Those passengers wanna go where???

[Roads]

My fav part of this game is growing cities and from experience a good way to achieve that is passenger travel.  This is fun as well but I have to say it is still frustrating at times.  Just when I have things running smoothly with parking lots for low traffic routes and bigger buses for heavier routes, I'll click on some stop and for no apparent reason it will have an inordinate number of passengers going to some, usually, remote place.

What's up with this?  Is it just the way I have my passenger travel configured or does the game engine occasionally dump a bunch of passengers on a stop to challenge the player?  I have been maintaining a utility bus to pickup these Simutranians (my personal belief is these citizens belong to some evil cult, probably Satan worshipers and are having meetings in the most remote locations they can find, but I digress) but now there is a new wrinkle.  They will only board the bus if it stops somewhere else first!  Imagine that!  They won't go directly from Davo to Philippi, they have to go via Tacoma.  Naturally this reinforces my belief there is something sinister in their desire to travel.

Sorry if this should have been posted on the help thread.  I'm entertaining the notion I'm beyond that but this post might prove me wrong.  Anyway I'm curious how many people have no problem with passenger travel and how many do.  Could we have a poll?  Maybe also with an option just for people who would like to see passenger travel changed in some way.

[AP]

The stop information will give detail where the passengers want to go and via which station, yes. It does this on the basis of the pre-existing routes  - so you can shorten a very long list of destinations on a complex network and just see the next "via" point.

I don't believe the passengers are particularly choosy about going only on that specific route - merely that the "via" given is the one they have judged the best route - if you start up a new more efficient one, I believe they should alter their travel plans (eventually once simutrans recalculates the routeing) and board your bus.

Anecdotally, I think it takes a while for a new route to "register" with the calculation system. I normally expect a trai/bus to make a round trip empty before the system realises that the new route is available, although I imagine it's a time thing rather than anything else.

I don't understand the passenger generation thing, though (am interested in the answer!). I've occasionally noticed large crowds wanting an obscure destination, it's true. Never thought much about it. Crowded stations, though, may just be often a function of your passenger network's design. If you have a bus stop which reliably fills a bus (e.g. Central Rail Station) - then the stops immediately after it regularly overflow with passengers because the buses driving past are often full.

[Fabio]

Anecdotally, I think it takes a while for a new route to "register" with the calculation system. I normally expect a trai/bus to make a round trip empty before the system realises that the new route is available, although I imagine it's a time thing rather than anything else.

i noticed this for long time, and i always wondered why

[Combuijs]

Is it just the way I have my passenger travel configured or does the game engine occasionally dump a bunch of passengers on a stop to challenge the player?

It is probably the way you have your passenger travel configured. No way that the game engine is wicked enough to challenge you this way. Every target is as likely to receive passengers, apart from depending on the passengers level of course.

i noticed this for long time, and i always wondered why

You would not want a recalculation of all routes of all passengers and all vehicles when you add a new route. That would take some major calculation time! Instead, recalculation only takes place when a vehicle gets stuck or wants to go to the next station and when a passenger arrives at a transfer station (and so must continue) or when a new passenger is created.

[Fabio]

You would not want a recalculation of all routes of all passengers and all vehicles when you add a new route. That would take some major calculation time! Instead, recalculation only takes place when a vehicle gets stuck or wants to go to the next station and when a passenger arrives at a transfer station (and so must continue) or when a new passenger is created.

Well, the routes could be recalculated ONLY for the passengers (or goods) already waiting in the stations connected by the new route. This would reduce the calculation time.

[Combuijs]

Well, the routes could be recalculated ONLY for the passengers (or goods) already waiting in the stations connected by the new route. This would reduce the calculation time.

Of course, but then not all passengers would have optimized routes!

For example a passenger goes from A to E via B, C and D: ABCDE, and we have existing routes AF en GE.

Now we introduce a new route FG. You would want passengers waiting in A and travelling to E to travel AFGE, but in your case no recalculation takes place, only for passengers at F and G.

[Fabio]

I thought of this. THis is a problem, for sure, but at least the new route would avoid an empty (and expensive) run. Moreover, it can be useful, when a station is (almost) overcrowded, adding a new line and to have it immediately working.

