In this paper, we study the properties of the bus-based hypercube, denoted as U(n,b), which is a kind of multiple-bus networks (MBN). U(n,b) consists of 2/sup n/ processors and 2/sup b/ buses, where 0 /spl les/ b /spl les/ n - 1, and each processor is connected to either /spl lceil/(b+2)/2/spl rceil/ or /spl lceil/(b+1)/2/spl rceil/ buses. We show that the diameter of U(n,b) is /spl lceil/(b-1)/2/spl rceil/ if b /spl ges/ 2. We also present an algorithm to select the best neighbor processor via which we can obtain one shortest routing path. In U(n,b), we show that if there exist some faults, the fault diameter DF(n,b,f) /spl les/ b+1, where f is the sum of bus faults and processor faults and 0 /spl les/ f /spl les/ /spl lceil/(b+3)/2/spl rceil/. Furthermore, we also show that the bus fault diameter DB(n,b,f) /spl les/ b/-2/spl rfloor/ - 3, where 0 /spl les/ f /spl les/ /spl lceil/(b-1)/2/spl rceil/ and f is the number of bus faults. These results improve significantly the previous result that DB(n,b,f) /spl les/ b - 2f + 1, where f is the number of bus faults.