Five districts in southern Upper Bavaria and the independent city of Rosenheim are jointly launching the Alpine bus, which has been discussed for years. From December 2025, the new line is intended to create a large public east-west connection along the edge of the Alps, without passengers having to take the previous detours via Munich. The last necessary committee, the district council in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, gave its approval on Tuesday evening.
The resolutions in the individual district councils and in the Rosenheim city council are necessary because the municipalities jointly finance the bus and usually raise six-figure amounts for it – depending on their share of the overall route from Murnau via Penzberg, Bad Tölz, Gmund and Miesbach to Rosenheim. However, by far the largest contribution comes from the Free State, which classifies the Alpine bus as a “nationally important bus line”. In the first year it will bear almost two thirds of the deficit that the Alpine bus will generate, as will almost all public bus routes. After that, the state subsidy should slowly decrease and remain at 50 percent from the fourth year onwards.
The Alpine Bus will be the third bus line based on this financing model. The first two “nationally important bus lines” have been in existence since 2021 between Coburg and Gersfeld and as a multi-part express bus ring around Munich. “We want to create attractive cross-connections and thus bring people closer together, even away from the railway lines,” Bavaria’s Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU) was quoted as saying on Wednesday in largely identical messages from several district offices. In the future, “the places in the Alpine region will be even better connected.” The respective district administrators and Rosenheim Mayor Andreas März were also satisfied. In a first attempt two years ago, the Rosenheim city council rejected the plans.
Prime Minister Markus Söder had already announced the Alpine bus in a government statement in 2018. In principle, the idea is much older. Originally, the Alpine bus was supposed to go as far as Kempten in the west, but there was little support for this in the Allgäu. In the Bavarian Oberland, tourism experts, among others, consider a public east-west connection to be an important factor.
The city and district of Rosenheim as well as the districts of Miesbach and Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen have been completely part of the Munich transport association for a few days. Weilheim-Schongau has decided to join in December 2024, Garmisch-Partenkirchen is expected to follow in December 2025 – then just in time for the planned start of the Alpine bus.