Pax picking nonsensical routes

[Archduke Vanderpool]

Heya,

Got a problem with pax choices. I created a line between multiple cities, lets say:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G route is served by Sepias
I also wanted to create an express line connecting bigger cities: A-C-G with Vitesse.

The issue I found is that pax completely ignore that express line and stick to that long and slower Sepias one. I calculated the price and using that slower line actually costs them more, so it's not pricing that causes that.

I also noticed that the same happens with the choice of transit method, let's say we have 4 stops in a city:
A-B-D for trams and then D-C on another
A-C-D for local trains
Pax always pick the train, even though it takes about 45 minutes for one to arrive, and at the same time trams serve those routes at an interval of 4 minutes.

Is this caused by that current static pax ai or is there another bug I've encountered? Thanks :)

[Weird and Wry]

Did you run the time estimator in all the lines? Any leg at 0 travel time?

[Archduke Vanderpool]

Every leg has the time estimated :(

[Harmonica]

Similar issue for me. I have an even more simple layout, just three stops in sequence. I want to run a peak hour express between only two of the points (B and C - Stockton and Boro in the screenshots), so I created a second line between those points, depot'd one train in the afternoon and put them onto the peak line (schedule between B and C) during the evening.

There are hundreds of pax waiting at B and C who want to go to C and B, respectively, but this second train never gets any passengers if the other train (which runs A->B->C) is set to the same travel time.

I also have issues with passengers only wanting to go one direction on the B->C express train, ie they'll go from B to C but everyone at C won't go to B :/ They would rather wait 28 minutes for the other train to come and ride that one.

Is it possibly something to do with using platform A and B? I picked A and B so the trains would run a loop in the same direction to avoid head on collisions, but not really sure I did it correctly.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126735
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126846
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126935

[qunow886]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Similar issue for me. I have an even more simple layout, just three stops in sequence. I want to run a peak hour express between only two of the points (B and C - Stockton and Boro in the screenshots), so I created a second line between those points, depot'd one train in the afternoon and put them onto the peak line (schedule between B and C) during the evening.

There are hundreds of pax waiting at B and C who want to go to C and B, respectively, but this second train never gets any passengers if the other train (which runs A->B->C) is set to the same travel time.

I also have issues with passengers only wanting to go one direction on the B->C express train, ie they'll go from B to C but everyone at C won't go to B :/ They would rather wait 28 minutes for the other train to come and ride that one.

Is it possibly something to do with using platform A and B? I picked A and B so the trains would run a loop in the same direction to avoid head on collisions, but not really sure I did it correctly.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126735
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126846
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379126935

The problem you encounter is not totally related to the thread's topic.
You encounter this because trip planning in the game is now static, i.e. passengers travelling between any two points will omly pick the route with fastest travel time on paper, ignoring other information like frequency or fare. Even if two lines travel on same route, only one will be picked. Passenger will never switch dynamically. Improvement to this have been planned in the roadmap but still haven't been implemented yet. So it is not possible to achieve what you want to do in the game's current version.

[Archduke Vanderpool]

Originally posted by Weird and Wry:

Did you run the time estimator in all the lines? Any leg at 0 travel time?

I checked all routes again and everything seems to be set-up correctly.

I also noticed that on a different route, on which I have two methods of transport from station X-Y:
X-Y - subway
X-Y - tram

Pax decide to get out from trams at station X and switch to subway trains, even though it adds cost and time to their leg.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by qunow886:

passengers travelling between any two points will only pick the route with fastest travel time on paper, ignoring other information like frequency or fare. Even if two lines travel on same route, only one will be picked. Passenger will never switch dynamically. Improvement to this have been planned in the roadmap but still haven't been implemented yet. So it is not possible to achieve what you want to do in the game's current version.

Good to know, thanks for the info! Do you think there's any current work around to achieve a similar affect?

[qunow886]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Originally posted by qunow886:

passengers travelling between any two points will only pick the route with fastest travel time on paper, ignoring other information like frequency or fare. Even if two lines travel on same route, only one will be picked. Passenger will never switch dynamically. Improvement to this have been planned in the roadmap but still haven't been implemented yet. So it is not possible to achieve what you want to do in the game's current version.

Good to know, thanks for the info! Do you think there's any current work around to achieve a similar affect?

I guess you can try to schedule your services like Tokaido Shinkansen, aka with most services being express service directly connecting different big cities together, and only have a few trains that stop at all the smaller stops such that passengers from those smaller stops can use the slower trains to catch the express train

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by qunow886:

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Good to know, thanks for the info! Do you think there's any current work around to achieve a similar affect?

