EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUSES | Cities Skylines 

In a way the city has to be designed from the beginning with "pedestrian/bicycle highways" followed by buses, trams and subways. Monorails and trains seems to be equal in capacity and interchangeable except that trains also have intercity capacity. The tricky part is to design the traffic routes in a way that minimizes the interference between different types of traffic. Roundabouts are one way to make traffic smoother but even they suffer from issues if the distance between intersections is too short.

I have to show this video to my municipal corporation to teach them about public busses.

how many people did that last bus killed crossing the street? xD

Went to the comments to see the potentially interesting sharing of additional tips but realized I'm too early for that to exist yet. This is a very rare problem for me.

the game needs a "pedestrian accessible" road where when you put it down, things like train stations, schools, and bus stops, would automatically insert those common pedestrian intersections. Like, it would be a basic 2 lane road or 4 lane ave or what have you, except when you place the feature that would modify it.

11:32-11:51 lol that part is like RollerCoaster Tycoon - look at that movement!

9:20 Only 205 people in that station? *NEEDS MORE PEOPLE*

2:55 avoid over lapping bus lines? That gets a tad tricky either on a main road with bus lanes or when you approach a bus station/transport interchange. The way to do that one is have your high density stuff in the immediate proximity so that the overlapping bus routes are able to serve it with the super high frequency needed to move those cims. And hey I get a Transit Orientated Development along the way

Just wanted to say that your videos are both relaxing to watch and have inspired me to design better cities in C:S. Thanks dude.

1:25 Ghost ambulance and spining red car.

Great video Sam! Could you make a video about the turism system, taxis, walking and bus sightseeing, and so on?

Hey man, I'm from brisbane too, I'm on holiday at the moment but your videos have taught me a lot, I thought I knew everything I needed until I came across your channel so thank you for inspiring me to play this game again when I return home. Feel like I have a whole new world of replayability.

I am from Sydney and it does not surprise me that you are a big fan of buses since you are from Brisbane. There are bus lanes everywhere! On a related note, my first attempt was to build a train system to move people around in my city, you get the weird idea if you know Sydney :) I suppose real-life experience has a huge impact on us lol.

Well, drat! I have a couple hours of work to do to change EVERY bus route in my current, large city (my first). While I've ensured my routes stop near hubs, metros, trains, etc., those same routes have way too many stops because they wander over too many streets in residential areas. I've got to simplify, simplify. THANK YOU for this video.

In San Jose Cal the right lane becomes a bus stop. No more pulling over to the curb. People have to drive around to the left lane to get by. The parking area next to the curb is now the bike lane.

Thanks! I've got a city that I need to redo the bus lanes in. The idea of dedicated bus lanes is brilliant. Think it will help this city a lot. May have to redo a couple districts and relocate educational & health buildings too.

I love the fact you are from Brisbane! I loved that city

I often use the two lane road with tram tracks for busy bus lines (set the road to busses only). in that way the other (less busy) bus lines can still use the road and the bussy one gets replaced by a tram.

7:33 When the bus driver is drunk

Useful tips from th video, I'll have them in mind while planing my next bus network. I don't know if this is true but when I make a tram network, and there's a bus line transfer somewhere, this bus lane will take over the tram line. Meaning, a lot of people will prefer to go around the city in a bus than take a direct train, tram or monorail route. Metro's and buses tend to take over any other form of public transport. Any thoughts on this?

Tips: Bus rapid transit system by using Bus lanes from network extension completely cut of the buses from normal traffic so no intersections for other vehicles to enter and it can have higher speeds so buses can act like high-speed trams in a way. don't forget to connect the stops with pathways. Elevated busway only connected by some paths can work like elevated metro or skytrain. HIgh capacity buses will help in this problem IPT2 mod and some good assets can be very useful. BRT with buses running through the middle of the street you will need some road assets for that but work as a tram. Use Bus lanes to bypass downtown traffic by elevating it above the median road so that long distance buses can get into bus hub or station directly. or if you realize that there is a shortcut instead of putting in normal road put only bus lane road in shorten the travel time.

