Riding the bus in Fredericton

Fredericton Transit fares, monthly passes, the U-Pass, how to pay with tap or the HotSpot app, live tracking with MyRide, accessibility and Para Transit, bike racks, and the honest truth about evening and Sunday service.

Updated August 8, 2026

City services

Quick answer

A single ride is $3.00, pay exact cash or tap a debit/credit card, phone or watch; kids under 6 ride free. An adult monthly pass is $85, a student monthly is $60, a 10-ride is $27.50, and the 65 Plus Club gives seniors a full year for $65. UNB, STU and NBCCD students already have a U-Pass baked into their fees, so they ride free. Buy mobile fares in the HotSpot app, and track buses live with MyRide, the Transit app or Google Maps. Routes radiate from Kings Place downtown on a roughly hourly beat; service is thin in the evenings and lighter on Sundays and holidays, so check the time of your last bus before you commit.

Last verified July 14, 2026

The one-minute version

Fredericton Transit is a small-city bus system that does an admirable amount with a modest fleet. Set your expectations to reliable but hourly rather than big-city frequent, and you and the bus will get along fine. A flat $3.00 fare gets you anywhere on the network, students at the three post-secondaries ride free on their U-Pass, and every bus is wheelchair-accessible and carries a bike rack. The whole thing runs on a hub-and-spoke model, and the hub is Kings Place, the complex on King Street downtown, where nearly every route connects.

Here is the shape of it at a glance:

Hub: Kings Place downtown, learn it first, because everything radiates out from it and it is where you transfer.
Fare: $3.00 single (exact cash or tap), $85 adult monthly, $60 student monthly, $27.50 for ten rides. Under 6 free.
Frequency: roughly every 30 to 60 minutes depending on the route and time of day, seven days a week except most holidays.
Reality check: evenings thin out and Sunday runs a reduced network from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Plan around the timetable, do not just show up and hope.

Confirm before you commit. Fares, hours and route numbers move around, and this page is a snapshot, not a live feed. Before you build a job, a class or a doctor’s appointment around a specific bus, check the current schedule on fredericton.ca or in the app. If you are trying to live here without a car, our car-free in Fredericton guide puts the bus in context with walking, cycling and the occasional taxi.

Fares, passes and every category

The good news up front: riding the bus here is cheap, and the fare structure is refreshingly free of zones, peak surcharges and the other indignities of larger systems. One flat fare gets you anywhere on the network, and your transfer to a connecting route is free. The only catch with cash is that you need exact change, operators do not carry any, and there is no farebox that hands back your quarters. Feed the coins, take a transfer if you need one, and find a seat. Most regulars now skip the coins entirely and tap a card or phone, or buy a pass in the app.

Fare or pass	Price	Who it is for and how it works
Single ride (cash or tap)	$3.00	Exact cash only, or tap debit / credit / phone / watch. Includes a free one-way transfer.
Children under 6	Free	Riding with a paying passenger.
10-ride ticket	$27.50	Works out to $2.75 a trip, cheaper than paying cash each time.
Adult monthly pass	$85	Unlimited rides for the calendar month. Pays for itself at roughly 28 rides.
Student monthly pass	$60	Requires student ID; sold at City Hall and the UNB Student Union Building.
65 Plus Club (seniors)	$65 / year	Unlimited rides for a full year for anyone 65+. Age verification, purchased at City Hall.
U-Pass (UNB / STU / NBCCD)	In student fees	Unlimited rides while enrolled, already paid for. No ticket to buy.

A few things worth internalising:

The 65 Plus Club is the quiet steal of the whole system. A full year of unlimited transit for about what an adult pays for a single month. If you are 65 or over, it is close to a no-brainer, you verify your age once at City Hall and then forget about fares until next year.
Transfers are free and one-way. A lot of cross-town trips require a change at Kings Place, so ask for a transfer (or keep your tap receipt) when you board, it gets you onto the connecting route without paying twice.
Passes sell at City Hall on Queen Street; student passes also at the UNB Student Union Building. You can also buy single fares and monthly passes from your couch in the HotSpot app, which is the modern default.
Every dollar here is roughly a third of what you would spend parking downtown for the day. If you are weighing the two, our parking page lays out the downtown rates and the winter overnight ban.

How the route network actually works

Fredericton Transit runs on a classic hub-and-spoke design, and the hub is Kings Place, the complex on King Street in the central business district. It is the common interchange point for all services: almost every route begins, ends or passes through it, which makes it both the place you catch your bus and the place you change buses. If you are learning the system, learn Kings Place first and the rest of the map falls into place around it.

