{"id":112847,"date":"2026-08-07T16:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112847\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:12:30","slug":"switzerlands-mountain-bus-route-a-journey-worth-taking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112847\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland’s Mountain Bus Route: A Journey Worth Taking"},"content":{"rendered":"

At twilight the mountain village of Saxeten in the Swiss region of Bernese Oberland is even sleepier than during the day. Only a few cats can be seen scurrying across the meandering roads, ducking between chalet houses. Yet at sunrise the scene comes to life: people step out of their wooden homes and in the light of dawn a bright-yellow Mercedes bus pulls up at the station by the old schoolhouse. Three passengers jump on board and are greeted with a joyful \u201cHello!\u201d from Carolyn Lansdell, who has been working as a driver for PostAuto, a subsidiary of the Swiss Post, for just over a year.<\/p>\n

As the 20-seater leaves the village behind and heads down a serpentine road towards the larger town of Wilderswil, Lansdell takes particular care. She\u2019s not simply carrying commuters this morning: there\u2019s a trailer attached to her bus containing 1,000 litres of fresh milk, which farmers loaded on the previous night. \u201cWe\u2019re the only PostAuto that still delivers milk,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd on the way back we\u2019re going to pick up bread for the Alpenrose Hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Switzerland\u2019s iconic yellow PostAuto is the descendent of the horse-drawn post coach that trundled along the lanes in the mid-19th century. These Swiss Post coaches travelled to far-flung towns and would give villagers a lift as long as they didn\u2019t mind sharing the back seat with piles of letters. In 1906 the first automobile-run post route launched between Bern and Detligen, with more quickly following behind.<\/p>\n

As the vehicles grew in size, so too did the demand for public transport. Soon the PostAuto was born, leaving mail delivery up to another Swiss Post subsidiary. Today, it is the leading bus company in Switzerland\u2019s public-transport network. Every year 145 million passengers travel with the operator, which connects even the smallest of villages \u2013 such as Saxeten \u2013 with the infrastructure of larger cities.<\/p>\n

\"YellowPostAuto bus winding its way down from the mountain village<\/p>\n

\"YellowPostAuto is Switzerland\u2019s leading bus company<\/p>\n

\"WomanFamilies rely on PostAuto buses to get to school, work and to do their shopping<\/p>\n

\"KurtKurt Balmer, co-owner of Hotel Alpenrose<\/p>\n

\"DigitalNext stop?<\/p>\n

\"RuediRuedi Simmler, director of the Bern region for PostAuto<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started we drove a white Land Rover and delivered parcels,\u201d says Paul Seematter, the patriarch of a Saxeten farming family and a former PostAuto driver. \u201cIt was a good second income and I met the most interesting people,\u201d he adds, as he shovels hay into his cowshed. Amid the jingle of cowbells he recounts stories from his 30 years as a driver (he is still referred to as the \u201cchauffeur\u201d in town). \u201cIn the early days the mountain road didn\u2019t even have a barrier to protect us from the steep drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the establishment of the service between Saxeten and Wilderswil in 1951, the connection has vastly improved and become a vital lifeline for the 96 people of Saxeten who have neither a baker nor a bank. Villagers must take the PostAuto into Wilderswil for their shopping or even to catch a train to Interlaken, the biggest town in the vicinity. \u201cFor us the PostAuto is very important,\u201d says Erika Balmer, c0-owner of Saxeten\u2019s only hotel, the Alpenrose. \u201cMany of our guests come up with the PostAuto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erika and her husband Kurt are the village\u2019s serial entrepreneurs. They own all the businesses in town: the hotel and the three restaurants for which Kurt and his mother Ruth cook with a passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard life, you have to love being in the countryside,\u201d says Erika, noting that her guests appreciate the solitude of the village. If it weren\u2019t for the PostAuto, many of them would probably never find their way up to Saxeten in the first place.<\/p>\n

In the countryside, buses are the ideal means of transport: they\u2019re safe, flexible and, unlike trains, don\u2019t depend on expensive infrastructure. PostAuto\u2019s network is around four times the size of the national rail\u2019s coverage and therefore responsible for even the most isolated communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefit of PostAuto is that we are given the opportunity to make many decisions locally,\u201d says Ruedi Simmler, director of the Bern region for PostAuto. \u201cIn Saxeten we were able to adapt the timetable for the schoolchildren, for instance.\u201d<\/p>\n

PostAuto continues to innovate. This spring it launched the first trials of an autonomous shuttle bus in Sion. If it is a success, the organisation will be able to diversify its rural offering across the country, although this scheme is still years from fruition. \u201cWe are in the process of transforming from a simple bus company to a holistic mobility provider,\u201d says Daniel Landolf, PostAuto\u2019s CEO. \u201cWith our autonomous shuttles we want to test new forms of giving access to locations that were previously not connected to the public-transport network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the Bernese Oberland, Lansdell is making her 10th and final journey of the day, arriving in Saxeten at 18.03. Next to the bus stop is the blue-shuttered house of the community\u2019s president Martin Boss, who used to drive for PostAuto too. \u201cIt makes us mobile,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing here, not even a market. For that you need to go down the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

PostAuto pointers
Employees: 3,700
Buses: 2,238
Lines: 877
Passengers: 145 million per year.
Turnover: CHF743m (\u20ac680m).<\/p>\n

Saxeten in numbers
Population: 96
Founded: 1233
Cost of a house: CHF500,000 (\u20ac460,000)
Key facilities: Fire station, Hotel Alpenrose, Restaurant Pintli, Gl\u00fchweinbar and skiing and toboggan routes.
Challenges: To keep the younger generations in Saxeten and remain an independent village.<\/p>\n

The Monocle view:<\/p>\n

What: Switzerland is exemplary at making its rural areas attractive, productive and financially viable.<\/p>\n

Switzerland is good at a lot of things but one achievement that gets neglected in all the talk of banks and watches is the country\u2019s success at making rural life economically viable. Plenty of nations pay lip service to the notion of reviving the countryside but more often than not it still pays to go urban. Mobility is just one problem that the PostAuto, combined with the Swiss rail network, overcomes.<\/p>\n

The backbone of the rural economy is still farming, however, and here again Switzerland provides a model to follow. Businesses across the country carry out their duty to support farmers, from Coop supermarkets and restaurants serving regional produce to exporters bolstering the national brand abroad. The government\u2019s commitment to the Swiss tourism and hospitality sector, much of which resides in non-urban destinations, is also exemplary. If we want to see the countryside truly vital again, we need to enable people to make money there. A few extra bus routes would be a good place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At twilight the mountain village of Saxeten in the Swiss region of Bernese Oberland is even sleepier than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[51583,41,17],"class_list":["post-112847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-rural","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117055110748550335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}