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Murcia is about to get a bumper set of coach routes connecting it to the rest of Spain
Travelling to and from Murcia by bus will get a whole lot easier... in a couple of years
Spain’s central government has just announced it will launch a series of new official cross-country bus routes, a move which will give a major boost to transport connections between the Region of Murcia and the rest of Spain.
The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility’s new nationwide concession map for coaches and buses, which consists of 31 routes, will soon be published for public consultation.
Four of routes include Murcia. These are: Santander-Zaragoza-Murcia; Valencia-Alicante-Murcia, Murcia-Granada-Seville and Murcia-Almería.
Tucked into the southeasternmost corner of mainland Spain, Murcia and Cartagena are a bit out of the way, oft forgotten and not always easy to get to from other parts of the country.
On the one hand, it means that Murcia continues to be something of a hidden gem within Spain, but it also means that the Region suffers from lower funding and fewer visitors. With these new bus routes, perhaps that will start to change somewhat – for better or for worse.
However, as is often the case, this is not going to be a quick fix. The process to launch these new routes may be tediously slow, so you’ve still got time to enjoy Murcia at its quietest for a few more years yet.
The long road to new road connections
The draft proposals will be available for thirty working days following their publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE), during which time members of the public, public authorities and organisations may submit comments and observations.
Once these contributions have been received and the reports from the affected autonomous communities and the National Land Transport Council have been analysed, the projects will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for final approval.
According to the Ministry’s forecasts, the network will serve 1,682 municipalities via 600 routes and 2,294 stops.
The tendering processes for the new contracts will then begin, which the Ministry expects to complete within less than two years, in accordance with the provisions of the Sustainable Mobility Act.
These routes are in addition to the three already approved by the government, meaning that the new concession map will comprise 34 corridors.
The other three, approved by the Council of Ministers, are the Castro-Urdiales–Bilbao route, approved on November 25, 2025 and already out to tender; the Madrid–Zaragoza–Catalonia corridor, approved on April 21, 2026; and the Madrid–Valencia corridor, approved on May 5.
All new cross-Region and -province coach routes coming in Spain
- Madrid – Toledo – Badajoz
- Pontevedra – Salamanca – San Sebastián – Barcelona
- Santiago de Compostela – Santander – Bilbao – Barcelona
- Madrid – Toledo – Ciudad Real
- Madrid – Toledo
- Santander – Zaragoza – Murcia
- Madrid – Sevilla – Huelva
- Madrid – Granada – Almería
- Barcelona – Lleida – Huesca
- Teruel – Castellón – Barcelona
- Madrid – Ciudad Real – Jaén
- Logroño – Soria – Madrid
- Valencia – Alicante – Murcia
- Sevilla – Málaga – Barcelona
- Asturias – León – Madrid
- Murcia – Granada – Sevilla
- Madrid – Albacete – Alicante
- La Coruña – Salamanca – Sevilla
- San Sebastián – Pontevedra
- Burgos – Soria – Zaragoza
- Madrid – Burgos – San Sebastián
- Badajoz – Sevilla – Córdoba
- Madrid – Guadalajara
- Madrid – Ávila – Cáceres
- Murcia – Almería
- Madrid – Ciudad Real
- Madrid – Málaga – Cádiz
- Madrid – Segovia
- Huelva – Barcelona
- Madrid – Salamanca – Pontevedra
- Castro - Urdiales – Bilbao
- Madrid – Zaragoza – Cataluña
- Madrid – Valencia