What mod you use for bus management. Thanks^^

Express buses (buses traveling point-to-point) become obsolete _real_ quick in this game, especially when playing with finite cash. It's better to design your PT system with the intention of connecting adjacent neighbourhoods using a metro - not even a _tram!_ - and only have the buses feed people into the metro from the surrounding blocks. Otherwise, buses can easily congest your roads trying to make up for their low capacity and speed. Again, even trams are significantly inferior to metros over anything approaching long distances; I use trams the same as buses, for areas with higher demand for transportation to and from the metro (e.g. dense commercial/office areas). Watch Sam's "Public Transport Hierarchy" video for more info, it's pretty good.

Thanks for this video mate. When you showed those bus only lanes, I was thinking to myself "hey thats like here in brissy"! Shout out brother!

This was loads of help. I live in a small city that does not use buses for public transport. The city I'm from relies mostly on taxis for public transport, so I've been struggling to implement busing in my City skylines, because I simply have no real world examples to draw from.

IN germany we actually put Busses on the main road instead of adjacent to it even with blocking the traffic, partially on purpose. We also adjust traffic light next to tram/lightrail lines that as many trams and lightrails as reasonably possible overtake you. This makes you feel slower and makes you switch to public transit.

3:20 this will force people to cross roads and creates troubles on a big scale, then you might need traffic lights or ped ramp/tunnels. I rather have 1 bus crossing than dozens of people.

10:25 Can you please link to this road. I couldn't find it in your mods & assets list. I have a similar one as part of the UK roads pack but the textures don't match very well. Thanks :)

Nice vid Sam, think we can both agree Brisbane transport needs some work

This is a lot of my "But what if..." thoughts fleshed out. Thanks for the video!

The point when you mentioned that you live in Brisbane really cought me off guard. In 2019 I spent an exchange semester in Brisbane and it was the best experience I ever had. So I know exactly what bus lanes you were referring to. They're not that common over here. God I miss this beautiful city (I'm from Germany, in case you wanted to know)

I find editing bus routes is extremely difficult, and if you have any tips for that I would appreciate it.

Can you put that savegame on the workshop?

You could also cause fewer buses to spawn (to reduce their frequency) by lowering the bus budget

I seem to have a problem with running bus lines often. I was thinking of creating separate lines in areas of my city's neighborhoods and then have a station in the center of town. I then would run a line from the station to the beginning of one of the neighborhood bus lines and then run it back to the station. So essentially I will have every bus coming out of the station going to each of those neighborhoods instead of running each line starting at the station and then weaving through the neighborhoods and back to the station. In theory that sounds plausible to me but wanted to run that idea past everyone else to gain insight as to if that could work.

The busway that goes through Southbank, Marter, Kelvin Grove was such a good investment, but sometimes you get a bus driver who thinks he is Michael Schumacher and will fly through the busway at 80 or so and slamming on the brakes at every stop lol.

I enjoy seeing you operating Ikarus buses. :)

I actually try putting bus stops on each block, especially in high density areas, and make routs everywhere. To industrial areas, to colleges and hospitals, to shops... But it doesn't seem to help much. I still get jams. People still prefer cars. Maybe it takes to make buses free? Oh, and I add metro too. Same results. It doesn't look like people actually use public transport when they have an opportunity to get anywhere by it. Oh maybe I should (sinister laughter) forbid all traffic but buses?! =)

I just started playing C:S a couple of months ago and I have this problem where my city of +100k have a bus stop that has +1,500 passengers awaiting to get on the bus. There's about 20+ stops on a single bus line that travels from edge to edge of my city. Increasing the budget/busses doesn't help because it will back up traffic. The stops are 3 to 4 blocks apart from each other and my city layout is like a cube/square/cubical? all across the map. I use a 1 lane 2-way road without any traffic lights whatsoever. Traffic flow is above 70%. But the numbers of people waiting to get on the bus annoys me. I had a city before this that uses the subway, even that has +1,000 passengers in some of the stations. Is this normal? I didn't add any mod or anything (apart from a mod here that disables tree movement, my framerate is an issue).

