After the free driving epic that is Extreme Car Driving Simulator 3D, take a sideways step back into the city and switch your saloon and sports vehicles for a series of slow and clunky buses. But don't be too despondent, for there are passengers to pick up, keep safe, road rules to obey and - ultimately - new routes and vehicles (bendi-buses, taxis, mini-vans) with more and more simulated features to collect. If driving a bus isn't your cup of action tea then move right along. But 'bus simulators' are apparently a thing (I checked with some teenagers) and this is a very passable, even relaxing way to pass five minutes once a day.

From the Store description:

Jump behind the steering wheel in this driving simulator. There are three different types of missions, depending on what type of vehicle you choose. Choose one of many buses to transport passengers around the city. Jump in as a taxi driver and give a lift to clients waving their hands around the city. Choosing a race car, opens up Checkpoint racing tracks in the city. For each customer serviced or race finished, you get experience points, which unlock additional vehicles and locations. For each vehicle there are unlockable upgrades and paint jobs. Upgrades and paint jobs are unlocked simply by earning experience with that vehicle. Drive carefully! When you crash, passengers fall and you lose experience.

• Fully modeled 3D environments and vehicles.
• Interior and exterior view with free look.
• Realistic physics and ragdoll.
• Accident replays with screenshot possibility.
• Different control options.

A little quirky from start to finish, there's also clearly been a lot of love and attention to detail lavished on this freemium title by the developer:

A moody night scene to open up with - don't worry, you'll graduate to night driving in due course (it's harder!)

The game/simulation then is based around a full 3D world and realistic buses (and roads/objects/passengers), with immaculate collision detection, right down to wallowing over speed bumps taken at the wrong angle! The bright yellow AR chevrons ahead mark the next stopping bay.

One quibble - by default, this freemium title uses top-of-screen ads as its first line of monetising. Fine, but whichever ad farm is serving up these confusing icon graphics needs to be slapped. New users can very easily confuse these for in-game notifications!

Obeying traffic lights will get you more points, of course. Not that I always managed to stop in time! Controls are the brake on the left, accelerator on the right, plus indicators to activate if you really want to get realistic!

At each stop, the 3D passengers walk onto the bus, move around and sit down. Rag-doll physics, apparently, and well animated. And no chatting up the ladies, guys...!

After each successful outing (e.g. 7 stops, daytime, in the city), your stats are totalled and points towards upgrades sorted out.

Ah yes. That collision detection. It's good. Even down to getting the approach to a bus stop slightly wrong and running over a pedestrian. Ahem. Critical incidents pop-up this video player interface so that you can examine what went wrong from another angle and perhaps take a screenshot for your gallery. Ahem.

Of the various in-app purchases, each gets rid of ads, of course. Plus, in this case, unlocks all the vehicles in one go.

And in this case unlocks all the possible vehicle upgrades/enhancements. It's all very well thought out and not too expensive!

It's quite possible to play Public Transport Simulator for free, of course, gradually working up to bigger and better vehicles, upgrades and paint jobs.

Well monetised, nicely coded, this title is hard to fault, assuming that you wanted to drive buses (etc.) in the first place! You can grab Public Transport Simulator here in the Windows Phone Store.