These local teens love transit so much they made a hyperrealistic MBTA bus simulator on Roblox

Boston Globe

2 days ago

Players can also imitate transit
police, roaming around in Fords to nab speeding buses, direct traffic, and ticket parked cars. Officers can't make arrests and don't carry weapons, Benmokrane added; the game, much to his relief, has yet to devolve into an MBTA-themed spinoff of Grand Theft Auto.
Benmokrane, now a political science major at Boston University, said he and his team began piecing together the '
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'I grew up on that stuff, and I kind of just loved it when I was a little kid,' said Benmokrane. (And the passion has proven lucrative: he says the game has brought in a few grand.)
Benmokrane showcasing his MBTA bus system on Roblox. Players can imitate bus operators, passengers, or transit police officers.
Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
The digitally disengaged may know little about Roblox, let alone its scale.
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The platform and its accompanying
Potential themes and styles are vast.
There are, a Roblox spokesperson said, more than 6 million active games (called 'experiences') on Roblox today — among them a
Roblox games attracted, on average, almost 112 million active users every day between April and June of this year, the
Almost 36 percent of Roblox's daily active users are under the age of 13 as of June 30, according to company data shared with The Boston Globe. The platform's most successful game developers are, on average, around 25, a Roblox spokesperson said.
More than 463,000 Roblox users had
'I'm surprised it's done so well, honestly!' he told the Globe.
Pretend operators shuttle passengers through parts of Medford, Malden, Revere, Everett, Chelsea, and Boston. They earn in-game cash making stops and completing routes.
An MBTA bus terminates at Wellington in Medford in a Roblox recreation of the agency's bus system.
cour/Ilias Benmokrane
The
stickers in the windshield; the size and shape of the bike rack fastened to the bus's face, and so on.
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Players can accelerate, brake, turn, and shift gears
Drivers can also
Those less inclined to drive can wait for and board buses at stops. Buses can't trample and kill Roblox pedestrians, according to Benmokrane (but, strangely, police vehicles can).
Users in an MBTA Roblox simulator role-play a traffic incident.
cour/Ilias Benmokrane
Benmokrane, aside from managing the game's marketing and overseeing its operation, is the simulator's less domineering and disruptive Robert Moses, the 20th century
'I've done all the roads in the games,' he said. 'That's pretty much all I do.'
With Google Maps open on a separate monitor as a guide, Benmokrane recreates the bus paths manually, piecing together roads, curbs, signs, and lane-striping with quick and deliberate mouse clicks and drags. He tries to keep everything to scale by converting feet to 'studs,' a Roblox unit of length.
Held up by doubts or dated satellite imagery, Benmokrane says he will visit a street in person and take photographs.
'He is a master at making roads,' said Jarek Alexander, Benmokrane's colleague and friend. He went on, 'It's just so beautiful how he does it.'
Alexander, a 20-year-old Dorchester resident, is an assistant conductor for Keolis, the Commuter Rail operator. He moonlights as the simulator's 'quality control' guy.
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'I just make sure everything's realistic,' he said.
Managing the game and guiding its expansion has become, at least for Benmokrane, a job unto itself.
'Honestly, the management is a lot. I have Discord on my phone. I'm always checking it,' he said, referencing the messaging app that serves as the community's nervous system. 'My girlfriend and my friends, they get mad at me.'
He estimates he spends at least two hours a day tending to the game; he'll spend around six hours in front of his monitors if he's developing.
Two simulated MBTA 110 buses turn onto Chelsea Street in a Roblox recreation of Everett.
cour/Ilias Benmokrane
But the effort isn't fruitless. Satisfaction aside, Benmokrane suspects he's made at least $4,000 from the game since its release in late June, largely from users purchasing decals for buses, police cars, and in-game character designs.
'It's enough that I'm probably going to quit my job' as a server at a Japanese restaurant, he said.
Benmokrane sharpened his Roblox skills by reproducing the
Other Roblox recreations of
Transportation games are plentiful and well-played on Roblox, according to the company.
'In general, driving, flying, busing and other transit experiences are popular on the platform,' a Roblox spokesperson wrote to the Globe.
Stepford County Railway, a train simulator, has
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The MBTA, for its part, is aware of Benmokrane's game.
'It's great to see the public embracing their creativity and engaging with transit in a new and fun way,' the agency wrote in a statement.
Kenneth Dumas, the cartographer who
Benmokrane hopes to work for the T one day, not just simulate its services.
'There was an internship that I really wanted to do [at the MBTA],' he said, 'but I had to focus on the game.'
Jaime Moore-Carrillo can be reached at