Passengers in scheduled long-distance buses in Germany 2007-2023

In 2023, roughly 10.4 million passengers used long-distance buses in Germany. This shows a significant increase compared to the year before, when the number of passengers amounted to around 7.5 billion. However, passenger numbers have not fully recovered from the Covid pandemic and are still over 50 percent lower than pre-pandemic numbers in 2019.

A long-distance bus line connects regions at bigger distances from each other. Destinations range from Germany to Central Europe, especially cities or tourist magnets in Eastern, Southern and Southeast European countries. The buses often service several cities in both the outgoing and destination regions - they collect and drop off passengers in different places. Expressways and freeways are usually used as often as possible.