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[TUTORIAL] Guide to Convoy Spacing & Line Scheduling

Started by Carl, February 10, 2012, 01:50:11 PM

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Jando

Thanks for the answer, Carl, makes sense. Perhaps include this information in the tutorial? The text now seems to suggest that a vehicle departs whenever there is enough for it's maximum load.

Carl

I believe the tutorial was written before the 10 minute-rule was introduced. I will update it, when I get a chance, to take account of those changes. Thanks for spotting this!

gfurst

I would like to take notice that since there is a timing rule that prevents convoy leaving before scheduled time then the 101% - 400% loading is irrelevant.
I supposed that loading convoy to a maximum of 400% was only a tweak to prevent convoy from leaving before the supposed schedule time, and such a wide range after the 100% because to the possibility of overcrowding.
So I think its better this ways, convoy waits for timer but begins loading before and may even depart sooner than expected. Still the 400% load need adjusting.

Carl

Quote from: gfurst on February 12, 2014, 09:45:41 AM
I would like to take notice that since there is a timing rule that prevents convoy leaving before scheduled time then the 101% - 400% loading is irrelevant.

Hi gfurst:

Unless I've missed something from the last few updates (which is possible, since I've been mostly absent recently), the above quote is false. Convoys with spacing active can board once less than 10 minutes remain before their scheduled departure. This means that, so long as there are enough passengers, they could in theory leave up to 10 minutes before their scheduled departure.

The possibility of a 400% load is intended to bypass this, since (almost?) no vehicles can reach 400% capacity even when overcrowded capacity is taken into account. As such a vehicle with "wait for 400% load" active cannot leave before its schedule departure time, whereas a convoy with 100 (or 101, etc) could in principle do so.

Jando

Agree with Carl here, I frequently use the 300% setting for example: on stage coaches on lines with enough demand, forces the coaches into overcrowded mode.

gfurst

Quote from: gfurst on February 12, 2014, 09:45:41 AM
I supposed that loading convoy to a maximum of 400% was only a tweak to prevent convoy from leaving before the supposed schedule time, and such a wide range after the 100% because to the possibility of overcrowding.
So I think its better this ways, convoy waits for timer but begins loading before and may even depart sooner than expected. Still the 400% load need adjusting.
I think you misunderstood me,  I said the exactly same thing, see the above lines.
What I've meant is that with the timing rule, a convoy loading and maybe departing earlier than expected might be good and realistic.
Waiting for the convoy to be fully overcrowded might not be ideal if you take comfort into consideration. I would suggest a max setting of 200%, unless there are vehicles that can take overcrowd to more than that, which in my opinion seems exaggerated.

Carl

400% is available to allow people to use convoy spacing for bona fide timetables -- if the maximum was 200% then this would not be possible. I agree that under some circumstances you might want a vehicle to leave once it's full (or fully overcrowded) -- but in that case you can simply set the percentage to the desired value, since anything between 0 and 400 is allowed. I don't see that this is a reason to disallow going all the way up to 400, since this allows those who want to to do things that they otherwise wouldn't be able to do.

LoCo

hi all,
first im german so sry for my english.
i dont get it ... the ingame time depends on my bits per month settings...
but the time for the timetables runs fast as hell ... even faster than realtime
when i set bits per month at 23, i get a coincidence of this two times ...
but minutes of ingametime are seconds in the timetable ...

i want to play with bits per month at 27-30 ... so i dont get a coincidence
with this settings ingame time (bottom left) runs down 1 minute and the timetable (time above convoys) runs down more than 1 minute
... isnt it possible to attach the timetable timespeed to the ingame timespeed?
example : 1 minute ingame time is 1 minute in the timetables?
i played around with the gamesettings but dont get it.
i hope my text is understandable :-S and thanks in advance for every reply.

DrSuperGood

Quotebut minutes of ingametime are seconds in the timetable ...
I believe it is meant to be that the wait time above the convoy when you mouse over them is in the same units as the time months are broken into. As such it should always be X:Y where X are hours and Y are minutes which advance 1:1 with the month time in hours and minutes.

The only thing that month length should change with timetabling is the amount of actual wait time that a schedule converts into. Longer months will produce longer wait time for the same schedule as you specify wait time in convoys per month so each timeslot will be longer. Shorter months should result in the opposite with each time slot becoming shorter.

You can compensate for this by raising or reducing the number of convoys per month. With very long months you will want a large number of convoys per month (like 100-200 for a commuter service) where as shorter months might be fine with very few (10-20).

