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Even worse is the fact, that there are almost no service areas or gas stations directly at the motorway, which means, no good places to get dropped of, and no good places to start. The service areas that are there can be found on the site of [http://www.tank.rast.de/standorte/servicenetz/index.php Tank & Rast], click anywhere between [[Bielefeld]] and [[Aachen]] for the detail map of the Ruhrgebiet.
== Transiting Hitching around == Long -distance traffic usually tries to drive round this area and this is what you should try when transiting, if possible.
When coming from the south, heading to north or east, you should take the A1 until ''Kamener Kreuz'', and then follow the A1 for north or transfer to the A2 for east. Close before ''Kamener Kreuz'', there is one of the few service areas (''Lichtendorf''), which is great to get a ride in direction of [[Bremen]], [[Hamburg]], [[Hannover]], [[Berlin]] and [[Cologne]].
* the service area ''Frechen'', close to [[Cologne|Köln]], if your driver, most likely coming out of the [[Netherlands]] or [[Belgium]], goes past Aachen, but not further in your direction than Köln.
== Hitchhiking Hitching out ==
Good places to hitch out of the Ruhr Area are few and far between. You'll usually have to find a sympathetic person to drop you off there, or spend a bit of time on the VRR website to figure out what buses/trams to take and where to change.
=== Towards South towards [[Cologne and ]], northwest towards the South [[Netherlands]] ===The A52 runs through Essen and Mühlheim and joins the A3 running between the Dutch border in the North and Cologne/Frankfurt in the South. There's a good on-ramp onto the A52 near the Essen/Mühlheim air strip, reachable by bus (to a stop called "Abzweig Flughafen"); with dense traffic even on Sundays. Take a sign saying A3 south. There's service areas before Cologne, so you'll have the chance to change rides there.
For Cologne, use a sign saying "A3 south". There are service areas before Cologne, so you'll have the chance to change rides there. For the Netherlands, use a sign saying "A3 north". === Towards North towards [[Bremen/]], east towards [[Hannover, the North and the East ]] ===
== Public transport ==
The public transport in this area is coordinated in a transport network (called ''VRR''), which means that you can take any bus/tram/subway/supension railway/train (execpt IC and ICE) with one ticket. For about 9 euros, you can get a ticket to get from anywhere to anywhere.<br />
Tickets for only one city are about 2,20 Euros.