Additionally, i think (but i hope to be wrong) that often when you add a new vehicle to an existing line, it makes its first run empty.

[Combuijs]

Additionally, i think (but i hope to be wrong) that often when you add a new vehicle to an existing line, it makes its first run empty.

No, it does not, so your hope is not in vain  . It goes however to the "current" station, which is the current station in the update line window. If that is not near the depot it might travel a while to get to that station.

[Roads]

Combuijs, I don't have a clue how I could configure my system differently.  My cities are all a good distance apart but not equally distant.  I have no buses that travel to more than one city.  They all go to the next city and then return.  The way I've been handling the cities that are closer together is to put parking lots where the bus or buses wait for a period of time before departing.  This works well most of the time but not all the time.  Sometimes, like I said in my original post, I will have a passenger buildup in one city that will exceed the ability of the bus or buses serving that line to carry them all.

The thing that makes this particularly troublesome is that I have noticed for the buildup group destination, the bus will take the passengers going to all other destination(s) first.  This of course exaggerates the problem making the buildup group grow very large, very fast.

Yes AP, since I start the game with no cities and add them via the public service player, I can verify that the first trip(s) often run without picking up any passengers.  In fact it was only by trial and error that I discovered if you let the buses make a second trip there will be passengers.  Maybe it is the "if you build it, they will come" thingy.
BTW, this only works if the city hall is in the stop area.  If the stops are for industries, forget it.  Simutranians are for most part like Americans, they do not take public transportation to work.
I think you are on to something about the recalculation.  Since I had like a hundred passengers going to Philippi, I clicked on the bus schedule and changed its next destination from Tacoma to Philippi just before the bus got to stop.  It picked up no passengers.  So I immediately sent it back, no, nada, none.  At this point I gave up and changed schedule back to Tacoma and voila, pickup.

Now I will say that things seem to go awry most often when new cities are added and this is to be expected to some extent.  Still, wouldn't it be great if passengers had a real reason to travel instead of just artificially generating them?

[Combuijs]

I will have a passenger buildup in one city that will exceed the ability of the bus or buses serving that line to carry them all.

Well, then your capacity is too low. Add more busses and you're fine.

the bus will take the passengers going to all other destination(s) first

Yes, there is a fixed order of transporting passengers. So if you are lacking capacity, you tend to "forget" the passengers with a certain (the least handled) destination.

You should see it the other way round. If there are a lot of passengers going to the same destination, then it might be a popular destination, but more likely your transport capacity is too low. And there is a simple remedy for that (at least with busses...).

[Roads]

Well, then your capacity is too low. Add more busses and you're fine.

Yes Combuijs but here is the sticky wicket.  Those passengers from city A want to go to city B but none at city B want to go to city A.  Obviously this causes the bus line to be unprofitable.

I realize in real life public transportation is almost always unprofitable but I was really hoping not to simulate that.  :

EDIT:  The thing I'm really trying to get at here is this.  If you look at cargo transportation you can determine what vehicles, trains whatever you need to do the job.  With passengers there is no way to do this.  You click on a stop to see how many passengers are there.  Basically you are just fighting fires.  Where is the planning, where is the strategy?  Given, there is some strategy in setting up your bus lines because some things simply will not work at all.  That said it is still reactive instead of an approachable set of challenges to overcome.

[Spike]

Those passengers from city A want to go to city B but none at city B want to go to city A.

I remember Prissi saying that he tried to change Simutrans so that for each passenger generated another one is generated with the opposite route? Maybe my memory fails on me, here. If not, you discovered a bug. But Prissi should comment on that, too, to see if it's intended this way or not.

[prissi]

It depends on time. Imagine a train going once a month. Thus you will have each month more passengers waiting at one of both terminals. In the end they will even out. Same is true for towns; own special buildings will have more mail going from them than going to them.

[Combuijs]

Those passengers from city A want to go to city B but none at city B want to go to city A

No, I think the program (=Prissi...) is working correctly in this. But if for example the station at city B is overcrowded and the station at city A is not, this might result in the generation of only one passenger going from A to B (and likely an unhappy passenger at B).