From that downtown pinch point, a family of numbered routes fans out to cover both sides of the Wolastoq (Saint John River): the north side, the south side, the university hill, the malls, the hospital, and the big-box corridors along Regent, Prospect and Hanwell. The neighbourhood routes carry names you will start to recognise, Forest Hill/Windsor, Brookside/Marysville, Woodstock/Smythe, River Run, York/Hanwell, Skyline/Southwood Park, and a Crosstown route links the north and south sides directly so you are not always forced back through downtown. A Campus Connect route serves the university area. Beyond Kings Place, the practical transfer points are Maple and St. Mary’s streets, Regent Mall and Corbett Centre, plus, honestly, anywhere two routes happen to cross.

Frequency is roughly 30 to 60 minutes. Several core corridors now run half-hourly through the midday, but on much of the network “the bus comes every hour” is the honest default. Miss one and you wait, so plan around the timetable rather than showing up on spec.
Cross-town trips usually mean a transfer. A journey that looks short on a map can involve a wait for the connection, so budget generously, crossing the river can eat the better part of an hour once you factor in the change.
Two quieter areas now run on demand. On the Silverwood (Route 18) and Lincoln (Route 20) corridors, the fixed schedule has been replaced by an on-demand service: you request a pickup at an existing stop through the Fredericton Transit app or by calling 506-460-2212, same-day or up to seven days ahead, and the bus comes to you. It runs weekday mornings (about 6:30 to 10:30 a.m.) and afternoons (about 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.), with the same fares, transfers and connections to Kings Place as the rest of the system.

How to pay and how to track your bus

You have two jobs as a rider: get the fare paid, and know where the bus actually is. Both are easier than they used to be. For paying, you can tap a contactless card or a mobile wallet right at the farebox, debit, credit, phone or smartwatch, Apple Pay included, the same open-payment tap you use at a coffee shop. For fares you want to buy ahead, or a monthly pass without a trip to City Hall, the City uses the HotSpot app. For tracking, the buses carry GPS and several apps show you their live position, which on an hourly system is the single best free upgrade to your day.

Tool	What it is for	How to use it
Tap to pay	Paying a single fare on the spot	Tap your card, phone or watch at the farebox. No app, no coins, no exact change.
HotSpot app	Buying single fares and monthly passes on mobile	Download HotSpot, add a payment method, choose Transit, buy a single ride or a monthly pass, and activate it when you board.
MyRide	The City’s own live tracking	Open myride.fredericton.ca or the MyRide app; pick your route and stop to see real arrival times.
Transit app	Third-party live tracking and trip planning	Set your home stop as a favourite; it shows countdowns and step-by-step trips.
Google Maps	Familiar trip planning	Enter your destination, tap the transit tab, and it routes you with departure times.

The HotSpot app, step by step. Install HotSpot from the App Store or Google Play, create an account, and add a card or mobile wallet as your payment method. Open the transit section, pick either a single ride or a monthly pass, and pay. A single ride is stored until you need it, activate it as you board and show the driver the live screen. A monthly pass simply runs for the calendar month. It is the same app the City uses for parking, so if you already have it for the meters, you are halfway there.

MyRide versus Transit versus Google Maps. They overlap, and the right answer is “install two.” MyRide is the City’s own tool, tied directly to the fleet’s GPS, and is your best bet for the true live position of a specific bus. The Transit app is the slickest for everyday use, a clean countdown to your stop and good trip planning, and is what a lot of regulars keep on their home screen. Google Maps is the one you already have and the easiest for a newcomer who just wants to type in a destination and be told which bus to take. On a system where a missed bus means a long wait, live tracking is not a nicety; it is the feature that turns “maybe I will wait” into “I have nine minutes, I will grab a coffee.”

Evenings, Sundays, holidays and storms

This is the section where a lot of transit guides go quiet, so let us not. Fredericton Transit is dependable within its limits, but the limits are real, and knowing them ahead of time is the difference between a system that works for you and one that strands you at a dark stop on a Sunday.

When	What to expect
Weekday daytime	The full network, roughly every 30–60 minutes, with the best frequency at peak hours.
Weekday evening	Service thins out as the night goes on; the last trips are earlier than you think. Check your last bus.
Saturday	Runs, on a lighter schedule than weekdays.
Sunday	A reduced network of core routes, hourly from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., including a Crosstown link between the two sides of the river.
Most holidays	No service on most statutory holidays. Confirm before a long-weekend trip.

Sunday heads-up. Sunday is not a normal service day. Only a core set of routes runs, and only hourly between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., so if your Sunday plan ends after 6, the bus will not be there to bring you home. Check the Sunday map specifically, not the weekday one, and have a backup for the trip back.

Winter and storm service. This is a New Brunswick city, and winter is a real variable. During and after big storms, routes can be delayed, detoured or suspended while streets are cleared, and the City posts closures and detours on the Fredericton Transit Facebook page and reflects delays in the live apps. Two practical habits: check MyRide or the Transit app before you leave rather than trusting the printed timetable on a snow day, and remember that a bus stop is only as accessible as the sidewalk in front of it, a kneeling ramp does not help much if it deploys into a snowbank. Give yourself extra time, and if a stop is genuinely buried, that is worth reporting so it gets cleared.

