Getting to Birmingham: New Street, the NEC, and Driving In by Motorway
Getting to Birmingham is simple once you know which of the four city stations you want, and expensive to get wrong if you are driving in.
The centre has more rail entrances than most visitors expect, and they serve genuinely different parts of it, so the choice is worth ninety seconds of thought.
New Street, and the other three stations
Birmingham New Street
Birmingham Moor Street
Birmingham Snow Hill
Birmingham International
Birmingham New Street handles the bulk of long-distance travel and sits underneath Grand Central and the Bullring, so you arrive already inside the shopping centre. Moor Street is a two-minute walk east and is the better choice for Digbeth. Snow Hill serves the tram north-west towards the Jewellery Quarter and The Hawthorns.
Hotels near the NEC and reaching it
Birmingham International is the station that causes most of the confusion about getting to Birmingham. It serves the National Exhibition Centre, the arena now called bp pulse LIVE and the airport, several miles east in Solihull. Trains from New Street take roughly ten minutes, and the walk from the platform into the halls is largely under cover.
The airport connects to the same station by a short automated shuttle instead of a bus, which makes tight connections realistic.
What none of this supports is the assumption that the NEC is walkable from the city centre. It is not, and a taxi across is a much longer journey than the train.
Anyone getting to Birmingham for an exhibition faces one further choice. Hotels near the NEC stand on the complex itself, which removes the train ride at both ends of a long day, and the walk from the halls to the bedrooms is short enough to make twice without noticing that you have.
The alternative is the centre, ten minutes away by rail, where almost everything else worth seeing is. Hotels near the NEC and hotels in the middle of the city answer two different questions, and which of the two you are answering is usually settled the moment the programme is fixed.
Driving in, and the Clean Air Zone
Driving in to the middle of Birmingham means a charge for non-compliant vehicles, and the rate changed recently enough that older guidance is now wrong. The zone covers everywhere inside the A4540 Middleway ring road, excluding the ring road itself, and it runs constantly rather than only during working hours, which catches out evening and weekend arrivals.
A non-compliant car now pays ten pounds a day, having gone up from eight pounds in May 2026. The threshold is broadly petrol older than 2006 and diesel older than 2015, so the majority of vehicles pay nothing, though the penalty for assuming falls on anyone who guesses wrong about their own vehicle rather than checking it.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Car, non-compliant | £10 per day, raised from £8 on 11 May 2026 |
| Boundary | Everywhere inside the A4540 Middleway ring road. The ring road itself is not in the zone. |
| Hours | 24 hours a day, every day |
| Applies to | Non-compliant cars, taxis and light goods vehicles — broadly petrol older than Euro 4 (pre-2006) and diesel older than Euro 6 (pre-2015). |
The charge and the boundary are the council's, not this guide's, and the rate has changed once already in 2026. Anyone planning a drive in should confirm the current figure and check their own registration on birmingham.gov.uk before setting off, because a charge missed is a penalty notice in place of a reminder.
Getting about once you arrive
Walking handles the centre, and it does so better than most cities of this size. Birmingham New Street to Brindleyplace takes about twelve minutes, the Hippodrome about eight, and the Jewellery Quarter roughly twenty. The canal towpaths give you a level, traffic-free alternative to the main roads for several of those routes.
The Midland Metro tram is the exception worth learning. It runs from Grand Central through the Jewellery Quarter out to The Hawthorns, which is the only ground in the English professional leagues served by its own tram stop.
For everywhere else in the centre, the tram is slower than walking.
Questions about getting to Birmingham
Which Birmingham station do I need?
New Street for the city centre and nearly every long-distance service. Moor Street for Chiltern trains and the shortest walk to the Bullring and Digbeth. Snow Hill for the Jewellery Quarter tram. Birmingham International only for the NEC, the airport and the bp pulse LIVE arena, none of which is in the centre.
How do I get to the NEC from Birmingham New Street?
Take a train to Birmingham International, about ten minutes away, then walk. The route from the station into the exhibition halls is covered for most of its length. Do not plan on walking from the city centre, because the NEC sits out in Solihull, several miles to the east of the city centre and well beyond walking distance.
How much is the Birmingham Clean Air Zone?
A non-compliant car pays £10 a day, having risen from £8 in May 2026. The zone covers everywhere inside the A4540 Middleway ring road but not the ring road itself, and it operates twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, including weekends and public holidays alike, without any exception.
Which cars have to pay in Birmingham?
Broadly, petrol vehicles older than Euro 4 standard, meaning roughly pre-2006, and diesels older than Euro 6, meaning roughly pre-2015. Most cars registered after those dates pay nothing. The council publishes a registration checker for exactly this purpose, and looking your own vehicle up before travelling costs nothing but a moment of your time.
Can I get to The Hawthorns by tram?
Yes, and it is the only ground in the English professional leagues with its own tram stop. The Midland Metro runs from Grand Central at New Street through the Jewellery Quarter to The Hawthorns, which makes it comfortably the easiest of the local grounds to reach without a car, in either direction, on a match day.
Figures and dates here follow nationalrail.co.uk and tfwm.org.uk, checked 14 September 2026. Both are more current than this page can be.