Where is the planning, where is the strategy?

I don't know what your strategy is, but I have no trouble formulating mine. Cargo transport is predictable, but passenger transport is far more dynamic. If cities are growing then more passengers need to be transported. It is as simple as that. So while you can design your cargo network quite static (certainly local), your passengers network needs to be flexible. If for example an attraction is generated in a city then the flow of passengers might seriously change.

Now that ringlines are not that efficient anymore (revenue system changed in 101), I always use a treelike hub and spoke model for passengers. To get from A to B there is always exactly one route. The backbone should have really high capacity, e.g. consisting of the fastest train (maglev) or plane that is available (no busses, you simply need to much of them). On local level (within a city) I start out with a ring line of one bus. If necessary I add busses until I need too much of them (say 8 ). From then on I change to one city hub with several lines. That city hub must have a high throughput capacity. If one of those lines gets too crowded again I start using tramlines, and if I get desperate I go underground with trains. On regional level (in between backbone and city) I start out again with busses and change to trains if necessary.

Whatever your strategy is, it should be flexible and dynamic. You should know beforehand what you plans are if you don't have enough capacity anymore. That's why Simutrans is so interesting!

[AP]

Yes AP, since I start the game with no cities and add them via the public service player, I can verify that the first trip(s) often run without picking up any passengers.  In fact it was only by trial and error that I discovered if you let the buses make a second trip there will be passengers.  Maybe it is the "if you build it, they will come" thingy.

Good to know that is a reliable rule of thumb, for now, then. And yes, "if you build it, they will come" is the mindset I was following too.

BTW, this only works if the city hall is in the stop area.  If the stops are for industries, forget it.  Simutranians are for most part like Americans, they do not take public transportation to work.

I don't agree with this. I've had very successful passenger routes primarily taking people to and from their places of work. It's most successful when there are several towns and a dozen or so industries clustered. Particularly high-traffic industries. Otherwise, it's still useful to get extra people moving. But remember, each industry's workers only live in certain towns, so if you aren't covering the whole town with bus stops (only the centre), you won't get much traffic. You need suburban stops as well to get the commuter traffic.

Now that ringlines are not that efficient anymore (revenue system changed in 101),

Can someone point me to a post that clarifies the mechanics of this change? I've just come back to simutrans after a few months break, and I hadn't realised this had altered. Circular routes used to be very efficient for urban networks! Clearly my strategy needs altering!

[Combuijs]

See http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1205.0 where:

CHANGE: payment is now only for the decrease in distance to the next transfer stop

For the reason, see mainly http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=678.0

[Roads]

After reading all this I think possibly the trouble I'm having is that I'm watching the stops too closely and adjusting too soon.  Especially after what prissi said about the month thingy.  I'll try the same strategy and allow more time for the process.

[prissi]

I think this needs to be configurable like Old method, cheat free method, total distance method ... I really need to finish this difficulty setting window.

[VS]

Yay for starting screen covered in windows

[Roads]

After playing with this for an hour or so, it appears that the trouble I am having is a combination of what prissi and Combuijs suggested.  Apparently as the cities grow and generate more passengers, they do not grow and generate at the exact same time.  You just have to wait for the returning city to catch up.  The thing is if you watch it too closely, it will scare you.  At least it scared me.  Actually that's pretty cool.

Thanks everyone for the help on this.

[jamespetts]

I have noticed that passengers in Simutrans often tend to favour remote, small destinations more often than passengers in real life would do. That is why I created this patch. Incidentally, from my recollections of looking at the code, passengers do generate return trips.

[Roads]

Based on my observations, I think it is true return trips are generated.  However, what seems to be happening is this:

Extra passengers will be generated in city A but their destination could be any stop on the map.  I'm not sure where the return trips are generated from but they appear not, at least not necessarily, to be generated from City B.  This means of course it takes a long time for the passenger amounts to "level" out.  I think it is also possible that those "return" generated passengers may never be routed back to or thru city A.  It seems there is just an equal number of "return" passengers generated somewhere.

