Is there a point to intercity bus lines?

[Miedein]

As the title suggests. What's the point of doing them once you've created a train or air line between 2 cities. It seems like as soon as I turn a train line on. No one rides the buses anymore and all goes to the train. I much preferred the preferred travel methods of Tranport Fever 1 where you had people that preferred to travel either fast, or cheap. So that your buses and trains were both able to be profitable.

Or am I doing something wrong in how I set them up?

[SBGaming]

Transport Fever 2 dropped the cheap travel preference, meaning all agents (including cargo) prefer the fastest route and are willing to pay more to take it.

You're not doing anything wrong, so the only way to have intercity bus lines between two cities is to either not run rail lines between those cities, or simply make the route so inconvenient that taking the bus is the faster route. An example of that might be to go from Town A to E by train, you might have to take the train from Town A-B transfer to a second train that goes B-C, and then hop aboard a third train that goes back in the opposite relative direction via Towns D and E, whereas an intercity busline connects towns A and E directly.

[KnibZer]

Is it hard from a coders standpoint to add a little more preferences for commuters?

I get that cargo whants to be deliverd fast and at a good price etc.

But humans could have a little more choice options

Some migth whant to go by buss or train another one whants to take whats most Eco friendly or the opposite. Some migth whant to take the buss over the Mountain and some in the newly dugg tunnel underneth if there is one that is.

Would be fun with alittle more choices. Even that the towns ask for it if the need is rising! WE WHANT AN AIRPORT! Ask and you shall recive :)

[CommanderO]

I see intercity bus lines as a fast and easy way of satisfying cross-city transport requirements, especially in the early game when I'm short on cash. Also good for cities in close proximity to each other, or if I don't want to cram a train station into a tight city or if the city is too small for a train station.

In the late game, even when I have trains I still keep them because for whatever reason some people still prefer buses, and it just looks nice aesthetically when you see buses travelling up and down roads. Gives life to the open planes, they'd look empty otherwise. I just reduce the number of vehicles to still keep it profitable.

[CunkFeatures]

Originally posted by Miedein:

I much preferred the preferred travel methods of Tranport Fever 1 where you had people that preferred to travel either fast, or cheap. So that your buses and trains were both able to be profitable.

Same. This is a shame.

[gouthrodavid]

i was sitting here watching my game play out after i added a couple of airports and i quickly noticed sims stopped taking the train but overwhelmed the airport. pretty much the same happens with trains and busses. totally bogus.

[SBGaming]

Originally posted by KnibZer:

Is it hard from a coders standpoint to add a little more preferences for commuters?

I get that cargo whants to be deliverd fast and at a good price etc.

But humans could have a little more choice options

Transport Fever had two separate travel preferences, Cheap and Fast. Cheap preference meant that passengers didn't care how long it took to get to their destination, they want to pay as little as possible to get there. Fast preference means that they wanted to get there as fast as possible, and don't generally care how much it costs. Cargo always preferred cheap. It didn't care how long it took to get to it's destination, and would prioritize routes that cost less.

Considering how similar the games are, and how much of a code base they most likely share, the developers made a conscious decision to remove this aspect of game play from this game. I don't know if they removed it because it conflicted with some other mechanic they introduced, or they wanted to make air lines viable, since it was a common complaint that it was hard to get people to use airports, unless you setup a network that was explicitly segregated.

After all, if everyone has a Fast Preference, and if that preference basically means they'll take the literal fastest method of travel (planes over trains) that means people will flood the airports, leaving the train stations empty, which is kind of what happened when flight took over.

[canophone]

Originally posted by KnibZer:

Is it hard from a coders standpoint to add a little more preferences for commuters?

I get that cargo whants to be deliverd fast and at a good price etc.

But humans could have a little more choice options

Some migth whant to go by buss or train another one whants to take whats most Eco friendly or the opposite. Some migth whant to take the buss over the Mountain and some in the newly dugg tunnel underneth if there is one that is.

Would be fun with alittle more choices. Even that the towns ask for it if the need is rising! WE WHANT AN AIRPORT! Ask and you shall recive :)

It isn't hard! It's just alternative calculation algorithms when deciding a route path.

[ChunkHunter]

Originally posted by canophone:

Originally posted by KnibZer:

Is it hard from a coders standpoint to add a little more preferences for commuters?

It isn't hard! It's just alternative calculation algorithms when deciding a route path.

Are you a Transport Fever 2 coder for Urban Games?
No - then you may express an opinion, rather than state a fact.
Yes - then I bow to your superior knowledge.

"Is it hard to amputate a leg?"
"It isn't hard!"

[canophone]

Originally posted by ChunkHunter:

Originally posted by canophone:

It isn't hard! It's just alternative calculation algorithms when deciding a route path.

Are you a Transport Fever 2 coder for Urban Games?
No - then you may express an opinion, rather than state a fact.
Yes - then I bow to your superior knowledge.

"Is it hard to amputate a leg?"
"It isn't hard!"

Don't need to be to know this fact (not opinion) that it isn't hard to create an alternative calculation. I've done enough code to know already that it isn't. How complicated you want the calculation, that's another story.

It isn't hard to amputate a leg either, and in fact sometimes people are told to amputate their own leg in destructive events for chance of survival.

[Miedein]

Well if a mod can pop up that spreads the love to the other types of transportation that'd be wonderful. I like having my ships, buses, and trains roaming around and being profitable

[canophone]

Originally posted by Miedein:

Well if a mod can pop up that spreads the love to the other types of transportation that'd be wonderful. I like having my ships, buses, and trains roaming around and being profitable

The developers would have to enable that ability for modders, as that is done in their engine. TpF1 did have two preferences: cheap and fast. But TpF2 dropped them, and now passengers/cargo favour a single path.

[Miedein]

Well speaking of single paths then. Which is better, Creating a line connecting multiple cities, or going point to point? I know Skye Storm said something about point to point being best but are multistops viable still?

[Autocoach]

Yes and yes to the last part. Passengers and freight have a time budget in deciding whether to take a journey so a longer route should mean they will travel farther. The freight limit could be around 3 hours

[Gorby]

Originally posted by SBGaming:

After all, if everyone has a Fast Preference, and if that preference basically means they'll take the literal fastest method of travel (planes over trains) that means people will flood the airports, leaving the train stations empty, which is kind of what happened when flight took over.

Along that line of thought; do the passengers take any time they might spend waiting at a station into account?

For example; a city-to-city bus line and train line are created, the train line is faster. If so many people attempt to take the train that it overcrowds the station - and you don't do anything about it - to the point that it's technically faster to take the bus instead while the train station is that crowded, will they take the bus instead?

[Autocoach]

Yes there is evidence that overcrowding causes alternatives to be sought (for example passengers travelling the wrong way on lines does still occur) .

A better bet may be to have the bus stop on the outskirts of each town so if you which to travel between the 2nd stop and 2nd last stop on the bus route it will be quicker than taking the bus route the other way to town at each end.

I did a bit of testing last week and can confirm that it is the apparently quickest route that gets the passengers . An Alco PA vs the gas multiple unit had almost all passengers prefer the Alco even when there were more of the multiple units running so the frequency was much better . The only think that stopped the Alco from being preferred was changing it's route so it went about twice as far .