Accessibility, Para Transit and bike racks

Two of the system’s quietly best features are the ones you only notice when you need them. On accessibility, every city bus is a low-floor accessible bus: it kneels, deploys a ramp, and has priority seating near the front. Buses also make automated stop announcements, spoken and visual, which help riders who are blind, low-vision, deaf or hard of hearing know when their stop is coming. If you use a mobility device, this is a genuinely usable network in fair weather; the honest asterisk is winter, when the barrier is rarely the bus and almost always the snowbank at the curb.

For people who cannot use the fixed-route buses, the City runs a separate Para Transit service, door-to-door, accessible vans booked in advance rather than a route you catch at a stop. It is designed for riders whose disability prevents them from using the regular buses, and there is an eligibility and registration process to qualify; once you are registered, you book your trips ahead. Para Transit now includes Sunday service as well. Because the qualifying criteria and booking details are handled directly by the City and do change, the reliable move is to contact Fredericton Transit at 506-460-2020 or transit@fredericton.ca to ask how to apply and book, do not assume, confirm. If accessibility shapes how you get around town generally, our car-free guide and the ask a local page are good next stops.

On bikes: every bus carries a front-mounted rack that holds two non-motorized bikes and now fits fat-tire bikes up to about 5.5 inches wide. It is the trick that unlocks a lot of car-free trips, ride the flat stretches under your own steam and let the bus carry you and the bike up the hill or across the river. Flag the driver before you load, secure the bike in the rack, and let them know when you are unloading so they wait for you.

Your first ride: newcomers and students

If you have never taken the bus here, the first ride is the only awkward one. Here is how to make it boring in the good way.

Plan the trip the night before. Open Google Maps or the Transit app, enter where you are going, and note the route number, the stop, and, this is the part people skip, the time of the last bus back.
Sort your fare. Easiest is to tap a card or phone as you board. Otherwise bring $3.00 in exact change, or set up the HotSpot app beforehand and activate a ride when you step on.
Get to the stop a few minutes early and check MyRide for the live position, so you know whether the bus is on time or you have a minute to spare.
Board at the front, pay or tap, and grab a transfer if your trip needs a connection, most cross-town trips change at Kings Place.
Signal your stop. Pull the cord or press the strip a block ahead; the automated announcements tell you what is coming so you are not guessing in the dark.

Students, read this twice. If you attend UNB, St. Thomas University or the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, you almost certainly already have unlimited bus access bundled into your fees as the U-Pass. You do not buy tickets and you do not feed coins, your validated student ID is your pass. Check with your student union at the start of each term for exactly how yours activates, because it is sometimes a sticker or a per-term validation rather than the card by itself. For everything else about settling in, our moving to Fredericton guide walks through utilities, garbage zones, a library card and a transit pass in the order you actually need them, and if a specific question is nagging you, just ask a local.

Common questions

How much is the bus in Fredericton?

A single ride is $3.00. Pay with exact cash (operators do not make change) or simply tap a debit or credit card, phone or smartwatch at the farebox. Your transfer to a connecting bus is free. A 10-ride ticket is $27.50, a monthly pass is $85 for adults and $60 for students, and children under 6 ride free. You can also buy single fares and passes in the HotSpot app.

How do I pay for the bus with my phone?

Two ways. To pay a single fare on the spot, just tap your phone or smartwatch (Apple Pay and the like) at the farebox, the same contactless tap you use anywhere else. To buy fares ahead or a monthly pass, use the HotSpot app: download it, add a card, choose Transit, buy a single ride or a monthly pass, and activate it as you board.

How do I track Fredericton buses in real time?

Use an app. The City’s own MyRide (myride.fredericton.ca or the MyRide app) shows live bus positions tied to the fleet’s GPS. The third-party Transit app and Google Maps both support Fredericton Transit too. On an hourly system, live tracking is the feature that saves you from standing at a cold stop guessing, install two so you have a backup.

Do buses run on Sundays in Fredericton?

Yes, but on a reduced network. A core set of routes runs hourly from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays, including a Crosstown link between the north and south sides. It is genuinely lighter than weekday service and ends by 6 p.m., so check the Sunday-specific map and confirm your last bus back. Most statutory holidays have no service at all.

Do UNB and STU students get free bus rides?

Effectively yes. Students at UNB, St. Thomas University and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design have a U-Pass bundled into their mandatory fees, giving unlimited rides while enrolled. You do not buy tickets; your validated student ID is your pass. Check with your student union each term for how yours activates.

Is there accessible and door-to-door transit in Fredericton?

Yes. Every regular bus is a low-floor accessible bus that kneels, ramps, has priority seating and announces stops. For riders who cannot use the fixed routes, the City runs a separate door-to-door Para Transit service that you register for and book in advance. To qualify and book, contact Fredericton Transit at 506-460-2020 or transit@fredericton.ca, the eligibility details are handled directly by the City.

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