My latest thinking on this is that it is not such a bad thing and may actually simulate reality.  I guess it is what Combuijs termed dynamic.  I think it is fighting fires but perhaps that just makes it a different challenge from transporting goods.

[prissi]

Since the calculation of a route also gets the return route for free, passengers are created for an return route too. The only assymetry would be to passengers in transit and passengers lost (unhappy ones).

[Roads]

*sigh*  I'm sorry prissi but I don't understand what you are saying.  At any rate my anti-panic strategy seems to be working.  For now it is not necessary that I understand what is happening, only what will work.

I apologize if I've misled any newbie-than-I-am with what I've written thus far.

[Combuijs]

Since the calculation of a route also gets the return route for free, passengers are created for an return route too. The only assymetry would be to passengers in transit and passengers lost (unhappy ones).

I'm sorry prissi but I don't understand what you are saying.

He means what I said also earlier in this post: If 1 passenger is generated that goes from A to B, then also 1 passenger is generated going back from B to A. You would expect a symmetric result, e.g. you would have to transport as much passengers to A as to B. But that's not the case if for example station B is overcrowded (it won't accept a leaving passenger then, passenger becomes unhappy). Or if intermediate stations (transfer stations) behave differently.

[Roads]

Thanks Combuijs for making that clear.  I do understand that.  Here is what I'm saying.  Even if the game generates one return passenger for one created in A, that passenger that was created in A most likely will not have a destination of B but rather C or E or F.  This means that even if the return passenger is created going back to A, it can take quite awhile for him to get to B which means the bus traveling between A and B is carrying very few passengers in the meantime.

Until I started this thread I did not understand this.  I thought these passengers were just being randomly generated at different stops and would immediately create a bus to carry them out.  Of course this only served to screw up the whole system.  Many thanks to both of you and I'm glad to know that return passengers are in fact, always being generated.

[prissi]

No, if you have a connection between city A and city B then exactly the same amount of passengers will be transported if neither of the stops in questions is overflowing. Only innercity there are no return passengers generated.

[Roads]

prissi, I have no intercity stops.  Please look at this example from my current game.  Davo is directly connected to Mars Hill, Cody and Wesley.  There are other cities beyond those.

Davo City Hall stop:
115 passengers waiting
   48 passengers > Cody City Hall stop
    2 passengers > Jolly Alice City Hall Stop via Cody City Hall stop
   22 passengers > Mars Hill City Hall stop
   24 passengers > Philippi 01_City_1 stop via Cody City Hall stop
    8 passengers > Tacoma Mama City Hall stop Cody City Hall stop
   11 passengers > Wesley City Hall stop

Cody City Hall stop:
70 passengers waiting
    8 passengers > Jolly Alice City Hall stop
   29 passengers > Philippi 01_City_1 stop via Tacoma Mama City Hall stop
   33 passengers > Scott City Hall stop via Davo City Hall stop

There are two buses running between Davo and Cody.  One is enroute to Davo carrying the following:
   17 passengers > Wesley City Hall stop via Davo City Hall stop

The other bus is enroute to Cody and carrying the following:
   33 passengers > Tacoma Mama City Hall stop via Cody City Hall stop

If I understand you correctly and you are saying city B generates the same number of passengers for city A as city A generates for B, then this is clearly not the case in this example.

[prissi]

You have no unhappy passengers at any stop?

Just take a connection between two cities. Run a bus between them and look at the stop statistics. The arriving and the departing number are almost the same until the number of unhappy passengers starts to increase.

[Roads]

nope.

[prissi]

The people from other cities arriving in Davo with Destination Cody will be shown there as well. SImutrans merges goods with same destination. Thus this will be most likely the error you are seeing.

[Roads]

Again I apologize for not understanding.  If what I say here is not pertinent, blame it on my lack of understanding.  There are no goods stations near any of the bus stops.  All the stops are at the city halls and all the cities are ones I created in public service mode so they are still little.  In fact it is only 1934 in game.

Oh I think I do understand.  You are saying that those 50 passengers or whatever quantity in Davo for Cody could have come from somewhere else and been merged, then just listed as passengers going to Cody?  If that is the case, I had not thought or known that was possible.  Thanks.