airport. The machines don't accept banknotes, so
bring a supply of euro coins or a credit card with a PIN.
 Arriving
by plane. Intercontinental flights and many other international flights use
Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam, but
Rotterdam Airport does
have direct flights to a number of European destinations--some seasonal, and
others year-round. (The main operators are KLM, Transavia, and a regional
airline for business travelers, VLM.) The airport's
access page has information on ground transportation and road connections.
-
 Tip:
RET Airport Shuttle bus 50 is the quickest transit route into the city,
with stops at Rotterdam Centraal Station, Rotterdam Blaak Station, and
Wilhelminakade (in front of the Cruise Terminal, shown in the inset photo).
 Arriving
by ferry: Stena Line operates several ferries each day between
Harwich,
England and the Hook of Holland, which is downriver from Rotterdam. P&O
North Sea Ferries operates ferries between
Hull and Rotterdam Europoort.
See Stena Line's
Your Onward journey and P&O's
Rotterdam ferry port pages for advice on road connections and ground
transportation between the ferry terminals and Rotterdam.
 Arriving
by cruise ship: The Rotterdam cruise terminal is on the Holland Amerikakade,
across the Erasmus Bridge from the city center. It welcomes about two dozen
cruises each year. See the Cruise Terminal
Rotterdam page in this guide for more information, and browse the
"Departures" section of our
ms
Rotterdam cruise photos for images of a journey from the cruise terminal
to the North Sea.
Arriving by car: Several motorways converge on Rotterdam
from the north, south, east, and west; you can get free maps and directions from
the interactive Via Michelin journey
planner.
Local transportation
 RET
is the main public-transportation operator in Rotterdam. It was founded in 1878
as a streetcar company (Rotterdamse Elektrische Tram); today, it carries
more than 600,000 passengers a day on a multimodal transportation network that
includes buses, trams, a metro system, and a new fast ferry.
 RET's
Travel Passes
and Tickets page tells how to ride public transit with such products as
the OV-chipkaart (stored-value ticket cards, including a disposable
single-trip version) and the more traditional Strippenkaarten, which can
be used on public-transit systems throughout the Netherlands.
For hands-on help and purchases, visit the RET's sales and
information counters in Rotterdam Centraal Station, at the Beurs Metro station
in the central shopping district, and in the RET Serviceshop at Coolsingel 141.
Other local services include:
 Watertaxi
Rotterdam, which is especially convenient for getting between Leuvehaven, in
the city center, and the Hotel New York by the cruise terminal. The water taxis
(which are actually shared-ride water minibuses) offer frequent daytime and
evening service to many stations
on the north and south side of the river, including the popular tourist
attractions of Euromast and Delfshaven.
 Waterbus
fast ferries, which connect central Rotterdam with the windmills at Kinderdijk,
Dordrech, and other points upriver on the Nieuwe Maas. (Use
Google Translate to interpret the
Dutch-language Web site.)
 The
Aqualiner ferry (click "Tidjden" for a
timetable) between central Rotterdam and the
RDM Campus, a new "Research, Design, and Manufacturing" facility where
entrepreneurial companies and technical schools work together on innovative
projects.
 Netherlands
Railways, which operates trains for commuters, business travelers, and
tourists throughout the region (including trains to such cities as Delft,
Utrecht, Den Haag, and Amsterdam). Depending on how close you are to a railroad
station, an NS train may be faster than local transit for reaching outlying
points within the city like the Feyenoord football stadium at Stadion station,
which is on the south side of the river beyond the Blaak and Zuid stations.
Taxis (the automotive variety) are available at Rotterdam
Centraal Station, the airport, and other locations; you can also order cabs from
Rotterdamse Taxi Centrale or
Taxi St. Job.
 For
a more exotic and economical cab ride, hire a three-wheeled stadstaxi
(city taxi) from
Tuk Tuk Company. You
can phone ahead for a Tuk Tuk cab, and you'll pay per passenger on a zone
system.
Bicycling
 See
our Rotterdam tours and excursions
page for advice about bicycling (including links to local resources).
Driving and parking in Rotterdam
 Rotterdam
is a post-World War II city, for the most part, with an efficient road network
and good separation between cars, bicycles, and pedestrians. Thanks to excellent
public transportation and the Dutch willingness to use transit, car traffic
generally moves smoothly outside of rush hours. Still, we'd recommend parking
your car and relying on shoe leather and transit for sightseeing.
The Gemeente Rotterdam's English-language
Parking in Rotterdam page tells where you can park free on the outskirts and
how to use public parking within the city.
Next page:
Cruise Terminal
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Top photo: Jan van der Ploeg.
1st, 8th, 12th, 15th inset photos: Corstiaan van Elselingen.
14th inset photo: Maike Boot.
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Tip:
Many trains from Amsterdam and Schiphol continue past Rotterdam Centraal to
the Rotterdam Blaak station and beyond. (Rotterdam Blaak is close to the
Stayokay hostel and is convenient to hotels near the waterfront between the
Erasmus and Willems Bridges.)
