FRANKFURT — Sometime next year, a group of students, retirees and other budget-conscious Germans will climb aboard a bus in Frankfurt and make a trip that, in its own way, will be historic.

They will ride to Munich, or perhaps Düsseldorf or Stuttgart — bus journeys that, for the past 79 years, have been illegal.

Long-distance domestic bus service has, with a few exceptions, been outlawed in Germany since 1931. But the ban, originally intended to protect the state-owned railway system, is likely to soon fall away under pressure from a recent court decision and a decision by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to deregulate domestic travel.

That it is taking so long to lift the bus ban says something about how slowly things change in Germany, despite the country’s status as the economic locomotive of Europe and a model of competitiveness.

The anti-bus law is also a reminder that, despite steady movement over the past decade, barriers to full-bore free enterprise remain in Europe. Germany and other countries still shield certain professions and industries from new competitors with thickets of regulation.

“It’s an anachronism,” said Roderick Donker van Heel, general manager of Deutsche Touring, which offers bus service from Frankfurt and other cities to foreign destinations, but is usually not even allowed to drop off passengers within Germany.