How do you organize your network?

[Matthi205]

Haven't thinked of that yet... good idea.

[lemansgranprix]

So...this might be geeking out too much, but say I'm at work – (cough, clearing throat).  I print out the map of the city I'm planning on building and I start tying cities together with a passenger rail line. 

I try and map out rail lines, no more than 5 cities together, and then have them connect to major hubs (the largest cities on the map).  Once I get all of the hubs and cluster-of-5 cities together, I begin laying my tracks in-game.

It usually ends up working surprisingly well, and makes for more fun in my cubicle. 
Then in each city, I cover the entire city with bus lines that go to each train station.

[Enlighthell]

Ok.
Local Transportation
First I make my local bus...
When the stops get bussy i have a metro in my main cities.

City to City
I always make my big highspeed freeways. and I use the fastest busses. But when I have to connect big cities I often use Airplanes... and when I have small cities pop. 20,000 I make a Train Station just by the City Hall.

Goods and Freight
What I do is
Airplanes: Goods and Cooled Goods
Trains: Raw materials
Trucks: Factory to shops

No SShots

[Václav]

City mass transit:
trolleybuses and (after some time) underground trains

Short-track cities connection:
mostly monorail or trams

Long-track cities connection:
mostly trains (classical or maglev)
sometime they are supplied by planes or ships

Short freight transportation:
almost ever trucks

Long freight transportation:
mostly trains (classical or maglev)
some connections are served by planes or ships

Long-track intercity web building is based on principles forced in TransportGiant - it means A -> B, B -> C, C -> D ..., A -> G, G -> H and so on... Mainly for passengers and post it is the best way I got to know - while it can be a bit uncomfortable way
City mass transit (and short-track intercity) lines are built in closed circles
Passenger/post airports are sticked to main railway stations in cities; by planes are connected by those cities which cannot be connected directly between each other - or they are connected via at least one another city
Freight airports are built very rarely due to very difficult earning of money by this way
Ships connects those places (factories or cities) which are accessible from free water or without building long water canals

[LNBC]

My networking usually done in this way:
Within the Town: a Circular Bus route to the nearest railway station is a MUST.
Also for those suburb-factory lines.
(Underground/overground railways existed only for those overcrowded urban areas,
and based on bus stops for an easy access. Of course, to the nearest railway stations.)

Between the towns:
Well - depends on the following:
(1) Are those towns jointed into a single urban areas? If yes - treated as a single town:
but this time I may needed a few numbers of buslines, or even a subway (MTR).
(2) Does towns laid out within a circle? It is quite assured that circular lines did generate much profit that the single lined lines did.
(3) Intercity trains always in 12 cars (with a mail car: always repaked from the original.) and runs in circults (with singals, we can put up to 20 trains on a single line!)
(4) NO sharing tracks between lines! (If a railway line fails, you might be panic for handling 2 lines trains - 40 to 50 trains - at once!)
(5) Share Freight Trains ONLY when the Passenger Trains run at the same top speed - or either of them will block the another IF the Freight Trains goes slower.
(6) Piers and Airports always linked with any railway system - except the crowded urban centres.

DON'T to me:
(1) Never use a tram - as I got handful of double-deckers and bandies to do the same job.
Also building trams tracks, setting power lines cost too much to be done.
(That's why I think a overhead railway or subway did better - they don't share space with the road traffic!)
(2) Never building intercity trains with slow vehicles (only for those timeline-free players) -
30 Shinkansen bullet trains does the job of 50 normal passenger trains with ease.
Yes - it's so expensive, but as the railway system covered all of the town in the map -
the first train can earn a million Cr within one single go-and-return trip. A train saved is a faster service you can offer.
(3) No Long railways for freight - instead, I get a existed station upgraded into a hub, and let another freight train running direct to the factories. Or Huge Oil Tankers for those productive oil rigs to the thirsty refineries and/or oil power stations DIRECTLY.

At last - I love suburbs expanding from the town centres - so I prefer get a busline from stations to popular tourist spots (or simply a housing estate) afar from the tracks (with a station built for the interchange.)

