Urbana is a stored-value card

Stored-value card

A stored-value card refers to monetary value on a card not in an externally recorded account and differs from prepaid cards where money is on deposit with the issuer similar to a debit card...

 used on public transport services in Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...

, the capital of Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

. It is a credit-card sized plastic card on which the customer electronically loads fares. It was introduced to enhance the technology of the public transportation system and eliminate the burden of carrying and collecting tokens

Token coin

In the study of numismatics, tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia. Tokens are used in place of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape...

 or cash

Cash

In common language cash refers to money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.In bookkeeping and finance, cash refers to current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately...

.

Stored-value card (yellow)

Is sold on all sales locations for €2 and is transferable. It can be reloaded with amount ranging from €1 to €50. A fee for a bus ride is €0,80 and is valid for 90 minutes from the first entry to the bus and for unlimited number of transfers.

Time based pass (green)

Is sold only at Ljubljana Passenger Transport (LPP) sales stations and is issued to a specific holder. At the moment, only monthly passes can be loaded to the blue Urbana card. This card can also hold additional amount (for paying services other than public transport).

Topping up

Loading Urbana does not depend on the card type. It can be topped up at self-service machines called Urbanomats, LPP sales sites, Tourist information centers and newspapers agents (Delo Prodaja).

Urbanomat

Urbanomat is an automated machine for buying and topping up Urbana payment cards. The machine accepts Maestro and Mastercard (but not Visa), banknotes and coins (€1 and €2) and does not return the change. It can also be used to check the balance of Urbana.

Buses

All passengers must enter the bus at the front ('driver's') doors. There are two Urbana readers on every bus - one at the right hand side and the other on the left hand side, both at the front door. The card must be touched in and the machine will produce a chime upon a successful validation.

One Urbana card can be used to pay for multiple passengers. In that case the driver must be notified about the number of passengers and then Urbana is placed to the reader and proper amount is deducted.

Other uses

The Urbana payment card is used also for the payment of rides with the Ljubljana Castle funicular and paying for parking at Ljubljana's parking facilities. The planned uses are also paying fees in the Ljubljana City Library and paying for entry fees to museums and cultural events. However these uses will be put to practice gradually.