Towing Service Cologne: Districts, Ring Roads & Rhine Bridges

What happens after you call?

Tell us the district or borough and the street, plus your vehicle and what happened. We work out with you what's needed and tell you the price on the phone. After that our partner on the ground drives to you and takes the vehicle to the agreed place.

Cologne's nine districts

Cologne is divided into nine districts (Stadtbezirke) with 86 neighbourhoods between them. Each district has its own page with streets, exits and tips for your location (currently in German):

The motorways around Cologne have their own pages too: A1, A3, A4, A57, A59, A555 (German pages) and the Leverkusen Bridge (German).

When you call, please tell us the neighbourhood or district together with the street name. Some names occur in several parts of the city.

Left and right of the Rhine

The Rhine splits Cologne in two, and you can only reach the other side over a bridge. For road vehicles, from south to north across the city, these are:

There are also the rail-only Süd Bridge and Hohenzollern Bridge, which don't matter for cars. If you break down in Köln-Deutz, Kalk or Mülheim and your garage is on the left bank of the Rhine, the route over one of these bridges is part of the plan. Tell us your location and destination and we'll see how it can be done.

The ring roads, from inner to outer

• The Ringe and the Innere Kanalstraße: the innermost road ring around the old town and Neustadt.
• The Gürtel: the third ring, counted from the city centre.
• The Militärringstraße: the outer ring along the former fortification belt, still a heavily used traffic artery today.
• The motorway ring: A3, A4 and A1, see Breakdown on the Motorway Ring.

If you break down on a ring road, it helps us to know which junction or square you're at, and which direction you're facing.

Inner city: car parks, narrow streets, roadworks

In the old town and the neighbourhoods around the Rhine, many streets are narrow, pedestrian zones are closed to vehicles, and multi-storey car parks have limited clearance heights. A tow truck with a tall flatbed doesn't fit into every car park. That's why we ask about the level, height and access route for inner-city jobs. If there's roadworks or a closure on site, please tell us.

Cologne/Bonn Airport

The airport is on the A59, which branches off the A3/A4 at the Heumar triangle. The Cologne/Bonn Airport exit leads to the terminals, and car parks P1 to P3 are right by the terminals. If you're back from a trip with a flat battery or a flat tyre in the car park, it helps to know the clearance height: third-party sources quote a maximum vehicle height of 1.95 metres for car park P2, though the sign at the entrance is what actually counts. How height and ramps affect recovery is explained in our guide (German) on car parks and underground garages.

The trade fair (Koelnmesse) and Deutz

Drivers reach the Koelnmesse in Deutz from the Aachen direction via the A4 to the Gremberg interchange and on via the A559 to where the motorway ends in Deutz, and from the Leverkusen direction via the A3 to the Cologne-Ost interchange and then the B55 towards the centre. There are car parks, underground garages and open lots around the trade fair. If your vehicle breaks down there, tell us the car park or parking area, the level, and, if you know it, the entry height. Without that information we can't say which vehicle will fit.

Low-emission zone

Cologne has a low-emission zone where, since 1 July 2014, only vehicles with a green sticker (grüne Plakette) may drive. That matters if your vehicle needs to drive itself through the city again after the repair: without a green sticker it may not enter the zone. The City of Cologne provides more information on this.

What we organise for you in Cologne

• Roadside assistance: battery, tyres, locked out, wrong fuel
• Towing and recovery after a breakdown or accident
• Transport of motorcycles, scooters and machinery
• Vehicle transport to a garage, a dealer, or home

Jobs in Cologne are carried out by our partners on the ground, we coordinate the help. Faster is based in Antwerp, Belgium.