Headway – UK coach network sim (in development)

[shahzainn]

Hi all, I’m working on an indie game called Headway - a UK-focused coach operations sim where you build and run intercity coach services on a real-road map.

What it does (so far):You place stations (snapped to real towns), then build routes by clicking stops on the map. Pathfinding runs on a simplified UK road network (motorway/trunk/primary/secondary). You set PVR (peak vehicle requirement) per route, dwell times, and 24h or timed operation. Buses run out-and-back (no despawning at the far end), and you get a simple timetable view at each station (lines serving, next departures). The map is dark-themed; time runs at 10×, 100×, or 1000× so you can see the day play out quickly.

It’s very much “UK coach network” rather than generic buses - real geography, real-ish operations (PVR, headways, dwell). I’m after feedback from people who actually care about how this stuff works: what’s missing, what would make it feel right, and whether expanding to more of the UK (or one day Europe) would be worth it.

Current state: Single-player, in-browser/desktop (considering Electron). Still early: no revenue model yet, no release date. I’m working on UX and simulation depth. If anyone’s curious, I can drop a link to a short video in a follow-up (once I’m allowed by the forum rules). Happy to answer questions or take suggestions – especially on timetable presentation, PVR/headway behaviour, or how you’d want to see “expand into Europe” done. Cheers.

 

[CarrotPie]

Sounds like Subway Builder but for coaches (so I guess a cross between that and City Bus Manager) - cool!

I have a few questions about the game mechanics:
1. Can you place more than one stop in a town (hopefully yes)?
2. Can you place the stops anywhere or only in pre-defined positions?
3. Do you have to buy/maintain the buses and hire the drivers or does the game just reach into a metaphorical cupboard and pull a spare bus and driver out?
4. Can you see the timetable of a full route at once?

 

[318266]

I would suggest that you try to approach it from the literal perspective of a Transport Manager. Equally, the fact you have not considered actual timetabling should be pointed out.

Your post comes off as written by an artificial intelligence chatbot. The fact that you have come up with a system by which you snap to motorways and stations (notwithstanding the many issues with that approach) and yet seem to have no idea how to expand into the rest of Europe, which as far as I remember still has motorways and coach stations, is quite telling to a fairly unexplored project. There are many similar games out there, the likes of the Transport Fever series, NIMBY Rails (which is basically this but with railways), Subway Builder, etc. all basically do this. You are "considering Electron" - which would require you to effectively write a large proportion of the game in HTML/CSS/JS (or I suppose TypeScript and company), unlike other options - yet you have seemingly already have some sort of alpha build ready. There are several inconsistencies therein, there is a speed setting with settings inconsistent with what you have written as the description above, and even the alpha build itself seems to be at least somewhat assisted by AI (Peak Vehicle Requirement, the total vehicles required at the most intense/frequent point in the schedule, is not the same as buses per hour, the number of coaches operating in the hour).

Whilst I do hold aspirations for this game I feel like you need to "touch base" in the modern colloquial and figure out what it is you are actually making before you start working on the game itself, and also better describe at what stage you are at - is this alpha build in Electron? If so, why are you considering other options? It all seems rather odd and artificial, which takes the soul out of any game created out of it.

 

[shahzainn]

Hey, thanks for the questions! Before I break your heart, I have to say that I've only been working on this for a week or two, so everything you see is very rudimentary.

1. Yes, in large cities like London I have added multiple areas, but for smaller towns (like Milton Keynes) you can only place one down.
2. For now, only in pre-defined positions (though I hope to change this soon).
3. Eventually, you will have to buy and maintain coaches with a set budget, you will have to pay to open stations and may have to bid for contracts and tenders from other operators.
4. Yes!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2026 ==

I would suggest that you try to approach it from the literal perspective of a Transport Manager. Equally, the fact you have not considered actual timetabling should be pointed out.

Your post comes off as written by an artificial intelligence chatbot. The fact that you have come up with a system by which you snap to motorways and stations (notwithstanding the many issues with that approach) and yet seem to have no idea how to expand into the rest of Europe, which as far as I remember still has motorways and coach stations, is quite telling to a fairly unexplored project. There are many similar games out there, the likes of the Transport Fever series, NIMBY Rails (which is basically this but with railways), Subway Builder, etc. all basically do this. You are "considering Electron" - which would require you to effectively write a large proportion of the game in HTML/CSS/JS (or I suppose TypeScript and company), unlike other options - yet you have seemingly already have some sort of alpha build ready. There are several inconsistencies therein, there is a speed setting with settings inconsistent with what you have written as the description above, and even the alpha build itself seems to be at least somewhat assisted by AI (Peak Vehicle Requirement, the total vehicles required at the most intense/frequent point in the schedule, is not the same as buses per hour, the number of coaches operating in the hour).

Whilst I do hold aspirations for this game I feel like you need to "touch base" in the modern colloquial and figure out what it is you are actually making before you start working on the game itself, and also better describe at what stage you are at - is this alpha build in Electron? If so, why are you considering other options? It all seems rather odd and artificial, which takes the soul out of any game created out of it.

Hey - thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it's no secret that I used the help of AI to write my post, I'm not the best at communicating, more writing code. The problem isn't not knowing how to expand into Europe, it would be the complexity around storing each individual road segment in a file and using that to guide pathfinding. At present, I grab all the roads in the UK (some 300,000 when condensed) and pass it through a pathfinding engine. I know, it's inefficient but for the UK it seems to be quite performant. This alpha build that you see is in fact written in HTML/CSS/JS (specifically React and Typescript as you noted). The copy has been written by AI, as I have been working mainly on mechanics and have left the interface largely to its own devices.

To be honest, while playing NIMBY Rails I used to make coach services with an invisible track mod and I used to trace the motorways. I wanted to build something different, so I did. The options I was considering was either Electron or Tauri. While Electron is easier to use, it is more reliant on memory. Tauri may be more difficult to integrate with all the various services that I have integrated into the game at present. Thank you for your feedback and it has been very valuable - I feel like I have slightly rushed introducing my work and will work to bring it into a more polished and personal state.

 

[CarrotPie]

Hey, thanks for the questions! Before I break your heart, I have to say that I've only been working on this for a week or two, so everything you see is very rudimentary.

You are "considering Electron" - which would require you to effectively write a large proportion of the game in HTML/CSS/JS (or I suppose TypeScript and company), unlike other options - yet you have seemingly already have some sort of alpha build ready.

As someone's who's been working on a fairly basic website on-and-off for the past five months, you've managed to achieve a lot in a week. I notice that you, or rather your post, says that the "current state" is "in browser/desktop". Is it both (as a Progressive Web App, perhaps) or not? Does it work on mobile? Should it?

I don't think that using AI to build a proof-of-concept is a bad idea, especially if you don't want to waste ages implementing something that doesn't turn out how you expected, but I do think that such proofs-of-concept should then be thoroughly fleshed by the developer to make the final product feel polished and deliberately designed.

 

[shahzainn]

As someone's who's been working on a fairly basic website on-and-off for the past five months, you've managed to achieve a lot in a week. I notice that you, or rather your post, says that the "current state" is "in browser/desktop". Is it both (as a Progressive Web App, perhaps) or not? Does it work on mobile? Should it?

For the purpose of prototyping, I currently run the game in a browser (so that I don't need to build the game every time I make a minor change). However, using Electron or a similar engine will allow me, when ready to provide an executable, to simply port over my existing code (easier said than done given how messy it is right now) and produce the executable that I desire. I currently have no plans to make it work on mobile.