Hi everyone,

Bus Manager 26 V2 is out now!

This is the biggest update the game has ever had. We rebuilt almost everything: the map, the simulation, the buses, the interface and the sound. You can now pick any place on Earth and the game builds the city from its real streets and buildings. Every resident has a trip to make, your buses drive in 3D through the traffic, your staff keeps them running, the city talks about you online and city hall judges your work.

As promised, here is the full list of changes.

• The first time you launch V2, a screen offers to upgrade your V1 companies to the new simulation. It only happens once.

• Your lines, stops, buses, depots, money, reputation and play time come with you, and your network is rebuilt on the real streets of your city.

• Your original save is kept untouched. If the upgrade fails (no internet connection, for example), nothing is changed and you can try again.

• Your V1 skill points are given back as expertise points for the new development tree.

• Rewards for finished contracts are paid out, and rented buses go back to the rental company (renting no longer exists).

• A line that cannot follow the real streets is set aside, and the game tells you.

• Any place on Earth: a city, a district, an address, or a click on the globe.

• The city is built from OpenStreetMap: roads, buildings, shops, schools, hospitals, stations and places to go out.

• The population is worked out from the buildings and matched to the real population of known cities.

• You start with a 5 × 5 km area and can grow it by buying the neighbouring districts.

• Real local time, and traffic drives on the left or on the right depending on the country.

• Districts grow every week, with real projects (housing, offices, campuses) that change the demand.

• No more “API key required” watermark on the map: V2 only uses free maps that need no key.

• Every trip has a start and an end: home, work, school, shopping, going out, stations, tourist spots.

• Passengers walk to the stop, wait, board, change buses (transfers are free) and walk to where they are going.

• A sample passenger on each line’s panel shows a full journey.

• A new line takes time to become known, and passengers remember how good the service was.

• Full buses, passengers left on the pavement, people who give up waiting: you see all of it, and it weighs on your reputation.

• A bus stops as soon as someone is waiting or wants to get off. A full bus that drives past now counts the passengers it left behind, at the stop and in the line’s advice.

• Walking transfers: passengers change lines between nearby stops. A stop’s panel shows the stops around it, their lines and the walking time. Several stops side by side work as one real station.

• Stops take the name of the street, the crossing or the nearest place, even on small streets with no name.

• Four equipment levels, from a simple pole to an interchange hub.

• Traffic is simulated road by road: rush hours, commuting direction, events, weather. Your buses get stuck in jams.

• Build bus lanes on congested streets, with city hall’s approval.

• 3D cars around the camera, as many as the simulated traffic: they stop at traffic lights, queue at junctions and wait behind buses at stops.

• An accident or a broken-down bus blocks the lane. The queue builds up and slowly clears, and jammed streets show on the map with the cause, the delay and the lines affected.

• A new line editor: place the stops and the route follows the roads. Undo, redo, and right click to remove a stop.

• While you draw: length, travel time, estimated passengers per day, buses needed and daily cost. A big detour gets flagged.

• Every line has its way back, worked out in the other direction with its own stops on the other side of the street, one-way streets included.

• Reverse a loop in one click from the line’s panel, or duplicate a line to make a variant.

• Simple timetables (a bus every X minutes) or detailed ones: peak, daytime, evening and night, with weekdays and weekends set separately.

• The game works out how many buses and drivers you need, and offers free buses, purchases and hiring in one click.

• Advice on every line: empty buses, full buses, bunching, useless stops, the busiest hour, losses.

• Express lines, night lines, school services and timed transfers.

• The Internet has its own button in the toolbar (I key), with a count of what is waiting for you: mail, fines, tenders, contracts in trouble.

• Everything happens on the computer at your head office, with real websites: the bank (loans, including a green loan), city hall, public tenders, new and used bus dealers, a job site, the weather, the local news, the fines portal, your insurer, the Plaza social network, an advertising agency and the passenger forum.

• In the Garage and on the Staff screen, the dealer, used buses, orders and hiring tabs open the right website directly.

• Notifications tell you which website has something waiting for you.

