Twiliner to the Alps - a convenient and eco-friendly travel solution for alpine tourists
Today, European ski tourists use the plane or car to go to the Swiss Alps. With our most comfortable, unique night travel buses, we create a convenient travel solution taking them from their homes directly to the Alpine region with all their bulky luggage. Using biodiesel, it’s as sustainable as train travel. For this project we team up with tourist regions, hotels, bus partners, and Switzerland Tourism to create a scalable solution for tens of thousands of tourists each year.
What issue does your project address, and why do you want to tackle it?
Air and car travel account for a large part of climate-relevant emissions caused by international Alpine tourism. Trains and today’s buses are too inconvenient and uncomfortable for many visitors. With the Twiliner lie-flat buses we create an alternative way to travel.
MyClimate calculated: Using biodiesel from waste oil, travelling by Twiliner bus emits 24g CO2e per passenger-kilometer. This is comparable to traveling by train and 10 times less than flying.
What is your project about and how does it make tourism in the Alps future-proof?
Twiliner’s business model is to connect European’s cities. With this project, we want to extend our service to remote, popular Alpine regions.
We want to team up with a bus partner, an Alpine region, and Switzerland Tourism to create and test the concept. We’re in early discussions with Marti Reisen AG, Canton of Grisons and Switzerland Tourism and see a viable interest from all.
After testing the concept in winter 2025/2026, we aim to scale it to many regions.
How do you measure your project's success?
The success is measured by the number of people that change from plane or car to Twiliner and the respective CO2-reduction of Twiliner compared to the other modes of transport.
We measure this by asking the customers how they would have travelled to the Alps without Twiliner and multiplying it with the CO2-savings, and multiplying this with the number of tourists.
With this methodology, we expect a reduction of 950t CO2eq per bus and year.
Who are the people behind the project and what is your secret to a great collaboration?
At Twiliner, we are driven by the vision to tackle the elephant in the room of climate change: air travel. We know we cannot wait for futuristic solutions such as large scale SAF or carbon capture. We need solutions NOW and we need to work with what we have. And we need committed partners.
Heinrich Marti (Marti Reisen), Thierry Müller (Canton of Grisons) and Switzerland Tourism expressed interest and support for developing and testing the concept.
Now we need the Clima Now community and support!
