Passengers not "seeing through" End Stations

[Tarumba]

I am sometimes running into a Problem with using End Stations to space out the vehicles, but not as literal END Stations, because the Passengers on the lines are not able to "see" the stations after the End Stations.

The Problem is when I setup a line so that:
Station(s) with Passenger Waiting -> End Station -> Station where i want Passengers to go

In that setup (as far as I understand it), Passengers will not board the vehicle as they don't "see" a viable stop on the line, to get to. They only check the stations up until the End Station. Any Station after that, they don't check.

With the normal use of End Stations to actually end the line of them (Station(s) with Passengers -> Station(s) to get off -> End Station) that is no Problem as the Passengers see the Station they want to got to before the End Station and will get on the vehicle to get there. So in almost all cases I could just setup the line like that and all would be well.

Now my slight problem emerges from the fact that I like building circuit lines through my cities. Meaning I have buses or trams going in circular lines (one clockwise, one counter-clockwise) with the aim of picking up Residents and getting them to where they need to go around the city and delivering any workers not needed in the city to a (usually central) Station, from where they can go to the Industrial site(s). These circular lines, of course, have no end, where to put an End Station. So in the worst case, a Passenger is waiting at a station who has needs that can only be met at the next station clockwise. But if there is an End Station in between, he will only get on the counter-clockwise bus and ride around the whole city just to end up basically one stop next to where he got on the bus.
Could I set up my city differently, so that case would not happen? Yes. Do i have to use circular lines? No. Do i want End Stations to always be "see through"? Definitely not

If they were always see through you would run into a similar Problem when setting up actual back-and-forth LINE lines (Station 1->Station 2->Station 3->End Station 1->Station 3->Station 2->Station 1->End Station 2). Passengers wanting to go from Station 2 to Station 1 would sometimes get send around the city via End Station 1 depending on from which direction the first bus arrives. The Same Problem could also happen in circular lines, but instead of always (as explained above as it is now) it would only depend on which bus arrives first.

So if it is only possible to be one way or the other, the way it is currently is absolutely better! But some-(admittedly very few) times I wish I could make workers check for viable stations even after the End Stations.

Also, can we get prison buses to use End Stations, please!



PS: My personal hell line, is in a city where all Passenger are handled by buses. With circular lines and a central bus platform, from where the workers are distributed to the industrial areas (that need wildly different amount of workers and are in different directions). The circular line basically has to go to the central platform with 3 stops as the End Station is right next to it, so that i can use it for the circular lines and the lines delivering to the industrial areas simultaneously. The circular lines go:
City Stations->Central Platform [unload all] (to get workers and Passengers to the inner city Cinema, Shopping, etc.)->Central Platform [Transfer workers] (To get workers from around the city onto the central Platform, from where they get on the lines going to the industry)->End Station->Central Platform [load non-workers (to get Passengers from the center to the outer areas of the city)]->City Stations
...and because the circular line is more of an 8 than a circle, all of that is done twice :-|
Now this could all be mitigated by either building separate End Stations for the different lines (no need for the End Station to be next to the Central Platform and therefore no need for the third stop as loading could be done at the first stop), by building a separate Station for the workers to be picked up and shuttled to the industry (no need for the separate transfer stop) or, you know, "see-through" End Stations (no need for the 3rd stop, loading at 1st) ;-)

[Sirius Czech]

Your solution is what works. Endstations are supposed to work that way, as it is ENDstation. So for circular lines you do need to set them ith endstations as end. Basicaly a circular line I do set up in a way that either uses no endstation and only linespacing (for 2-3 vehicles max) or simply place an endstation between areas where no drive-throughs are required and then set is as one line clockwise+counterclockwise with endstation between each run.

If you need to transfer passengers and workers, simply end on terminal with "transfer" function on there and it will force everyone out there.

Another option is to have separate stop near the terminal and force everyone there with transfer and use "where workers/citizens should go" options to distribute them immediately to surrounding workplaces/stops.

[Tarumba]

That's pretty much what I meant. I totally get why End Stations work as they work. And in no way would i want them to be completely changed. I would just welcome the option to use the line spacing functionality of the End Stations without the END part. Weather that be as a separate building or as a check mark in the line setup for example. And, as I said, it is not a crucial problem, but would rather be just a tiny QOL-feature.

