Tutorial CXL Busways (Bus Rapid Transit Roads)

Migrator's note: Wheelbarrow is the original author of this tutorial.

BUS ROADS MOD IS NOW RELEASED, AND YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FROM HERE: http://xlnation.net/resources/bus-lane-roads.686/ Thank you all for supporting this mod-free bus rapid transit development for Cities XL! If you don't wish to install the busway mod, and would like to build a bus rapid transit mod-free then this tutorial is for you! Take care everyone. -Wheel

Ladies and Gentlemen, a new form of public transit has arrived!​

Sick of existing public transport options Cities XL has got to offer? CitiesXL lack one of the most important form of rapid public transit in the 21st Century. Please welcome the introduction of a Bus Rapid Transit, aka Busways, which is now being widely used around the world. Bus Rapid Transit is one of the most popular form of public transport because it is a lot cheaper than light rail transit (LRT), commuter rail transit (CRT) or other forms of public transit. However every different countries have different interpretation or definition of busway (bus rapid transit) - some countries use bus lanes on the standard road to represent as a busway, some countries use separate lanes on the road for buses. But in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia - our busway network is one of the largest in the world and our busway system was established in late 1990s/early 2000. Hundreds of town planners, developers and government representatives have visited Brisbane to get an idea on how to establish a successful public transport system for the 21st Century. There are three different busways in Brisbane, and these are the Northern Busway, South-Eastern Busway and the Eastern Busway with several new busways planned in the future. Busways in Brisbane are highly integrated with the commuter rail network thus creating a definition of successful public transport system. A lot of people has commented that the busways in Brisbane are a lot like trains. In the map below, you could notice busway are included in the train network:

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Due to strange XLNation glitch, if you want to see a video of Brisbane Busways - please click refresh. Youtube should appear above.


Anyway anyway anyway, after months of testing to establish a functional bus-dedicated roads (busways) for Cities XL without using any mods, and the results are very successful. The citizens' satisfication surrounding the busway stations are higher than standard on-road bus stations possibly because citizens are programmed in Cities XL to find the quickest way to their work, and since that busway does not intersect through the standard roads at all thus the travel time are a lot faster than standard on-road bus services. You might be puzzled on how citizens would be able to travel to their work if busway doesnt connect to the road at all, the answer is pretty simple. At every busway stations, there is a pedestrian path that connects between busway (bus station) and the standard road so which means it does not affect the travel time for citizens. Also strangely, the bus services on busway tend to carry more passengers than on-road bus services and as mentioned above, citizens are always looking for the quickest way to their work and this might be the reason to answer this. Again, it might seem strange for you, but there are no cars on the busway and it is impossible for cars to be spawned on the busway road because busway doesn't connect to the road itself nor does it connect to the City Hall but it is still functional through the means of public transport and bus services are working well on the busway. I have personally used this form of public transport on several of my cities such as Richmond, British Columbia and Kosovo, Russia. Bus rapid transit in Richmond, BC is extremely successful because of existing difficulties citizens have to drive to their work such as complex road network and bad traffic but busway has avoided all of that and citizens are happily travelling into their work faster than cars stuck on the congested roads and as mentioned above, citizens are more likely to be satisfied around busway stations because of quicker travel time. Also remember, on-road bus services are very ineffective if your bus are stuck in traffic jam, so this is the reason why you should go for busways instead of laying down bus routes on the traffic roads.

All right now, let me teach you how to create a functional busway for Cities XL with no use of mods.


EVERY time you build busway stations, you SHOULD use the small avenue to prevent "traffic jams" of buses waiting to get into the station or expressing through the station. If you chose not to use small avenues for busway stations, the bus travel time will be a lot longer thus the bus rapid transit for your city might won't work at all.



Now you can notice that the standard road are linked into small avenue. Standard road is a busway itself while small avenue is the busway station. Keep this in your mind.



Now you realise that busway are completely separated from traffic roads thus no cars will be on the busway which means the travel time will be quicker for citizens to get to their work.

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Busways SHOULDNT connect to a road, no matter what. Never let busways intersect with the road because once it has been intersected, it will allow cars to drive on it which ruins the concept of bus rapid transit itself. There is MANY ways for you to prevent busway from intersecting a traffic road - by building a bridge over or a tunnel under a traffic road or traffic road go over or under the busway. Once you built a entire busway section in your city without intersecting with traffic roads, you can now build bus route from the end to other end and watch the travel time satisfication go up!
You can intersect busway with pedestrian paths without any impact on bus rapid transit services.

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This is a practical example of busway in one of my newest cities.
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Busway in Richmond, BC​

I hope you have learnt a lot from this tutorial and hopefully will implement bus rapid transit in your cities!
Happy CXLing, guys!
-Wheel