I miss your great videos. Thanks for making this one. Still great even if 4 years old.

No matter what I do I always have cars driving on my bus roads and in the bus lanes. I even used the traffic manager mod like you to to restrict the bus lanes and they still drive on them.

One correction I feel needs mentioning, is that the dedicated bus rights of way are called busways, where as bus lanes are mixed in with other road traffic. Not sure if this is a game label or your own, but if its in the game it needs changing. Otherwise, great video!

Buses on busy street is a normal in in Philadelphia, for example 47 runs on 5th Street and 5th Street passes pretty busy area like Allegany Ave , Market st, and others that I can't remember

Ha, i'm from Brisbane too and came here for the bus information. Think i'd know better with all our bus lanes!

Sweet. I’m in Brissy as well. Great help. Thanks

Sam Bur says "a lot more faster" or "more smoother" very frequently, isn't that incorrect?

Nice. Again, a great interesting video of Cities Skylines. Thank you Sam.

Could you talk about BRT-based traffic cities? I live in Curitiba (Brazil), and the only public transport is the bus. BRT works very well, but I do think only one method can't be good enough for a big city.

How did you manage the traffic like that? Is it a mod or an expansion?

You're so awesome, I really love & enjoy your videos. Great tips. Thank you!

Thanks Sam for the detailed Tutorial! One question I wanted to ask you for a wile: did you tried to make the game more custom? With some LUT and realistic Map Theme and no-vanilla trees? Short: jump on that realism train?

If the bus line is average busy and I want to create a new PARALLEL bus line in this area, how many blocks away should it be from the existing line? In the low density area. In the high density area. Thanks for sharing you experience!

Hi Sam, when you said to space out so many blocks what do you mean with that? Could you please make a video to tell people on how many blocks is a 1 block ect

Thank you for this now I understand, does the same concept work for Tram too? I don't have tram in my city but I really interested in them.

Do u need mass transit for all these roads? Or can u access without dlc

advanced vehicle options really should come in handy as a lot of these buses (in Vanilla and steam workshop) have much less capacity than they do in real life General rule of thumb is that a 12m/40ft bus carries 60-70 while a 18m/60ft articulated bendy bus carries 100-110 (in some cases up to 120).

I found the hardest part about buses, was my road layout. Once I mastered that, buses are easy. I do need to stop making public transport an after thought though. There is a lot of value in planning way ahead, and while I'm getting better, I still fail a lot.

How do you back track your bus line, ive ended up with a bunch of lines all over the place, how do i delete them? Like i dont understand

11:00 Pedestrian crossing mod. :) Just plop a crosswalk down when there aren't any intersections nearby.

Thank you this was helpful

Woohoo another video!

My question would be: how many people should I expect to be using my public transport routes if they're successful? As in, percentage of population? I currently have a city of 20,000 and 3,000 are using public transport, but I have no idea whether that's a low or high number!

Great tutorials. I've watched many of them. Can you do one to show how to hide the industry instead of having an industry park? And how do you get rid of that smoke effect... please and thank you

I learnt a lot wow. Nice video 👍

So do you assist in some elements of city planning in Brisbane?

What color corrections, settings you using for graphics. It looks so sharp and nice.

Thanks for the help mate.

Keep going on making tutorials like this. Next ist tram ? Thanks

your voice remind me one of youtubers gamers he's name izzo. u can search his channel by typing izzo. and more of his video didn't have voice over. but u can find on another video. and one more think thank you for guided me and give the best tips for better gameplay especially about traffic. keep it up.

Did you make your own Bus Lane or download assets from Steamworkshop?

Thanks al ot my friend :D

I am working on launching a bus line in my country. I would sure use your help understanding a few things.

What asset is that bus terminal? I can't find it in your list of assets link.