The example in the PS was really just because I wanted to try how much it needed to make such a thing to work with the constraints that
1. I want to just use one End Station for all lines in the city (I was constantly hitting the limit of connections on my Fuel-DO mostly because of Farms and Gravel mines around the city)
2. Use only Buses (Starter city with coal Power plant, so no money for trains and don't want to rely on electricity to send workers to the electricity producer)
3. Use a single Central Bus Platform (more space for other things and wanted to see if it works, was my first map after the End Station and "transfer"-option was introduced)
Because of 1 and 2 the end station needed to be next to the central platform, as that was the only place all the lines intersected. That meant i had to split the circular line into two lines, as i hit the maximum station limit per line (9 of the stops would have been the central platform). Because of 3 and because the Shopping center was next to the central platform, I had to split the stop at the central station in two as i needed to unload the passengers and workers going to the shopping center and separately transfer worker from the bus into the platform. I didn't want to transfer the passengers needing clothes etc into the station, as that would have meant they had to sit 1 hour at the station before being able to go to the shopping center. Thereby eating into their free time.
In the end it works pretty well, but a spacing-station instead an End Station would have made it that much easier. And mostly it would reduce congestion as now the buses go central platform->End Station->central platform so it gets pretty filled up with buses inbetween.

In all the other cities after that i did at as you said: forced the workers to a separate (mostly train) station and put the End Station somewhere out of the way (I usually still do 2 lines through, as then i can color code the clockwise/counter-clockwise lines). And that works pretty well. Again, I am not unhappy with how it is right now and you can totally make it work. I would just be a little happier if I had the option to have a see-through "Spacing Station"

[Gfurst]

So can passengers actually get off at end stations?

[Tarumba]

Originally posted by Gfurst:

So can passengers actually get off at end stations?

No.

[nekys]

Circular lines could have a start/end point, they will just be open circles. Meaning those two stops, so close to each other will actually be a circle away. You could use a "stray" vehicle to connect the two, completing your circle. But if you really like circular things, trams are your best bet, and probably even trolleybuses, Teams, once spaced out, should go on unhindered and keep their distance. Trolleybuses, being subject to delays due to congestion would not work as well

[Gfurst]

So I just ran into the same problem, not because of a circular line, but because I want for it to go back and forth,
A (pick workers) -> B (pick passangers) -> A (deliver pax)
This would be easy with two stops only, but if I want them to use the end station I need to do the above and add the end station, well, to the end.
But a obvious work around is to just not use end stations for these lines as well, let them use gas stations and go for maintenance on their own, the problem being the spacing will be somewhat bonked. So I guess it depends on what you need on a case to case scenario.

[blelm]

When the entire route surface is paved line spacing is a very good alternative to end stations. When it's a trolleybus or tram line that doesn't need refueling line spacing is downright superior. So if I wanted a circular or other route that doesn't play nice with end stations I'd give that a shot.

[moa]

from a discussion in support and bugs forum:

Originally posted by jan.mitiska:

- people SHOULD NOT travel through an endstation, that was a bug. That´s why it is called and ENDstation. That´s how lines work, right?

If some player wants to throw them out on the last stop that can be done by using the transfer setting. The opposite is not possible. It does not matter where the end station is in the schedule. I like to put it at the start so I can have exactly the spacing at the first stop that I like and I can simply add vehicles to the line from anywhere.
In most cases they are supposed to be empty in the end station I give you that, bus picks people up and drop them off at destination then drive empty back. But at bottlenecks it is nice to have the option to just have a refuel and a couple seconds for line spacing without clocking the bus stop up. Or in edge cases like in this example:

Have 3 settlements (A-C) and one industrial Zone (I).
- One with Hospital, Shop, Cinema, School (everything but some types of attractions). Provides the basics for the region
- One with couple attractions missing at A, sports and grocery. That is source for workers for the factories
- One tiny with the bare minimum of a football field and a grocery for fire coverage, policing and whats left also goes to the factories.

Line goes B - I - C - I - B - A

Best suited location for end station is at B to have always the same amount of workers in the industrial zone (can think of it as putting it at the end after A, or I like to put
it before first B for reasons above).
People from A also want to go to B for some free time activity mainly praying, but occasionally in case of fire or understaffed they do other stuff at B.
So no matter where I place the endstation it prevents some people from reaching the destination without some quirks. Visiting B three times for 2 regular stops and another temporary drop off to get people inside from A or C, which I could do without that forced restriction of not allowing people inside the end station. With a caveat that some people from A occasionally used up their attraction last day for non prayer things and will end up driving endlessly if forced to drop off.
At least in 0.8.6 the forced drop off when placed after the endstation will only allow those to enter the bus at A that can fulfill prayer need (or whatever else) at the given attraction at B. They keep sitting in the end station for a short period after that they happily fulfill their needs without waiting at the station and potentially being picked up again, because only those where in the bus that can visit the attraction. Everybody else was left behind, will time out or reconsider if the destination has what they want when the next bus arrives (for instance temperature is good enough for carousel now).

