Is it best to have short or long bus routes in City Bus Manager?

[nathan]

Does anybody know Is it best to have short or long bus routes in City Bus Manager? Reason for asking is some of my lines make none to very little amount of money even though I do change my ticket prices at times to pay over a large order or loan and will at times low the price down so much I would not turn a profit but more people would use my bus service. So, ideally people, what price do you set your tickets for and do you make your bus routes short or long?

[The Experior]

I would say, it depends.
At the start you are pretty limited in size of buses. If you send your small buses on long routes they will get owercrowded before they even reach their destination, so you will left passengers at the stops, reducing the opinion of your company.
What you could do is look for a good spot that can work as a hub, like stations, airports, harbours or city center, where your first lines can meet. People will transfer if they can and it makes some sense.
Long routes need larger buses, at least on dense inner city routes. But rural intercity routes can also be well frequented.
I guess in the end it is still trial & error.

I don't know the region you are playing in. I concentrate allmost on Europe. I can imagine it is more difficult to have profitable lines in american suburbian hell for example.

If you want to go a bit wild the game allows really komplex lines. You know you can have one line with different routes? Just create a second time table and deactivate some stops. The busses will then take a shortcut. You could f.e. use this technique for touristic spots only visited on weekends ore for night services.