PS Cable Tram is the only tram I would like to apply - in mountainous regions only.
So, I need to show this exception at the end.

[Defacto]

All these maps, screens, and plans sound awesome, but how do you start up your network? I can never get enough profit to stay in business...
so how do you start when you develop those massive maps?

By the way, i have pak128. If i have understood things correctly, the economy works different in the packs

[Enlighthell]

Make a connection with a cheap vehicle in a short distance and make it 50% to 80% full..
Then add another stop... and just stay like that adding stops and vehicles. Well thats my way of doing it

[Defacto]

I see... should i add more stops when the first one gets full (truck jam, not too many resources that is)

And do you use dirt roads? Is the speed bonus from going 50km/h enough to make, say gravel roads economy viable when compared to dirt roads?

[VS]

Myself, I use gravel everywhere. Dirt is just too slow for anything

The faster your vehicles move, the more cargo can they move. So, one question is, how long do they wait for loading? If actual movement is only a smaller part of total time, you can get away with worse ways. To a certain point, time spent driving will just subtract from waiting.

[electroduck]

Please note that this is in 2013

[ojii]

I usually play pak128.japan, with rather big cities. Every bigger city (at least 50k) get's a subway system (110km/h, mostly underground, 4-6 station tiles) for inner city transport + commuter rails (120km/h, mostly overground, 6 station tiles) to the suburbs (smaller cities around it). The big cities all get one Shinkansen Terminal which connect the cities. The Shinkansen lines always have only two stops, eg they only connect two cities. The commuter/subway lines are usually quite long.

The suburbs usually have a bus system or some tram lines, depending on their size. Some suburbs are only the commuter rail station though.

Shinkansen tracks are always as straight as possible and don't have changes in elevation whenever possible, which makes their construction more expensive but over time creates more revenue.

Commuter rails are usually overground between cities, but sometimes switch to underground in cities. They usually don't go to deep into the main city they connect, unless they share tracks with a subway line inside the city. Commuter rail lines never connect 'big' cities that are big enough to have a Shinkansen line connecting to them.

[T0m4S]

I usually play pak128.japan, with rather big cities. Every bigger city (at least 50k) get's a subway system (110km/h, mostly underground, 4-6 station tiles) for inner city transport + commuter rails (120km/h, mostly overground, 6 station tiles) to the suburbs (smaller cities around it). The big cities all get one Shinkansen Terminal which connect the cities. The Shinkansen lines always have only two stops, eg they only connect two cities. The commuter/subway lines are usually quite long.

The suburbs usually have a bus system or some tram lines, depending on their size. Some suburbs are only the commuter rail station though.

Shinkansen tracks are always as straight as possible and don't have changes in elevation whenever possible, which makes their construction more expensive but over time creates more revenue.

Commuter rails are usually overground between cities, but sometimes switch to underground in cities. They usually don't go to deep into the main city they connect, unless they share tracks with a subway line inside the city. Commuter rail lines never connect 'big' cities that are big enough to have a Shinkansen line connecting to them.

Interesting. Could you please post a screenshot or even better a savegame, I'm always interested in optimizing my network and yours looks like an interesting idea

Thanks.

[ojii]

I'll post my latest savegame, where I actually started to use track sharing more often. Before I used to have 99% separate tracks for all lines, in this latest game I started sharing a lot of tracks (up to 3 lines using the same tracks in some parts, which is a lot for me), and I even started to allow Shinkansen tracks to cross (before it was a strict rule that shinkansen tracks have no intersections or anything unless right before the station to merge tracks). Turned out pretty well (especially since the Shinkansen Lines are not as busy as usual, 1 line with 2 trains @ 23 cars, 1 line with 2 trains @ 21 cars, 1 line with 1 train @23 cars).

The one thing I hate about simutrans due to my style of playing though is that I cannot go up/down levels underground, leading to weird holes in the ground where a tunnel changes it's level :(

[prissi]

Up down levels is implemented since half a year at least. Just use the elevate land tool on your tunnels ...

