Public Transport?

[LexTexMex]

Here`s the deal:
I figured out how to not get bankrupt and gotten pretty far into the game(Sandbox)
Now i wanted to start public transit too but when i set up a Tram/Airport/Boat/Bus route; they never seem to get Passangers and i lose money because of it! Could sombody give me a brief runtrough of how you do this?

[maculator]

I usually setup cargo firt and then accept the fact that public transport will lose you money in the first years.
Start with small local routes between cities and if you got enough customer there to make a profit you can add those local clusters up via longer routes. Planes are just a money sink unless you got a good distance to cover and/or later planes. Don't even think about ships.

[LexTexMex]

Originally posted by maculator:

I usually setup cargo firt and then accept the fact that public transport will lose you money in the first years.
Start with small local routes between cities and if you got enough customer there to make a profit you can add those local clusters up via longer routes. Planes are just a money sink unless you got a good distance to cover and/or later planes. Don't even think about ships.

So... Place bus/tram stops and play the waiting game, planes only long distance and ♥♥♥♥ ships?

[maculator]

Place a small train route between neighboring cities and support it with bus/tram + waiting game, yes.

[LexTexMex]

Originally posted by maculator:

Place a small train route between neighboring cities and support it with bus/tram + waiting game, yes.

Cool thanks!

[Thork]

You might want to search the forums for more specific answers/threads. (F.ex. on wait time/frequency)
In general, bus/tram lines should indeed be used mostly to feed your long-distance train/plane/ship lines and profit on these feeder-lines might not matter much, if the lines they feed get more passengers/profit, and/or if there is more line-usage/faster town growth.
Most of these inner-city lines should be as direct to these train-stations/harbours/airports as possible.
Additional more indirect lines might then in turn feed these direct lines...
Also consider that passengers will only travel from home -> business/industry or business/industry -> home, but never from business -> industry or the other way around.
When you got lines that go in a loop, make sure you also put a counter-loop.

Opinions on planes/ships depend on the player. I think pretty much everything has its place depending on circumstances.

[Stormmaster]

There are only 3 places in the life of a citizen: home, work and shop. Their sole purpose of life is to be in transit between these places.

If you have a line connecting a town with another town, some citizens will choose to go to shop or work there instead of going to a place in their town. Your local lines may speed up the process of getting to or from the station. The faster they get to the station, the more often they will use your intercity line.

[canophone]

Do the tutorial! When it says you have to connect residential to commercial, and residential to industry ... that's what you have to do.

You also have to connect each of those zones to stations at both ends to maximize line usage.

You can include cargo, which helps with profit and can influence how you want the city to grow, but it's not a requirement in this game.

[SBGaming]

My experience has been that Point to Point lines that start in Residential areas and travel towards or through Commercial and/or Industrial areas as well as ideally connect up to intercity modes of transport are the most profitable. In addition, you want to place bus stops frequent enough that you compete with a potential passengers choice to walk.

Your goal is to get people from Residential areas to Commercial or Industrial areas either in the same town or in a neighboring town, and then back home.

It also helps to provide multiple forms of intercity transportation. Passengers have a Cheap or Fast Prefence, and while some Cheap passengers might choose to take the train if it's their only option, my experience with the game is that even if you have a bus line and train line that travel to the exact same towns, you'll get overall more passenger interest than if you only provided one option. The only problem is with air, where trains simply out compete planes for the Fast Preference passengers.

[canophone]

I have to test this, but an ideal setup in a town might be:

-"station (train) - residential - industrial - station (plane) - residential - commercial - station (train)"
-"station (train) - commercial - residential - station (plane) - industrial - residential - station (train)"
-"station (train) - industrial - residential - station (plane) - commercial - residential - station (train)"
-"station (train) - residential - commercial - station (plane) - residential - industrial - station (train)"

Where station can refer to stations to meet with trains, boats, planes, or intercity buses/trams.

[Clammyfever257]

I think that passenger ships are usless, unless you just want to, or with say, titanic mod, or lusitania, for aesthetic. Only ship(boat) I use is the hovercraft.

[canophone]

Originally posted by The entire population of Finland:

I think that passenger ships are usless, unless you just want to, or with say, titanic mod, or lusitania, for aesthetic. Only ship(boat) I use is the hovercraft.

I wouldn't say useless, just not the most balanced! One of the problems is that frequency (with cost) seems to be a much higher determinant in triggering whether passengers and cargo will use a line than capacity (ie. rate per year). It's a similar problem with using planes.

[larry_roberts]

Buses/Trams make money if you run them around one town and connect with another town and do the same with that service there!. Boats make money if you build harbours very close to the towns (hovercraft are the best bet)!. I tend to build Intercity trains connecting 8 or more towns together, look for the towns with the biggest populations first and connect close ones together (having bus/tram stops near the rail stations will bring in more passengers, do the same with harbours and Airports-plus trains)!. Try not to have buses/trams directly competing with trains because many passengers will use the cheaper service (it's not so important when the the train connects several towns)!. The devs recommend you split the map into at least two sections (passenger wise). So, for example, there is no way for a passenger to get from one side of a river to the other until you introduce an aircraft connection (seems a bit of a cheat to me, forcing even cheap passengers to use Aircraft), but you will find it hard (particularly in the modern era) to make profits from aircraft if you have fast frequent modern trains, if you don't do this!. Lately, I've been playing without aircaft!.

[Thork]

Even though I admit that ballance and/or vehicle selection could be better, many players that complain about air/ship transport may forget how these are used in reality.

How common was air-passenger travel in 1950 and are passenger jets really used to connect nearby towns while competing to direct train-lines?
How many ferry-services are even in use today and how many of you take these to work/school on a daily basis, when there is a perfectly fine bus-service running over a nearby bridge?

I think the game provides plenty options and most/all of them are viable under the right circumstances, on the right maps. If you're playing on a standard, small 1:1 map, there probably is no use for ships/planes at all...
However, if you're f.ex. connecting France to England, passenger planes/ships can be used instead of building a very expensive tunnel/bridge.

[canophone]

Originally posted by Thork:

How common was air-passenger travel in 1950 and are passenger jets really used to connect nearby towns while competing to direct train-lines?
How many ferry-services are even in use today and how many of you take these to work/school on a daily basis, when there is a perfectly fine bus-service running over a nearby bridge?

Boats: shop/leisure. Planes: business trips/leisure ... Given the game's functionality per year, people may (realistically) do more than the game allows passengers to...

Of course, most areas aren't setup for ferry service. But some cities are quite big on ferry and/or cargo service. But planes: pretty common, especially in Asia, and even for freight on planes. Cargo ships too. I also know of a number of places in my country that are fly-in only, with no road/train connections throughout the year.. others (less areas) are boat only.

[Thork]

Well, all I'm saying is that there are circumstances that validate the use of these plane/ship lines. If you recreate these circumstances, it usualy works just fine in TpF. Ofc. there are no leisure destinations in vanilla (can be modded though), which could be a fine addition.
Also, if I may take air-travel in Germany as an example. There are a lot of subsidies for local airports. Many of these were built in some sort of mania, but then gone bankrupt and/or are hardly used, even with these subsidies.

It's just that I often see/n players complain about setups that just should not work anyway...