A bus network is a network topology in which nodes are directly connected to a common half-duplex link called a bus.^[1][2]

A host on a bus network is called a station. In a bus network, every station will receive all network traffic, and the traffic generated by each station has equal transmission priority.^[3] A bus network forms a single network segment and collision domain. In order for nodes to share the bus, they use a medium access control technology such as carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA) or a bus master.