[ojii]

Up down levels is implemented since half a year at least. Just use the elevate land tool on your tunnels ...

in experimental or 'normal' simutrans? Are you telling me I did ugly bypasses for half a year for nothing now?

Seriously though, that's awesome!

[Combuijs]

In experimental or 'normal' simutrans?

Both! Welcome to the everchanging world of Simutrans...

[T0m4S]

I'll post my latest savegame, where I actually started to use track sharing more often. Before I used to have 99% separate tracks for all lines, in this latest game I started sharing a lot of tracks (up to 3 lines using the same tracks in some parts, which is a lot for me), and I even started to allow Shinkansen tracks to cross (before it was a strict rule that shinkansen tracks have no intersections or anything unless right before the station to merge tracks). Turned out pretty well (especially since the Shinkansen Lines are not as busy as usual, 1 line with 2 trains @ 23 cars, 1 line with 2 trains @ 21 cars, 1 line with 1 train @23 cars).

Thanks I'll wait for it

[uktrain]

For me,I'll first build bus lines within the city in form of mass transit.Number of lines depends on the size of a city I begin with.Then I will build intercity transport.For land/water transport, I'll connect the nearest city.If air, then I'll connect one with large population.

[Václav]

This is good - but it has one weak point - it leads to huge overloading of some stations - if you did not disable this. So capacity of station in any city may be (for example) eight thousand people but its real usage may be one million or so. 

So then building of direct connections between cities is in need - and you may harvest (word earn is very inexact - for amount of earnt money) more money.

[ojii]

Tried to use graphviz/dot to display my network graph, but it kinda failed

This it what it spit out for my main city (cluster):


Especially the red line (Chuosen) looks really weird, I'll see if I find a better way to do this (if anyone knows good apps to do network diagrams, that run on linux, please tell me), just thought I'd upload this as a teaser...

(Also: tried to do display my whole network, not just that city, but it refused to convert such a complex graph to png

[tuxianer1988]

You might want to try the program "dia" runs on Linux

[Erik]

You might want to try the program "dia" runs on Linux

Nice, Lately I was looking for such program. 

[sdog]

ojii, try to use neato of the graphviz program. your difficulties likely come from graphviz (dotty?) trying to make a directed digraph. A non directed graph should do the trick nicely. only a few changes in the source file (digraph{} to graph{}; -> to --) should be required.

output for large graphs works very well in svg. You can also get rid of the node labels, in svg you can get the name from a mouseover. see the thread below for an example http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=6375.0

[ojii]

Meh I figured it's probably easiest if I just write a little network-graph-generating app myself. Almost got it to properly output things:

Code Select Expand

- - - - - - - - - X X X X X - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- X - - - - - - - X X X X X X X X -
- - X - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- - - X - - - - - - - X - - X - - -
- - - - X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
- - - X - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- - X - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- X - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
X - - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - -

(For some reason North/South is swapped, but I'll figure out what goes wrong there). (Edit: fixed)

It would currently break if you had line 1 go A->B->C and line 2 go A->C, but I'll figure that out .

For the curious, I generate the graph from an input file that looks like this:

Code Select Expand

name: Sakai Metro
lines:
   - name: Aomorisen
     color: darkgreen
     stations: Sagamihara - A16 v> Sagamihara - A15 v> Sagamihara - A14 v> Aomori Eki > Aomori - A12 / U12 > Nagasaki Eki > Hamamatsu Eki > Okayama - A11 / U11 > Okayama - A10 / U10 > Okayama - O1 / A9 / U9 > Okayama Eki (Sakai Shinkansen Terminal) > Nishi-Okayama Eki > Higashi-Sakai Eki > Sakai Eki > Sakai T6 / A4 / U4 > Takamatsu - T7 / A3 / U3 > Takamatsu Eki > Takamatsu - T9 / A1 / U1
   - name: Utsunomiyasen
     color: green
     stations: Utsunomiya - U18 ^> Utsunomiya - U17 ^> Utsunomiya - U16 ^> Aomori - U15 ^v> Aomori - U14 ^> Aomori Eki > Aomori - A12 / U12 > Nagasaki Eki > Hamamatsu Eki > Okayama - A11 / U11 > Okayama - A10 / U10 > Okayama - O1 / A9 / U9 > Okayama Eki (Sakai Shinkansen Terminal) > Nishi-Okayama Eki > Higashi-Sakai Eki > Sakai Eki > Sakai T6 / A4 / U4 > Takamatsu - T7 / A3 / U3 > Takamatsu Eki > Takamatsu - T9 / A1 / U1
   - name: Kakogawasen
     color: saddlebrown
     stations: Toyota - K1 > Toyota - K2 > Toyota - K3 / MM6 > Nishi-Toyota Eki > Toyota - K5 > Higashi-Toyota Eki > Sakai - K7 > Kakogawa Eki  
   - name: Nanbokusen
     color: turquoise
     stations: Toyota - N1 > Toyota - N2 / TR8 > Toyota - N3 > Naka-Toyota Eki > Toyota - N5 v> Toyota - N6 v Higashi-Toyota Eki v Sakai - N8 / SM5 / S8 v Sakai - N9 / S7 v Sakai Eki v Sakai - N11 v Sakai - N12 v Kawaguchi - N13 v Kawaguchi - N14 v Kawaguchi - N15 v Kawaguchi Eki v Kawaguchi - N17  
   - name: Tozaisen
     color: pink
     stations: Okayama - T1 / MM1 v Okayama Eki (Sakai Shinkansen Terminal) > Nishi-Okayama Eki > Higashi-Sakai Eki > Sakai Eki > Sakai T6 / A4 / U4 > Takamatsu - T7 / A3 / U3 > Takamatsu Eki > Takamatsu - T9 / A1 / U1

You basically give a list of stations separated by 'direction symbols' which can be "^", "^>", ">", "v>", "v", "<v", "<"or "<^". The idea was to make a human readable and human writable format, and those symbols seemed rather intuitive to me. Unfortunately right now it does not support usage of those symbols (which might be especially bad for the "v") in station names, but again, I'll fix that .

The code is written in Python (and will be released under BSD once it actually works) and currently only outputs ASCII, but I will write a PNG output backend (using PIL) too and possibly other output formats (SVG/HTML comes to mind).


EDIT:

Got it to output way nicer now (it now knows two types of stations: Major (where multiple lines cross, but not if the lines run in parallel, and end stations) and Normal (all the other stations):

Code Select Expand


                  X . . . .         
                            .       
  X               X . . . . X . X   
    .                       .       
      .               X     .       
        X . . . . . . X . . X . . . X
      .                     .       
    .                       .       
  .                         .       
X                           .       
                            .       
                            .       
                            X       

[ojii]

I moved the discussion about network graphs to http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7271.0 (Where you can see a much nicer graph of my lines above)

[paco_m]

I don't use predefined models for my networks;
just need a map and then I start depending on the circumstances (geography, city size, etc.), in metropolitean areas I often make something similar to a spiderweb with different and separated overland connections (might be one central rail station, one harbour and one airport) and crossconnections to near cities.
I know, it becomes complex and hard to balance but I hate hubs 

[jap train fan]

Passenger
Trains
I have a central hub station near the centre of my map where most trains and buses leave here.
There are express lines running 300+km/h that stop only at 1 station per city
Local lines running 200+km/h stop at many stations per city
Metro style services operate between the two largest cities
there is a loop service (mostly underground) running between the two biggest cities and some factories and tourist locations[/li][/list]
Buses
For each city I have local bus, trolley bus or tram system
There is also cross city buses that run along the highways I have built to get between cities
There are some postal services
Maglev
Maglev operates both between cities (passengers and mail) and in cities (passengers only)
Freight
I have trains running the distance from producer and consumer either via special track dedicated to freight or on the normal passenger track.

