Better Bus Overlay

Placing a bus or tram stop and can't see where it's needed? Better Bus Overlay switches the map to a line overview while you place a street stop or a bus/tram station: every bus, tram and truck line is drawn in its colour, town buildings are tinted by type with the ones your lines don't serve yet standing out, and every stop shows how many passengers are waiting. The Bus Lane Tool and the Crosswalk Tool show the same line routes, so you can see which roads your buses use.

Features

• Line routes: all your bus, tram and truck lines are drawn on the map in their line colours, with their stops marked. Train, air and ship lines are left out.
• Building types: town buildings are coloured residential (green), commercial (blue) or industrial (yellow), in the game's district colours.
• Service gaps: buildings that nobody travels to or from on your lines keep the full colour. Buildings your lines already serve are nearly grey with only a hint of their colour, so the gaps stand out.
• Waiting passengers: each stop and station shows how many passengers are waiting, in the game's usual blue tag. The number turns yellow when some of them are unhappy and red when more than half are.
• Unused stops: stops and stations that no line passes through yet show a dark "No line" tag instead of the bus icon, while you place stops and in the Lines window, also while you edit a line.
• Busy stops: in the Lines window, each stop's pin is coloured by how many passengers wait there, on a smooth scale from light blue (quiet) through yellow (about 40 waiting) to red (80 or more).
• Bus lane and crosswalk tools: while the Bus Lane Tool or the Crosswalk Tool is selected, your bus, tram and truck lines are drawn too, so you can see which roads need bus lanes and where crossings would slow your buses. Building colours and stop tags stay off there.
• Toggles: the tool's options on the left, above Underground, switch each part on or off: Line routes, Building colors and Stop tags (the bus lane and crosswalk tools have Line routes only). Your choice carries over between these tools until you restart the game.
• Line routes in every tool: all other construction tools (roads, tracks, stations, terrain, bulldozer, ...) get a Line routes toggle too, off by default. Turned on, it draws your bus, tram, truck and train lines (never planes or ships). It is a separate setting from the bus tools' one.
• One line only: under each Line routes toggle, a list ("All lines") draws a single line instead of all of them. It holds the lines in view on the map, by name, and follows the map as you move it.
• Works for street bus and tram stops and for bus/tram stations, also in underground mode.

Notes

• "Served" means the game's passengers actually ride your lines to or from the building (as in the Passenger Flow layer), not just that a stop is nearby. A new stop shows up as served once people start using it.
• A data layer you pick yourself (Data Layers button) still replaces the building colours, as in the base game. The line routes stay.
• Truck stations, depots, train stations, airports and harbours keep the default view.
• GUI only: nothing is stored in the savegame. Safe to add to or remove from existing saves.

More from square

Most popular

Lines and passengers

Industry and supply

Roads and building

Screenshots and camera

Testing tools

Towns & Streets: California · Texas · Alaska · New York · Washington · Oregon · Pennsylvania · Arizona · Florida · Minnesota · Colorado · Hawaii · New Mexico

Changelog

Revision 12 (2026-10-26)

• New: a list under each Line routes toggle ("All lines") draws a single line instead of all of them. It holds the lines in view on the map, by name, and follows the map as you move it.

Revision 11 (2026-10-23)

• Fixed a crash in the construction menu with some tools that use the bus stop placement, such as signals or another mod's whistle board, while bus stop tags are on.

Revision 10 (2026-10-21)

• Fixed a crash with other mods that use the construction and camera tools, such as camera bookmark mods: the line overlay now leaves the game's tool display untouched outside the construction menu.

Revision 9 (2026-10-20)

• Fixed for PlayStation 5: bus stop tags no longer risk crashing the UI where the console's game lacks a part the PC version has. The mod then draws the same tags itself.

Revision 8 (2026-10-18)

• Fixed: bus stop tags and Lines window pins now only replace bus and tram stop icons, and other stations (oil rigs, harbors, airports, train and truck stations) keep their own icons.

Revision 7 (2026-10-15)

• Fixed: the Line routes toggle no longer shows in the Smart Lanes and Bulk Bulldozer tools, where it did nothing.

Revision 6 (2026-10-10)

• Changed: the Line routes toggle of the other construction tools (roads, tracks, ...) no longer draws air and water lines, only bus, tram, truck and train lines.

Revision 5 (2026-10-10)

• New: toggles in the tool options (left, above Underground) to hide the line routes, the building colors or the stop tags, for example to see which roads already have bus lanes.
• New: a Line routes toggle in every other construction tool, off by default, that draws all your lines.

Revision 4 (2026-10-10)

• New: translations into Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional). The mod follows the game's language setting.

Revision 3 (2026-10-09)

• The Crosswalk Tool now shows the line routes as well.

Revision 2 (2026-10-09)

• The line overview shows only road and tram lines (bus, tram and truck). Train, air and ship lines no longer clutter the map.
• The Bus Lane Tool now shows the line routes as well.
• Served buildings are faded much further toward grey, so unserved buildings stand out even in mixed-zone towns.

Revision 1 (2026-10-09)

• First release.