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Maximum load setting at stops

Started by Bear789, September 13, 2012, 09:40:53 PM

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Bear789

When a line connects two busy hubs, let's say A and D, intermediate minor stops B and C can become overcrowded because vehicles leave A full with cargo or passengers for D, so there's no room to load anything at B and C. Sometimes even additional express lines to relieve pressure on the local line aren't enough unless you add a dedicated route for each stop, which is not cost effective and limits the amount of stuff travelling because of the max tranfer setting.
Is it possible to add a maximum load option that lets players set that a vehicle won't load more than the chosen percentage of cargo, so that there's room for stuff ad B and C?
As long as I know, the current load and waiting options don't help on that regard.

Lmallet

A quick way is to simply make the platform at station A shorter than the train, only cars on the platform will load.

isidoro

Once, it seemed such an interesting idea that some three years ago I made a patch for it.

You can see the thread here:
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1648.msg16998#msg16998

There are some other side effects to consider.  If you have a train going form A to B to C, and you set maximum load at B to 0%, then, in fact, A and C are unconnected.  That side effect is desirable in some circumstances and give you some flexibility...

ӔO

add more convoys, or make them leave earlier or make them leave at 50% maybe?

There's simply not enough capacity in your line if your trains are constantly arriving at the station completely full.
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Ters

I agree with ÆO. What could be useful here is a distinction between local and express trains, so that passengers going from A to D prefer the express train that doesn't stop at B and C, so that the train doing the full A-B-C-D will leave A with mostly passengers for B and C. That is not a new idea.

ӔO

It's also possible to create branch lines that also run on the same set of tracks for a certain distance.

If the heavy traffic is between A-B-C-D, then you can run A-B-C-D-E1-E2-E3, A-B-C-D-F1-F2-F3-F4 trains to split the work load between the two lines and still not have your trains run nearly empty for the rest of the trip.

Mind you, this is a bit more work, but works quite well.
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Bear789

#6
Thanks for the answers!

Quote from: Lmallet on September 13, 2012, 11:34:41 PM
A quick way is to simply make the platform at station A shorter than the train, only cars on the platform will load.

It doesn't work. First, it's an option only for trains, it won't work for busses/trucks, planes and ships.
Even with trains, having shorter platforms means that cars won't unload either. I've tried it, if you have terminals with shorter platform than the intermediate station, in most cases what happens is that at the intermediate stations cargo will be loaded on cars that won't be able to unload at the terminal and will stay on the train forever.

Quote from: isidoro on September 13, 2012, 11:39:04 PM
Once, it seemed such an interesting idea that some three years ago I made a patch for it.

You can see the thread here:
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1648.msg16998#msg16998

There are some other side effects to consider.  If you have a train going form A to B to C, and you set maximum load at B to 0%, then, in fact, A and C are unconnected.  That side effect is desirable in some circumstances and give you some flexibility...

I'll try the patch, thak you! What I wont is to set A and C at less than 100%, not B, so it may work for me.

Quote from: ӔO on September 13, 2012, 11:46:30 PM
make them leave earlier or make them leave at 50% maybe?

That exactly what I want. How can I do that? If I use the minimum load, vehicles load anything above the percentage I set: let's say that I have a vehicle that can load  200 passengers, I set the minimum load at 50% which is 100. If in the station there are less than 100 passengers, the vehicle will wait, but if there are, say, 500, then the vehicle will load all the way to 200.

Quote from: ӔO on September 13, 2012, 11:46:30 PMThere's simply not enough capacity in your line if your trains are constantly arriving at the station completely full.

I know, but sometimes there's no room to add more vehiles on the way. I usually set up large hubs, especially for freights, with main lines connecting the hubs and secondary lines connecting the local factories to the hub. With a setting like this, the main lines will almost always leave the hubs full.
Even local lines occasionally suffer from this. My usual freight setup is a circle line like this: raw materials -> raw materials -> raw materials -> consumer factory. If I make shuttle lines between each raw materials producer and the factory, the lines will be most likely unprofitable because vehicles will make half of their trips, the return ones, empty. Circle lines on the other hand are good for profit, but bad for the overcrowding at any station that isn't the first one or the first two. What I'd like is to be able to set the vechicles to load a little bit of stuff at each station, so that every station is served equally and all the vehicles won't make empty trips.

Carl

Among other things, you might consider lowering the passenger factor. If all vehicles are full and there's no room for more, it sounds like the map is unrealistically overcrowded with passengers.

