Getting passengers to use passenger train lines

[Antonin]

I rarely play with passenger trains, but in my latest pak192 game (beginning in 2000) I have connected every city with bus lines. Many of my bus stops are overcrowded. So, in the game year 2008 I decided to  add 2 passenger train lines.

I wonder if I am missing some trick to making a passenger line profitable, or even just to get people to use trains. My trains never have more than 10-15 passengers, even when I make them wait for a long time at a station. I thought that because I am almost at the "end" of this map, with everything connected, passengers would begin using trains.

I wanted to begin using trains because there are so many beautiful ones in pak192! Am I missing some trick? I place the train station next to a bus stop that is fed by a busy metro bus line, thinking that people would get off the bus and walk onto the train passenger platform. But almost nobody does.

My new coal transport rail line is very profitable, though.

[prissi]

First, are there enough passengers who want to travel to the destination? If so, there could be two possible reasons.

In pak192 in games started in version 0.6 or older, "avoid_overcrowding" was on. Hence only passengers board which have non-overcrowded stops as their destination. You could try to switch off "avoid_overcrowding" in the extended settings (to the right of the main menu). There is also a second point "No routing over overcrowing", which means no new passengers will be created until the overcrowding is releived on all transfer stops. You can try to switch this off as well and see again the change (i.e. in fast forward).

Otherwise, there may be not enough passengers willing to go the train route if there is a parallel route with buses which have a lower number to transfers. Make sure there is no parallel route with bus, and more people should board the trains.

[Antonin]

Thank you! I will try the things you suggested.

I have always thought that passengers would be willing to take a parallel train route if the bus route is overcrowded. For example, if the bus stop in city A and the bus stop in city B both have 1500 people waiting, most of them would be willing to take a train.

[prissi]

With the default setting they would, if they have not to transfer at these stations too to get to the train.