Some bits of advice on transport in Nottingham

City Card Nottingham

A card that offers discounts on buses and access to a cycle hire network.

Cycles for hire are a bit newer than these! (Image via Steven Feldman)

Buses

You will find info on Nottingham bus routes and timetables here and you can download bus maps here

The University also offers some bus services and route information here

For bus travel between the city centre and the university’s Park Campus (where the EMCC is situated), there are two options for buying bus passes. If you’re going to want more than 5 days travel on the buses, you are best getting an “Easyrider Citycard”. This has a photo on it and so you have to go to Nottingham City Travel’s Travel Centre in the Old Market Square – this card has additional benefits in allowing you to register for the city’s bike hire scheme, and giving discounted rates at some shops and restaurants. There are further details on-line. Registration is a walk-in service but has to be done in person because there is a photo on the card. It can be bought with a minimum of a weekly pass for 7 consecutive days.

Alternatively, you can buy an Easyrider Citycard Anytime Adult. This is a top-up, pay-as-you-go card. You can buy 3, 5 or 10 days of travel (or longer periods if you are going to visit Nottingham again). The days don’t have to be used consecutively – when you swipe the card on a bus for the first time in a day, a day is charged to the card. This card is also available from the Travel Centre – it doesn’t have a photo, and doesn’t have the additional benefits of the option above.

The Easyrider passes cover transport on the Nottingham City Transport bus network – this is the most useful for travel from the campus to the city centre as it in particular covers route 34 that runs from the campus itself, and the other nearby Orange Line services.

There are other bus companies in Nottingham, most notably Trent Barton. Trent Barton offer a different travel card called Mango for travel on their services. They have services running next to the University Park campus and are an alternative to the NCT services. They are a little less convenient than the NCT 34 but include the Skylink service if you’re coming in to East Midlands Airport and want to include the bus travel from the airport.

Taxis

Nottingham, like many cities in the UK, offer two types of cab service. Firstly there are “Hackney cabs” which can be hailed to stop in the street, and which in Nottingham usually use the “black cabs” famous from London. Alternatively there are “minicabs” which are cab services that have to be pre-booked (though this may be for an immediate pick-up) and can’t be hailed on the street. If you’re in the city and wanting to get back quickly by cab to the university when you’re finished it’s probably easiest to hail a black cab – they can usually be found of an evening on Upper Parliament Street or near the station.

If you’re travelling from the campus or want to pre-book a cab for a certain time (e.g. for travel to an airport), there are a selection of minicab phone numbers below:

• Trent Cars: 0115 950 5050
• Nottingham Cars: 0115 970 0700
• DG Private Hire: 0115 9 500 500, 0115 9 607 607  (and online)

You can find further minicab services through Yell.

Note that you should not get into a minicab (generally, a cab that isn’t a black cab) that you’ve not pre-booked as this is not legal and may not be safe - you won’t be covered by their insurance.