• 21 models from 9 manufacturers, with ranges that change with the region of the world: minibuses, standard buses, articulated and bi-articulated buses, double deckers, BRT, coaches and school buses.

• Diesel, hybrid and electric (fast charging, charging at the terminus, batteries).

• The Garage: categories, buses to keep an eye on, group actions, and a 3D inspection with the driver at the wheel.

• Wear, age, servicing, breakdowns, refurbishment and replacement. Factory orders with delivery times, or the dealer’s stock.

• A used bus market: more worn buses, for less money.

• Drivers keep the service running: without a driver, the trip is cancelled, and priority lines keep their full service first.

• The Staff screen: portraits, personalities, records, who drives which bus, candidates to meet.

• 7 jobs, wages compared with the market, mood, complaints and strikes.

• Managers take repetitive tasks off your hands and give you advice from their office.

• A depot is a real plot of land: parking spaces, workshop bays, chargers and buildings.

• Workshops have a real capacity: with too few mechanics or bays, buses wait for their service.

• A breakdown that matters waits for your decision: a reserve bus, a mechanic, a tow truck or dispatch, each with its real delay. Small breakdowns go through dispatch without bothering you.

• Diagnosis: warning lights, what the driver says, systems to check, the repair to choose. One version for diesel buses and one for electric buses.

• Bus accidents: emergency services, a replacement bus, a detour, the driver suspended, an insurance claim.

• Fines: red lights, speeding, inspections, bad parking. You read the evidence, pay quickly for a discount, contest it or train the driver.

• Insurance: three plans, an excess, a price based on your record, and towing costs refunded.

• Plaza, the city’s social network: your company page, your posts (at the right time, on the right topic), and residents reacting to what really happens on your network.

• Passenger mail: complaints to investigate down to the trip and the driver, lost items to find bus by bus, broken heating, compliments.

• Passenger forum: the trips residents ask for, with their votes and a map view. A line that links both ends settles the request. Every line has its own thread, and a promise made to riders is judged three days later.

• Poster and advertising campaigns to make a line known.

• 11 types of contracts (university shuttle, hospital link, airport link, school service, stadium service, tourist link, rail replacement, night service and more) with real requirements, bonuses and penalties.

• Tenders against rival companies, with two days to start the service without a penalty.

• Your relationship with city hall: a subsidy per passenger and city requests with real rewards (bus lanes, cheaper chargers, depot permits).

• 12 city events with real crowds or closed roads: matches, concerts, festivals, marathons, roadworks, rail disruptions, school holidays and more.

• Weather that follows the city’s climate, with forecasts and alerts: rain, thunderstorms, snow, fog. It affects the roads, walking, boarding, demand, breakdowns and the range of electric buses. Rain, snow, fog and lightning on screen.

• Company decisions: a diesel price rise, an electricity contract, a shortage of mechanics, a driver pay claim, a city budget cut and more.

• Requests you handle with the real tools: a stadium crowd, a school contract, an airport rush, a sold-out concert, a night service trial, an accessible line, a lost bag, broken heating.

• Company levels, expertise points and a development tree with 34 nodes in 6 branches.

• Status: from Local operator to Transit giant.

• Company value, a credit limit, loans with a term and monthly payments, and green loans for electric buses.

• A company fare plus a fare per line, express lines at +30%, free transfers, daily costs and a 14-day history.

• Career, with three difficulty levels (Relaxed, Standard, Hard) or your own rules: starting money, costs, demand, breakdowns, traffic, events, delivery times and more.

• Four scored scenarios with their leaderboards: Rush hour city, Clean air plan, Tight budget and The city’s partner.

• Sandbox: unlimited money, everything unlocked, no wear and no breakdowns.

• The Operations panel: what is happening right now, the decisions to make, the problems to fix first.

• An activity feed sorted into tabs, without spam: repeated alerts are grouped.

• The game slows down by itself when something serious happens, and can pause while you manage your company.

• 10 map layers: population, jobs, destinations, unserved demand, service coverage, route usage, crowding, waiting passengers, profitability and traffic.