I guess you can try to schedule your services like Tokaido Shinkansen, aka with most services being express service directly connecting different big cities together, and only have a few trains that stop at all the smaller stops such that passengers from those smaller stops can use the slower trains to catch the express train

This is a good idea but it seems like it also doesn't entirely work.

My first train runs A->C->B. The local train goes A->B in a loop.

I got it partially working so that both trains can pick up passengers at station B and take them to A, but neither train picks up at A now :/

I thought maybe making each segment of the route unique to a single train (or trains running identical route), so the passengers have to use it, would work, but no dice.

(I am using the beta branch)

[qunow886]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Originally posted by qunow886:

I guess you can try to schedule your services like Tokaido Shinkansen, aka with most services being express service directly connecting different big cities together, and only have a few trains that stop at all the smaller stops such that passengers from those smaller stops can use the slower trains to catch the express train

This is a good idea but it seems like it also doesn't work. Still only the train connecting eg A->C will pick up passengers at A. The train going A->B in a loop doesn't get any passengers even though no other train is serving that route now! :(

It just mean B have so little demand that even with just train it doesn't pick up any significant number of passenger.
You can improve the vehicle utilization by using that same vehicle to run between all the smaller cities, aka stopping at ABCDEFG and return, as long as the interval is still reasonable, it will help you pick up all the demand to/from BDEFG and then you can have all your other trains focus on running ACG route, if demand for your smaller cities are this low.

[Harmonica]

Well before I made the changes I had 150 passengers usually waiting on each end of A and B (to go the other direction). After the changes it basically killed demand. It seems like there is an issue with routes not being advertised properly or something. I'm going to give up until a later date I think... theory crafting and building the lines is fun but it's disappointing when passengers don't ride the trains properly.

[qunow886]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Well before I made the changes I had 150 passengers usually waiting on each end of A and B (to go the other direction). After the changes it basically killed demand. It seems like there is an issue with routes not being advertised properly or something. I'm going to give up until a later date I think... theory crafting and building the lines is fun but it's disappointing when passengers don't ride the trains properly.

Actually I have just encountered a similar situation, I think that is due to interval getting extended and passenger getting not satisfied, hence causing the passenger generation at the station reduced to zero. I have tackled the problem by deleting and rebuilding the station for the time being and added more frequent local service to the station, which let the passengers come back again for now.

[skyscraper]

Hi there - I seem to have a similar issue:

2 lines - both with same trains, schedule interval etc.
There are multiple platforms at B, C, D so all lines are separated.

Line 1: (A,B,C,D,E,F)

A               E - F
  \           /
    B - C - D  
    B - C - D  
  /           \    
G               H - J

Line 2: (G,B,C,D,H,J)

Passengers from A going to E or F (all serviced by Line 1) will get on a Line 1 train at A, then get off at B and wait for the Line 2 train, get it from B to D and then transfer back to line 1 at D to get to E & F.
This causes them to wait, transfer twice and become unhappy.
There needs to be some tolerance so that passengers will stay on a train which will get to their destination unless the other route is much better (and even then it should be a weighting not a binary yes/no choice).

I want to have a number of lines which share stations like this, however the current algorithm seems to mean the pax will only pick one route even if others are also viable (or better).

However I do realise this is in early access so not complaining too much :)

[skyscraper]

Regarding the parallel tracks (same stations but different line) - I have found a workaround which keeps passengers on their trains and stops them transferring between trains unnecessarily.

If you manually set the duration of the legs between stations to be identical then the passengers will not jump off to wait for a faster train.
In my case the automatic times were 1 second different from route 1 to route 2, as they have their own tracks but the same source and destination station.
By overriding the calculated values (and locking them so they won't update), the behaviour is much better.

It is still not perfect as ideally passengers should wait for a service with no transfers (especially if they end up getting on that same train anyway) rather than getting the first train in the direction they are heading :)

However clearly that is much more complicated logic for the passengers to work out and is understandably further away in the road map.

[qunow886]

Originally posted by skyscraper:

Regarding the parallel tracks (same stations but different line) - I have found a workaround which keeps passengers on their trains and stops them transferring between trains unnecessarily.

If you manually set the duration of the legs between stations to be identical then the passengers will not jump off to wait for a faster train.
In my case the automatic times were 1 second different from route 1 to route 2, as they have their own tracks but the same source and destination station.
By overriding the calculated values (and locking them so they won't update), the behaviour is much better.

It is still not perfect as ideally passengers should wait for a service with no transfers (especially if they end up getting on that same train anyway) rather than getting the first train in the direction they are heading :)

However clearly that is much more complicated logic for the passengers to work out and is understandably further away in the road map.

Even with identical time they still would..

[wagon]

path finding is not correctly inplemented yet. PAX always will choose one line. There should be the highest priority to change that...