Passenger transport techniques

[Zruty]

pak128.

I started a game recently with a passenger bus transport network. Right now I have almost all of the towns connected, the larger ones have urban routes as well, and I could even afford a profitable tram circuit for the largest one.

On third year, my profits are about 60k per year, and net wealth is about 440k (I started with 500k, and before the tram network was established it was briefly over 500k again).

The preface is complete, now to the questions

1. Am I doing well or not? I mean, what target income figures should I expect
  a) for passenger network
  b) for a 3-year-old transport company with 500k starting wealth

2. Currently I have one bottleneck in my system: the connection between 2 largest towns is overcrowded, with several hundred passengers waiting on either end of the road. I have 6 99-man buses in an express line between the stops, but they aren't enough.

I'm afraid of adding more buses to the line since it may cause jams on the stops. I considered building a railroad between the towns with a passenger train, but I think the railroad maintenance will consume all excess profits from additional passengers.

Can I do some calculations before I decide what to do? Or should I just save the game, try both solutions and see which one brings better profit?

[DirrrtyDirk]

As for 1)... I don't know. I've never thought in these categories yet. As long as you're making profits (and have fun) everything is fine. But how much money one should make after 3 years... no, never spend a single second thinking on things like that - and I won't start now.

Now 2)...

In the beginning buses can serve intercity connections, but as you already found out, when your passenger network gets larger, passenger numbers grow (and they will grow even more) - and there usually comes a point in time when buses are longer really desirable for intercity connections (at least not between major cities). At that time usually railroads step in. Be careful with your infrastructure in the beginning though. You don't need quadruple tracks enabling 400km/h and 12-tile long stations with 8 tracks each in the beginning (if ever)

So always start small. Use single track of the cheapest type and a single train, not too short, not too long... I figure 4-5 tiles (not cars) is a good start. Also use the cheapest stations (also single track) and see how you do. Then if one train doesn't suffice, add another and build a short double-track section (correctly signalled) where the trains can pass each other. Only when profits allow (and passenger numbers demand) you should start upgrading things... faster tracks, fully double tracked route, electrification, multi-platform stations, longer stations, faster and more powerful trains, more(all) cities directly connected to rail network... you'll do all that - later. But the key word really is later. Start small - and grow bigger with your successes. If you start too big, you'll probably fail.

Anyway, saving the game before any major building project, is always a good idea. If things don't work as you expected, just load the older savegame and continue from there.

[VS]

Rail transport can achieve much higher throughput since it isn't blocked by other cars. You will want to plan everything so that you can sneak in rails in some way - such as building pieces of track to reserve space for stations. Maintenance of a few tiles of track is negligible compared to complete connections with stations. Much in the same way, first train can be even as small as one tile, if you don't need more. Just make sure the stations can be later enlarged (read: made even 5 tiles longer).

[Zruty]

I tried to replace my bus express line with a 4-car passenger train railroad, and all went well. Now I had to add 5th car due to passenger flow increase.

P.S. If I want to transport mail as well, should I use similar techniques for it? That is, I only get to transport the mail that is in the area of influence of a mail-enabled stop?

[VS]

Mail is quite tricky - less of it around. But otherwise same as passengers.