• A report for every day, a camera that follows a bus, 2D or 3D view, speeds from 1× to 16× plus a live speed in real time.

• 3D buses with bodies that change by region, including the yellow American school bus and its stop arm. Interiors with seats and passengers depending on the load, doors that open, brake lights and headlights at night.

• Liveries: two colours, an emblem and 7 patterns. Visible wear: faded paint, dirt, rust.

• Passengers waiting at stops and walking to the doors.

• New lighting: the sun is where it really is for your city, date and time. Buildings, depots and buses cast shadows that move with it, long in the morning and in the evening. Golden light at sunrise and sunset, blue hour, then night and the moon with its phases.

• No more black horizon: in tilted view, the city fades into a haze in the colours of the hour.

• Lighting follows the graphics quality: at the lowest quality there is no dynamic sun and no shadows, to keep the game smooth on small machines.

• Everything is generated by the game: buses in spatial sound (diesel, hybrid, electric, coach, school bus), the full stop sequence (air brakes, kneeling, chime, doors) and an ambience that follows the traffic, the time and the weather.

• Music: the main theme in the menus, and calm variations in game that follow the speed and the night.

• Six volume settings, and the sound mutes when the game goes to the background.

• A new look: a new logo, a night-blue interface, and menus drawn like a bus line with its stops.

• 13 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Everything is translated, from the menus to the passengers’ messages, the mail and the forum, down to the key names. Numbers, durations, distances and percentages are written the way your language writes them.

• A new main menu with your city in the background and Continue on your last company.

• Company creation in 4 steps: place, company (name, colours, emblem), rules, start.

• A short tutorial on the first line (you can turn it off) and keyboard shortcuts everywhere.

• The top bar adapts to small screens: at 1280 × 720, every tool stays visible.

• Accessibility: interface size, colour-blind friendly colours, reduced motion, high contrast.

• Detailed graphics settings: quality, resolution, 3D buildings, vehicle detail, shadows, day and night, passengers, traffic, map style, frame rate limit.

• 20 Steam achievements, in all 13 languages.

• Leaderboards: the V1 Passengers leaderboard is back (all your companies added up), plus company value, best day and one per scenario, worldwide or among friends.

• A live Discord status: your company, your city and its flag, your passengers, buses and lines, with the time and weather in your city.

• Three rotating saves per company, checked when loading: if the latest one is damaged, the game loads the previous one. Autosave at the interval you choose.

• Built for big networks: tested with 11,000 buses and 350 lines. The level of detail adapts by itself to keep things smooth.

• A lighter download: the game now only ships what it needs to run.

• Modes: Career (with adjustable difficulty), Scenarios and Sandbox replace Normal, Career and Sandbox.

• The Passengers leaderboard adds up all your companies and can no longer go down.

• Fares: a simple company fare plus a fare per line replace the ticket grid.

• The skill tree becomes the development tree (your V1 points are given back).

• Daily challenges become rewarded challenges and requests.

• Achievements: 20 real Steam achievements replace the 40 in-game achievements.

• Staff: teams, candidates and policies (overtime, temporary staff) instead of shifts set one employee at a time.

• Service windows become timetables by period.

• Depot modules become equipment.

• The sound and the buses are completely new.

• Normal mode (Career on the Relaxed difficulty replaces it).

• The 4 handmade cities (New York, Paris, London, Tokyo): every city now comes from real map data.

• The ticket grid and the passenger profiles used for pricing.

• Advertising contracts and sponsors.

• The eco rating (CO2): electric buses now go through the fleet, the development tree, green loans and the Clean air plan scenario.

• Bus rental.

• The light interface theme (the map keeps a day style).

• The player profile card in the leaderboard: it now shows each player’s main city and number of cities.

Thanks to everyone who sent feedback on V1: buses skipping stops, return trips, stations with several stops, the watermark on the map, performance on big networks. All of it shaped V2.

Found a bug or have an idea? Come and tell us on the Bus Manager 26 Discord[discord.com]. Have fun building your network!