[General_Submarine]

This is my road network
For route, there are:
(Area<>Area)
7<>8
7<>8(via another road)

2<>5
2<>1
2<>3
2<>3(skip interchange station)

4<>5
4<>3
4<>2<>1
4<>2<>1(skip interchange station)

2<>5<>6<>7
4<>6<>8

thanks for reading my game with poor presentation^^

[Václav]

Interesting but descriptions make it quite confused. I think that if you marked only stations, it would be sufficient - because almost all would be visible.

[General_Submarine]

[Isaac_Clarke]

Since last September I play on a map where I remake the french cities and the rail network, similar as possible to reality. Before posting somes screens and diagrams of my network of my map on this week end, I can say a little description
-For each important cities like Paris, Lyon,... i made a developped bus, metro or tram systems. The most important metro system is in paris of course with more than 9 lines.
-I've more than 500 convoys, passengers and fret confused
-Now there is approximatly 3.5M habitants with 78 cities reconstitued.
-The most importants cities are connected with freeways, TGV or classics trains network, and airplanes with a hub at Paris.

I hope you'ill like the screens I will post

PS: nice topic, I like to watch how others simutrans players make their owns networks.

EDIT: Here is a explanatory diagram of my network. What's your opinions about it?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[eekizz]

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=14796.msg146344#msg146344

In this map, I have used couple different things, but mainly my basic network is sliced into regions.

My outercity network plan
http://imgur.com/AMKsGn7

Connecting cities:
I have one big capital, where is huge airport hub and there I have flights to couple big cities, which all have kind of international and domestic airports. International airport goes only to capital (maybe later also to other big cities) and domestic airport goes to smaller cities in same region. Then all cities I mentioned have bus terminal where all nearby cities connect to airport city. Sometimes there might be smaller transfer cities, if it woul be too far to travel from original city to airport.
I have also like to make some tests with my regions. I put around one city 20 other tiny cities and all had to have transfer in one big bus terminal and checked how all those lines could be handled by one terminal. Also one nice test was doing some kind of archipelago where goes only ferries. Transportation is very slow, but it is working.

In cities:
In cities I have central bus station (later train station) which is connected to nearby airport by bus or to nearest city, which has airport connection. First when city grows, I try to handle all with one innercity bus, and later on make other bus lines. After it get too busy in the city, I make circular tram system and even after that I move to subway.
I have also made some experiments with innercities like using canals in the city and circular maglev.

Thanks for reading!

[eklas]

I have a world with a large conurbation (you can check it here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=14855.0) and I've divided my transport network into four systems:

4. railways - connecting towns and the metropolis
3. regional buses - connecting villages with towns
2. city buses - connecting suburbs with downtown
1. trams/ downtown buses - operate in the city center
0. subway
In the future, there might be the fifth level, airplanes.

I don't really care about the coverage, so I have the minimum distance between two tram stops 20 blocks, between two bus stops 25 blocks and between two railway stations 65 blocks.

also, I've got a question for you, how do you name your lines?

I use numbers and then the first stop and the last one. For trams, I have numbers 1 - 59 (but now there are just lines 1, 2 and 3), for downtown buses 100 - 199, suburb buses 200 - 299, regional buses 300 - 499 and railways start with 'S' and then with a number from 1 to 99.

For example, I have the line 103 Jilmovka - Bělehradská, so that's a bus starting downtown at Jilmovka, ending uptown at Bělehradská. Or there is the line 432 Bolice, Otvovická - Kramolín, Zdechovická. So you know it starts in the town Bolice and goes to a village named Kramolín. And for trains, S1 - S9 are the main railways and S10 - S99 are the regional ones. So when you are at the Ryjice train station and you see that there are lines 'S2, S20, 421, 422, 423', it stands for three regional buses, one main railway and one local railway.

[sdog]

I have a world with a large conurbation [...]

+1
TIL
"A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urban agglomeration, in which transportation has developed to link areas to create a single urban labour market or travel to work area." (from WP)