Bus terminal can be used as a bus stop too. :o

Nice Ikarus 280 you have there!

very usefull, thanxx!

can you do a video about Bicycle infrastructure? I think that cycling is wajyy underrated in cities Skylines and it helps sollte a lot of traffic Problems with very Little cost - especially bringing people to Major Transport hubs without having to wait for a bus or many inner city routes

How do you get those red roads? They aren't in my game I don't think?

How did you preserve the commercial buildings? Neglect them?

thanks, i learnt a few things from this video

Busses in real life? An essential part of dialy life Busses in Cities Skylines? More fucking traffic.

Hey Sam, nice video! Thanks for sharing. Do you know the "Elvis BRT" road on Workshop? I'm using it a lot and I'm loving it. I've a certain "metro-addiction" so now I'm trying to see for how long I can survive in cities skylines with more busses and less subway lines, and I'm really liking this BRT system. Within it my busses flow nicely, there are two lines along my main avenue with 20 busses each one and the only problem is when they arrive at downtown and there's a lot of traffic. But anyways, I think you should check the mod! Greetings from Brazil, BRT's land :p

Thank you!

Nice town you got there.

First person ride through this map looks good

Any chance of a vid summing up some good ways to take some of these strategies you've been making videos about and find ways to apply them in some way without mods, if you're on console? For example, if you can't go in and edit the details of an intersection besides whether there's a light or not, what are some other ways you would go about managing the traffic at one, or in a larger area? Or maybe ways to manipulate the ways some of the ugly things the game does when building on sloped surfaces when you can't go and manipulate individual nodes of roads and bridges, or bypass limitations of terrain editing buildings that are already in place, or big parks you can't get inside and add to/edit. That kind of stuff. I apologize if this has been asked before and you already addressed not going into non-mod gameplay

I once connected two stations with a bus line and felt very smort about it, but then I realized that's what the trains are for

70 passengers on the bus!! Dude I ride buses that have official capacity of 100 passengers, and sometimes it gets super crowded that you can't stand straight. (Normal one-part bus) Or even up to 200 passengers in a double-decker, that the driver stop accepting new passengers.

Such a nice little town you have there. Very nice decals and details. I like realistic cities and this one makes me think of the type of towns you see in Australia. You seem very experienced and I was wondering if you could help me out with something. I never seem to be able to trace buslines how I want them to go. They always pop of the track, making a loop going into nowhere (no busstops) and once layed down I can´t drag them in place. Sometimes it works when I add a busstop. But many times I don´t want that stop added. Sometimes I tried vehicle restriction for bus on the loop lane, however it brakes the line and says it can´t find the path. I don´t want to cancel a busline and retrace the whole route. There must be some way. I wonder if you can help me out.

How did you get the 2 busline road (red one) ?

Subscribed! 😄❤️

how did you make those nice hedges along the bus lanes :)??

Liked the thoughts on bus lines. Have you ever created a profitable bus line? I know that is one challenge I am not sure is possible. (or I am just bad at it) Have you considered a "making taxis work" video? I know I want to see that. I enjoy your Cities Skyline videos and the tutorials as well.

you should make more tutorial videos like this. Make a playlist for vanilla players.

Getting the bus off the road is the biggest thing I took away from this. I now use pull-off bus stops most of the time (save for hubs) (the 4-stop 'modular bus stop' that Sam uses). Base game buses take 30 people max. but you can download buses that take more e.g. a literally frisky galloping London bus (it rears up on starting, front wheels leave the ground) that I use takes 50.

Hi from a fellow South-East Queenslander!

Good info. Thanks... 👍

How do you have 4 lane non avenue roads?

3:43 no shit Sherlock. Ok ok, just kidding, good tutorial

I don't think you should mirror the bus lines along the same roads. What I do is separate one direction and the reverse direction by one or two blocks. That way you cover more ground and it will level up more buildings and it helps spread out the buses so you're not clogging up the roads as much. Cims don't mind walking a couple of blocks to catch the bus so you're not going to miss out on riders.