One could think it can also be done with two lines and without this 'bug abuse' with the intended use of transfer, but then the stop at B has to be visited by one more bus, and whats worse then people from C transferring at B think they get what they need at B and would make a wasteful trip from C to B to time out there, lowering the overall available workforce from C for the length of the trip, very likely having even more people make unwanted trips because less people are working at C. Understaffed kindergarten will do the rest until nobody is working at the grocery and all are driving or waiting to time out at a station.

All in all it is a mess if endstations block passengers from entering the bus. Whats wrong with letting them sit there, just because the word end is in the name? How about renaming it to schedule station or something along those lines then. There is no solution other then not using end stations in this example (or the example given by OP). And line spacing is awful compared to the clock precision of endstations, even when there are plenty snow plows and gas stations everywhere, a tiny slow down from one bus will delay all the buses making it an accordion driving at 30 km/h a good chunk of the trip.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by moa:

And line spacing is awful compared to the clock precision of endstations, even when there are plenty snow plows and gas stations everywhere, a tiny slow down from one bus will delay all the buses making it an accordion driving at 30 km/h a good chunk of the trip.

I'll just say that end stations are great at ensuring a reliable pick up period (like once every 45 seconds) at a nearby station, but they are terrible at ensuring a reliable drop off period at workplaces because traffic and traffic lights will bunch up the vehicles. Line spacing is best used then because vehicles will actively restore the period between vehicles, so workers are not all delivered all at once (or worse, fill the station and have some workers ride back) and then also not followed by a period where no workers are delivered.

[Tarumba]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

I'll just say that end stations are great at ensuring a reliable pick up period (like once every 45 seconds) at a nearby station, but they are terrible at ensuring a reliable drop off period at workplaces

That is only true with how end stations work currently, though. With see-through (scheduling) end stations, you could put them in front of the station that you want to drop-off at and get reliable timing on that. you would then have less reliable timing at the pick up stations, but could add multiple scheduling stations in a single line as well.
My gripe with line spacing is that, while it is great it un-bunches vehicles wherever they are on the line (not just at one point), the slowed down vehicles (and especially other vehicles trying to overtake them) tend to snowball into also bunching up other lines on the same roads and creating a lot more traffic than lines with end stations. At least in my experiences.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Tarumba:

With see-through (scheduling) end stations, you could put them in front of the station that you want to drop-off at and get reliable timing on that. you would then have less reliable timing at the pick up stations, but could add multiple scheduling stations in a single line as well.

The problem with this is that citizens' ride timers would still tick, which means the maximum range they could travel would be reduced. You would also need a lot of extra vehicles waiting in the end station just before the workplace station to cover any delays of other vehicles coming to it, which all would also need to be full of workers whose ride timers would continue to tick whilst sitting there.

Originally posted by Tarumba:

My gripe with line spacing is that, while it is great it un-bunches vehicles wherever they are on the line (not just at one point), the slowed down vehicles (and especially other vehicles trying to overtake them) tend to snowball into also bunching up other lines on the same roads and creating a lot more traffic than lines with end stations. At least in my experiences.

It happens, but that is the trade off for better spacing of drop offs. You can mitigate it though by building longer segments of roads, which allows other vehicles to pass them more often; for whatever reason, vehicles don't like to pass on shorter segments. Most vehicles can go a lot faster than 30 kph, so passing speeds shouldn't be an issue unless they are on dirt roads.

The best solution I have found is to simply build a station near the workplace and force off extra workers there to wait for a second chance to staff the workplace.

[Tarumba]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

The problem with this is that citizens' ride timers would still tick, which means the maximum range they could travel would be reduced. You would also need a lot of extra vehicles waiting in the end station just before the workplace station to cover any delays of other vehicles coming to it, which all would also need to be full of workers whose ride timers would continue to tick whilst sitting there.

That doesn't change anything though. Timers tick up the same in slowed down vehicles. When the vehicle arrives at the station 45 seconds after the previous one, the ride timers are going to be exactly the same, whether their vehicle slowed down or waited at an end station, to get there at that time.
Same with the number of vehicles on the line. If a vehicle gets delayed to being more then 60s after the previous one you will get a gap in coverage whether you use end stations or spacing. The number of you need is the same, as it only depends on the line length/time and lines with end stations are only ~5s longer than the same line with spacing (for driving in/out of the end station). That is not going to mean a need for more vehicles on the line in 99% of the cases.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Tarumba:

That doesn't change anything though. Timers tick up the same in slowed down vehicles. When the vehicle arrives at the station 45 seconds after the previous one, the ride timers are going to be exactly the same, whether their vehicle slowed down or waited at an end station, to get there at that time.

