Get on the bus. No matter the cost.
This game reminded me of the Train dilemma - where there's one track with five people and another track with one person, and you have the decision to flip the switch so that you either take the lesser of two evils or do nothing.Dependant on your moral ethics, will you be taking a place on the bus? I enjoyed the NPC's short stories, and what they have done/what they will do to get to the City of Light - I think this could be expanded with more interactions with the NPC's - to make the player care for them and decide whether who will be going on the bus.
As mentioned in previous comments, the wait time between each interaction is a little long, perhaps there could be another mechanic used in the kiosk while these wait times go by? Would definitely like to see this elaborated further down the line...