LoCo

yes ... but i dont see a coincedence between "wait time" and "ingame time" or " wait time" and "reallife time" ...
as example ... above convoys you see a wait time of 33m:12s ... but it is neither realtime nor ingame time ...
ingame time the bus waits more than 3h and realtime it is around 3-5 minutes
so i dont really know how long he waits actually because it counts faster than "realtime" and slower than the "ingame time"
i want to start a bus hourly on ingame time with 1 station enforcing the space
but when i set it to 1:00:00 convoy spacing it dont fits with both timelines
at 1 convoy setted, it has a spacing of 204:xx:xx ... 204 hours of what? on which timeline is it based on
1 month are 744 ingame hours in a 31 days month and at bits per month 27 one month lasts 37,28 hours of reallife time
where does this 204 h at 1 convoy per month come from?

Milko

Hello


"Wait for time", someone could help to understand how to use?


If I specify "Minimum load" = 100% and "Maxim wait time" to 3:00 the convoy will depart reaching 100% load OR 3:00 minutes?


Thank's
Giuseppe

Ves

If you specify "wait for time", the convoys will depart with the frequency set in the two "Departures" boxes to the right.
If you specify also the "Maximum waiting time", I understand that the convoy should never wait more than what is specified in that box. Eg, if you have specified 5 minutes in that box, and the next slot is 20 minutes away, the convoy will only wait 5 minutes instead of 20. However, I cannot seem to get it work, the train will instantly depart in my testgame. Maybe there is a bug?

If you specify only "maximum load", the train will wait for its maximum load.
If you combine it with the two "Departures" boxes to the right, you can tell the train to wait until set load percentage until the departure slot
If you combine the "maximum load" with "Maximum wait time", you can make the train wait until set load percentage or until the timer has run out.

If you combine all three of them ("Maximum load", "Maximum wait time" and the "Departures"), I think the train will wait until the first condition is met, but I had not have time to test that.

accord2

Hi,
can someone explain me how do it so a express line can use the same railway as a slow commuter line? I don't get that part.
Son of a railroad man,  growing up in train stations, lover of trains

Carl

I think this feature has been deprecated in favour of  "wait for time" in the new Extended versions, but I haven't tested that yet. In any case the concept of the same.


One way to do this is to schedule the express train to leave (e.g.) the terminus a few minutes before the slow train does. That way the slow train won't get in the way of the express train. If it's a long line then you may have to have another passing station later on. In that case, make the slow train wait in a side platform again until the next express train has passed.

Ves

Quote from: accord2 on February 14, 2017, 05:18:57 PM
Hi,
can someone explain me how do it so a express line can use the same railway as a slow commuter line? I don't get that part.
I guess the guide needs to be updated now to match the new GUI :)

However, you need to make sure that the commuter train departs after the express train.
This is done by having two different schedules, one commuter and one express, and with the same numbers of departures pr month.
Dependent on the level of detail and finetuning that you need, you may have to specify the stops in both directions (leaving the "mirror schedule" unchecked), but in this example that level of detail is not neccessary, so we will use the "mirror schedule" feature.

Next to the "Departures/month" field is the "shift" field. That is an offset that can be used to delay the departure times. The value that appears under the field is in hours, minutes and seconds (however, the hours are invinsible until you select a high enough value). That is the actual time that the schedule will be offset.
The seamingly odd minutes and seconds that it gets pushed is due to a default setting in the settings dialog, which carls explains in his original guide on the first post how to change using "spacing_shift_divisor" in the settings (James, maybe this is worth change permanently to something more convinient?). Convenient could be if "1" in the field corresponds to 1 minute. To do that, calculate how many minutes a month have (if a month = 6.24.00, number of minutes would be 384).
The button underneath which is called "Use same shift for all stops." forces the shift value to be the same on all stops which have "Wait for time" enabled. Unchecking the box allows you to specify a different shift value at each stop.

So, to answer your question, theorethically you set "wait for time" in each schedule at both their terminis, and add a shift value for the commuter train so it departs a minute or two later.

jamespetts

See Ves's post above describing the new "wait for time" feature.
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AP

Quote from: Carl on February 10, 2012, 01:50:11 PM
Note also that you'll need to play around with the spacing numbers and the "spacing_shift_divisor" in the settings menu to get the right values here. The rule here is as follows: set the "spacing_shift_divisor" to exactly the number of minutes-per-month in your game. That way, entering "1" into the shift box will amount to exactly one minute, and so on.

I'm trying to understand timetabling, but need a bit of help please related to the above point.

My game's default setting has "spacing_shift_divisor" set to 1440 in settings. However I can't find minutes-per-month, only "bits_per_month", and as I don't know how many bits a minute is, I don't know if they are equal or not.  However, since my game seems to be Spacing-Shifting in 16 second increments I suspect not.  16s is annoyingly not a useful fraction of a minute, which makes timetable maths complicated!