The difference is that with line spacing, citizens' timers only tick while they are moving, which even at just the slow speed of 30 kph means they can cover 3 km before timing out and teleporting home. Every second spent waiting in an end station is just a reduction in range (they can't travel as far after losing time in an end station, and they can't spend too long traveling if they need time to wait in another end station).

Originally posted by Tarumba:

Same with the number of vehicles on the line. If a vehicle gets delayed to being more then 60s after the previous one you will get a gap in coverage whether you use end stations or spacing. The number of you need is the same, as it only depends on the line length/time and lines with end stations are only ~5s longer than the same line with spacing (for driving in/out of the end station). That is not going to mean a need for more vehicles on the line in 99% of the cases.

You need extra vehicles sitting in the workplace's end station, because any delay of a vehicle on its way to that end station will mean there is no vehicle present to leave said end station and go to the workplace station at the specified interval time.

If you don't care about the interval between visits at the workplace station, then what is the point in building an extra end station to correct it?

[Tarumba]

Either I'm not sure what you mean, or you don't know what I mean.
For the citizens' timer it doesn't matter if it goes 3km at 30kph or 3km at 60kph and waits at an end station for half the time. The timer doesn't go faster while waiting at an end station then in a moving vehicle
And all line spacing and end stations (set to variable time) do, is:
If a vehicle gets delayed (so the distance (in time) between it and the previous vehicle is bigger than (total line time)/(#vehicles)) the vehicle(s) AFTER it gets delayed by that amount as well. Vehicles in either system never get sped up, to catch up with the previous vehicle.
Say we have 4 vehicles on a line of 40 seconds length, then we expect every vehicle to be exactly 10 seconds behind the previous vehicle. So:
V1-[10s]-V2-[10s]-V3-[10s]-V4-[10s]-V1
Now vehicle2 gets delayed by 5 seconds and so is 15 seconds behind the previous one (V1) but vehicle 3 did not get delayed so it is still 20s behind V1, but now only 5s behind V2:
V1-[15s]-V2-[5s]-V3-[10s]-V4-[10s]-V1

With end stations: all vehicles continue driving at 60 kph until they get to the end station. when V1 gets to the end station it goes in and directly out again without waiting because previous vehicle left the end station 10 or more seconds ago. Same goes for V2 (15s>=10s). V3 comes in 5 seconds after V2 left and has to wait there for 5 seconds until V2 is 10s ahead. V4 now gets in and V3 only left 5s ago. So it has to wait 5 seconds. V1 now gets back in 15s after V4 went in, but only 10s after it went out, so it goes out right away and all vehicles are spaced 10s apart again.
With spacing: V3 is less then 10s behind its previous, so it slows down to 30kph. That leads to V4 slow down as well, to keep it's 10s distance to V3. Same then goes for V1. V2 does not, as it is more then 10s behind V1. When V3 drove slow for long enough that it is now back to being 10s behind V2, it speeds up again, meaning that V4 and then V1 can speed up again as well.

In neither case, the 15s delay is solved. Both cases only solve the 5s bunch up. They don't make the delayed vehicle catch up, but rather delay all other vehicles by the same amount. The end station solves it in one place on the line "instantaneously". The spacing solves it at any place on the line "over time". Either way, V2 arrives at their stations 5 seconds after it should have. Meaning the citizens timer is 5 seconds longer then expected for that vehicle. In both cases.

[moa]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

The difference is that with line spacing, citizens' timers only tick while they are moving, which even at just the slow speed of 30 kph means they can cover 3 km before timing out and teleporting home. Every second spent waiting in an end station is just a reduction in range (they can't travel as far after losing time in an end station, and they can't spend too long traveling if they need time to wait in another end station).

Whether the timers tick does not matter, they catch up as they drive always full speed, so no loss in range at all. even gaining range as at those distances the bus probably has to refuel every second trip which does waste time and changes the spacing (accordion effect).

Best would be to have the player decide what he wants to do. Meaning reintroducing the 'bug' or mechanic of letting people in if there is a transfer order at the stop right after the endstation. It would be a hidden trick and most people probably dont care to use that, but I would like to have that option. Alternately a more obvious checkbox could be used like Tarumba was suggesting.