Topic: Courier or Shipping Business

[ankit.karan99]

In my country, companies like DHL or FedEx transport courier from person to person or business to person.
Shipping is also a type of goods transportation.

so what do you think about implementation of this feature?

This is only a thought, if it can't be implemented, please ignore it.

[Leartin]

It's a bit hard to understand what feature you even wish for. To me, what DHL and FedEx do seems to be covered by mail service (if they use predefined routes) or random citycars (if they actually transport something directly from house to house - that's something you could not control anyway, just like a pizza delivery service)

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Please expand on how your vision would work. Bonus points on how it would work differently from post already in the game.

However, if you're wanting to deliver from/to specific tiles in Simutrans - there's no current way for that to work.

[Ters]

To me, what DHL and FedEx do seems to be covered by mail service (if they use predefined routes) or random citycars (if they actually transport something directly from house to house - that's something you could not control anyway, just like a pizza delivery service)

The mail service is supposed to be house to house, but vehicles can only operate on fixed routes, so mail stops are used as both realistic pickup-points (post/collection boxes essentially) and symbolic delivery points. Having mail vans stop at every single house would also be very disruptive to traffic, given how the scales are in Simutrans. (Simutrans doesn't simulate rural areas either, where there would only be one building within the catchment area.)

Simutrans does however not model delivering produced goods all the way to individual homes, offices and small shops. The goods just ends up in a big shop, and people are imagined visiting that shop to buy the stuff. It is not turned into mail in any real sense, which could be a nifty concept.

[ankit.karan99]

Please expand on how your vision would work. Bonus points on how it would work differently from post already in the game.

A special building in each city, a truck connected to it, automatically delivers and collects courier from random tiles. the truck only goes to locations covered by that building. if there are a minimum number of couriers, truck will go to collect them, otherwise stay in parking area as a real life approach. all that buildings are connected to each other.
I think it is like mail service, but collects mail from random points.

http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-courier-and-regular-mail

However, if you're wanting to deliver from/to specific tiles in Simutrans - there's no current way for that to work.

as I already said, it is just a thought.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Alas, that indeed won't work with the Simutrans engine, nor is it practical to implement.

just a thought

Oh yeah, no worries. Was basically trying to see if I/we were understanding the basic idea or not. Unfortunately, this type of idea has come up from time to time, but it might've ended up being something possible (which still is no guarantee since everyone volunteers time, so someone who can program would still have to be interested enough in an idea to try and do it).

[dannyman]

One disappointment I tend to have is the end of the chain tends to be one store somewhere. Really, if you have, say, textile, cars, gasoline, &c. you'll have one or more store in any substantial town within reach ... those endpoints likely sell a variety of goods from different chains: books, processed food, textiles, fruits, veg, &c.

This can get very complicated very quickly, if you have, say, three chains that end up in a dozen stores each, some with overlap. You would set up a warehousing system ... maybe goods leave the factory by rail, dropped at regional warehouses, then truck to the nearby downtowns ...

Now, you have the problem of "wait until full" &c ... your warehouse stops .. a warehouse could easily be serving 3-4 ... even a dozen endpoints if multiple classes of goods are involved, which would mean a bunch of loading bays and then long roads leading to those loading bays for when trucks line up to wait for goods that aren't available ... &c.

In real life, the trucks would pull up to the warehouse and the dispatcher would send them out to whatever stores were awaiting delivery.  This is not the Simutrans way.

I thought about, how WOULD you do this in Simutrans within the existing route framework, and my thought is a new feature could be "skip stop if no cargo."

So, now you could have say, a route like so:

Warehouse
Town A (skip)
Warehouse
Town B (skip)
Town C (skip)
Warehouse
Town D (skip)

So, if you are on this route, you go to Warehouse: load goods .. do you have any goods for Town A? No? Skip to next stop .. Warehouse .. load goods ... do you have anything for Town B? No?  Skip ... do you have anything for Town C? Okay, head on out ...

Would need to handle the case "all skip stops are skipped so I'm just routed in a circle" thing which could be a race condition in code.

This would also enable "flag stops" on passenger lines: if there are no passengers waiting to pick up or drop off at a stop, the vehicle needn't stop. Could save trouble in cases where the flag stop is a monument which is a detour from the main road ... if we wanted to maybe put a "waypoint" before the skip stop so the vehicle doesn't decide to skip the stop until it gets to a particular junction on the way to the flag stop.

Lots of creative possibilities .. trains could maybe turn around earlier to serve a busier part of a line instead of deadheading all the way to a small town at the very end ...

[kierongreen]

Optional/request stops have been denied before as making vehicle movements unpredictable.