Is there a reason the game is defaulting to Spacing Shifting at 16s rather than 1 minute intervals?  Given various people set up games without scrutinising every setting, might it be wise for James to change the default (wherever it is, and it doesn't seem to be in simuconf.tab...) to be such that they match?  Or is there an adverse implcation I'm not aware of?


Ves

If you have the clock in the lower left corner, the minutes per month is hour*60 + eventual minutes. My months are 6:24:00 long which equals to 384 minutes, which is also the value I use as spacing shift devisor.

Carl

A long while ago I made a little table of how bits_per_month and meters_per_tile interact to determine the month length (and therefore to help you set the spacing shift divisor). Maybe it still works?

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7897.0

lukaskupasz


Matthew

 
Quote from: lukaskupasz on May 23, 2018, 10:46:36 AM
As you do the highway which is the mod?

Welcome to the International Simutrans Forum, Lukas!  :) Could you please explain your question? It's a little difficult to understand.
(Signature being tested) If you enjoy playing Simutrans, then you might also enjoy watching Japan Railway Journal
Available in English and simplified Chinese
如果您喜欢玩Simutrans的话,那么说不定就想看《日本铁路之旅》(英语也有简体中文字幕)。

Rollmaterial

The spacing feature now has its own Wait for time tickbox and will not work properly with Minimum load 100%. This needs to be updated.

Carl

You're quite right. However since I haven't played Extended at all yet, I am not in a position to write it.

If someone wanted to write an overview of Wait for Time I'd be happy to edit the original post. Does this post from Ves cover it?

https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,9241.msg152990.html#msg152990

accord2

I need help to make a schedule where trains wait for each other at a station. It's 1831 and signalling is.. you know. I tried making the train wait at that station but if they wait there then they will meet at other station. I'm really confused.
Son of a railroad man,  growing up in train stations, lover of trains

jamespetts

You will need to give more details of your track layout and what you are trying to do so that people can assist with your situation.
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accord2

oh sorry. I have a single track with some stations with double track (only at station). In one line (there's other) I made it work with try and error attempts. Is there any way to make a schedule to make trains wait for each other at some stations? Is it try and error or is there a trick?
Son of a railroad man,  growing up in train stations, lover of trains

jamespetts

A heavily used single track line is not (and was in reality not) possible using signalling technology from the 1830s. The early railway lines were either double track or had only the one train operating on them.

You will need to wait for the electric telegraph to be invented in the 1840s before being able to have an intensively used single track section.
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Ves

What you could do, is to, instead of using the "mirror schedule", you manually select the entries of the schedule in the reverse direction. That will allow you to enter different time-settings for both directions. Then define how frequent you want the trains to run, where, among others, the lower boundary is defined by the time it takes a train to travel the longest single tracked stretch.
Make sure to uncheck the "use same shift for all stops", since each stop will have its own "shift" value, and press "Wait for time" on all stops in the schedule.

The terminus stop should, for the purpose of this demonstration, have a shift value of 0:00 (it is the "clock" value benieth the input field that is important)
The  next stop should have a shift value of [the time it takes the train to between the terminus and this stop] + [loading time] + [substantial time buffer in case it runs late]
The  next stop should have a shift value of [the previous shift value] + [the time it takes the train to between the previous and this stop] + [loading time] + [substantial time buffer in case it runs late]
etc....

For the reverse, it gets a little trickier, and you might have to adjust the previous shift entries, in case the distance between the stops (and therefore, passing loops) are too uneven.
Start by find what shift value the train needs to have from this terminus in order to depart when the following train arrives to the terminus. Make sure that there is enough time to properly turn around and count for delays.
Then the return should in principle be like this:
The next stop should have a shift value of [the previous shift value] + [the time it takes the train to between the previous and this stop] + [loading time] + [substantial time buffer in case it runs late] + the additional time it takes for any oncoming train
etc...

So, it can be quite complicated for longer lines, but this, I believe, should be the principle in how to achieve that  :) Then I dont know if this ever was done like this...

edit:
As a matter of fact, I just tried to create such a scheduel. It was a hazzle, but it works pretty well now.
I have a line with six stations and four convoys. The stations are at quite some different distances to each other. Some takes 9 minutes and other takes 24 minutes to for the convoy to traverse.
You need to make sure that the "Departures per month" value is higher than twice the longest travel distance in time. So in my example, I need to have a "Departures per month" value of 48 minutes or higher. I have selected 1:03:59, which gives me 15 minutes to be flexible around that particular stretch.
Good luck!

Edit 2:
AND for easier management:
You should aim for an uneven amount of passing loops, if you have an even amount of convoys!