The other problem I had was when I set up sequence of having the bus go to and wait 10 seconds at each stop (track mark) around the block, the bus went to the first stop, waited, then backed up all the way around the loop to the next stop. I fixed that by programming the stops two times around the block. Then I was able to add the Repeat command to keep the sequence going indefinitely.


Use track markers (ccw-a in this case) to determine stopping position.

Layouts

The demo layout is just that: a demo. It is not a finished layout nor has any attempt been made to include anything other than what’s necessary plus a few buildings and parked vehicles to give some sense of atmosphere.

Greyhound buses, of course, are not city buses, though they depart from and arrive at urban terminals. In between they glide through the countryside. An appropriate layout might include lots of scenery and AI traffic emanating from portals.


Parked vehicles add a bit of atmosphere.

What Could Have Been Included

I made no attempt here to include switches that would enable the operator to take alternate routes. Switches are certainly possible and can be accompanied by invisible switch throws. The invisible track does not show up in the map view while driving, but the familiar red/green directional arrows that display when the cursor is placed over a switch will certainly display.

Why Trainz?

There are two commercial bus simulators on the market: Bus Driver and Bus Simulator 2008. There is also a freeware bus simulator available: VirtualBus. Without going into detail, all three give you the ability to control the bus as though it were a free roaming vehicle rather than one affixed to a path (track). This is nice, but I found driving them with a keyboard to be quite unnatural and difficult. The problem (for me) is that the turning keys (e.g., left arrow and right arrow) turn the wheels from straight ahead to turn (full in the case of Bus Driver) left or right. When the key is released the wheels return to straight ahead. Most of the time I want something in between and sustained. This can’t be done without tapping the key repeatedly and producing a zig-zag trajectory. Perhaps this is a technique I need to work on. But why should I have to? While you are busy steering, you also need to keep your finger on the throttle (pedal) key in order to keep going. You may also have to flip on the blinker if you are changing lanes. I think all this would be great if we had consoles that matched a bus cab; but we don’t. Or at least I don’t. You can also experiment with reconfiguring the control keys so that one hand controls direction and the other controls stop/start. That leaves only the blinker, which you might be able to control with your nose.

At least one of the commercial sims, Bus Driver, doesn’t have a cab view and doesn’t let me have much of a view of the bus itself other than the standard view from behind and somewhat above the bus. Part of what makes a sim interesting for me is actually seeing the vehicle and getting inside it.

VirtualBus permits incremental turning and cab and external views, but uses simplified graphics.

Something else that needs to be examined is whether or not the sim supports third-party add-ons and route creation. Bus Driver, the one sim I’ve spent some time with, does not seem to support add-ons. The graphics and AI vehicles are very nice, but after one has mastered the difficult driving technique, the game becomes repetitious.

I have not spent much time with Bus Simulator 2008 because it is in German and the instructions are thus difficult for me. This sim could have a lot going for it, but the language barrier has kept me from digging further at this point.

If you like the empire building games (I do), games like Locomotion, Transport Tycoon Deluxe and Transport Giant include buses. The first two have a fair sampling of third-party add-on buses available. I recently built a huge empire in Locomotion using only buses.

Here are a few sources for the three full 3D bus sims I have found:

• Bus Driver
• Bus Simulator 2008
• VirtualBus