Combuijs

QuoteI know, but sometimes there's no room to add more vehiles on the way. I usually set up large hubs, especially for freights, with main lines connecting the hubs and secondary lines connecting the local factories to the hub. With a setting like this, the main lines will almost always leave the hubs full.

Then that is your real problem. If you are unable to carry away all passengers/freight on a station, then loading up to 50% will only increase your problem. As AEO said: look for more capacity on the lines, for instance by doubling to 4 tracks or by going underground. In Simutrans loading only up to 50% will never solve capacity problems.

Quote
Even local lines occasionally suffer from this. My usual freight setup is a circle line like this: raw materials -> raw materials -> raw materials -> consumer factory. If I make shuttle lines between each raw materials producer and the factory, the lines will be most likely unprofitable because vehicles will make half of their trips, the return ones, empty. Circle lines on the other hand are good for profit, but bad for the overcrowding at any station that isn't the first one or the first two. What I'd like is to be able to set the vechicles to load a little bit of stuff at each station, so that every station is served equally and all the vehicles won't make empty trips.

Usually a balanced pak will make shuttle lines for freight profitable, as long as you share infrastructure with other lines. I always use shuttle lines for freight. It is the easiest way of regulating capacity. As an alternative you could have regional freight transfer stations. Goods from and to factories in a region will always use their regional transfer stations. They are not very profitable as they rarely have return freight (but sometimes they have, for example oil to refinery, gas from refinery). The lines between the regional transfer stations themselves are usually very profitable as you often will have return freight.
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Bear789

#9
Quote from: carlbaker on September 14, 2012, 08:02:48 AM
Among other things, you might consider lowering the passenger factor. If all vehicles are full and there's no room for more, it sounds like the map is unrealistically overcrowded with passengers.


I'm currently playing this map: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9617.0 It's really huge and it has a lot of cities and attractions; with the normal passenger generation levels of Standard, I have loads of passengers travelling (the graphs say 12 millions trips last year, and I'm still serving only half the locations).
The main problem is still freight rather than passengers, though. The passenger flow is decent, I don't have big issues.

Quote from: Combuijs on September 14, 2012, 08:15:16 AM
Then that is your real problem. If you are unable to carry away all passengers/freight on a station, then loading up to 50% will only increase your problem. As AEO said: look for more capacity on the lines, for instance by doubling to 4 tracks or by going underground. In Simutrans loading only up to 50% will never solve capacity problems.

The hubs are ok, the problem is on some intermediate station between the hubs

paichtis

Quote from: Bear789 on September 14, 2012, 06:56:38 AM
Thanks for the answers!

Even with trains, having shorter platforms means that cars won't unload either. I've tried it, if you have terminals with shorter platform than the intermediate station, in most cases what happens is that at the intermediate stations cargo will be loaded on cars that won't be able to unload at the terminal and will stay on the train forever.

The trick here is to make the trains stop twice in the same station : first on the long platform where it will unload then on the short platform where it will load.
Haven't actually tried it but it schould work.

ojii

Quote from: Ters on September 14, 2012, 05:20:00 AM
I agree with ÆO. What could be useful here is a distinction between local and express trains, so that passengers going from A to D prefer the express train that doesn't stop at B and C, so that the train doing the full A-B-C-D will leave A with mostly passengers for B and C. That is not a new idea.

This would make my day! Right now express services that run along the same line as another line but skip some stations are just not worth it, which is a shame.

prissi

If trains leave the hubs 50% empty, then the hubs will become a problem again. Since it means 50% less is transported away and 50% more is arriving. You cannot solve capacity problems without adding capacity.

The other way would be to run a line ABC and a Line CD. Then you would serve B and C much more often. AD should be no problem at all, since you have anyway 100% filled trains.

Ters

Another thing: I try to run my intercity trains between two stations only. Every time I try to add more stations than two, I run into the problem of balancing the capacity. Unfortunately, it's not very realistic. Local lines are usually managable.

I also avoid circles of interconnected lines with an even number of lines. Otherwise, passenger can start flowing mostly in one direction around the circle, where trains are full in one direction, and almost empty in the other, which isn't profitable. The direction may also suddenly change.

isidoro

Another realistic possibility that makes sense is this:
  A (producer) --> B (other producer) --> C (consumer).

To be able to change the number of wagons at each station: for instance, A (1 loco + 2 wagons), B (1 loco + 4 wagons), then C.

That way, if it would be possible, you save the running cost of 2 wagons in between A and B or even, the price of one extra loco if you decide to split the line in two: A->B and B->C.  But that would complicate things very much since stations should have depots attached to them to hold the waiting wagons.