Travel time: more than 5 hours?

[Jasmin]

Screen for context

Why do citizens agree to travel for more than 5 hours? I've modified my configuration to force passengers to disembark before the end bus station, but it seems they continue to travel (probably because they are making connections). Is there a way to alter this? I implemented this change to obtain a better estimate of unemployment, but now I'm concerned that the extensive travel time may have repercussions. What consequences can I expect if my citizens spend more than 5 hours in transit?

Thank you in advance for your responses !

[gwahazar]

Force disembark is tricky, it makes workers waiting for other vehicle. It may be even the same vehicle, if you allow them to load, they will disembark end immediately embark again.

[whisper]

My understanding is that the 5 hour total travel time limit isn't actually enforced, only the 4 hour traveling in vehicle limit. Also I believe the main harm of excessive travel is that it cuts into the time citizens can use to satisfy their needs, and so increases the risk of health and happiness penalties due to missed needs. Don't really know anything about force disembark mechanics.

[bballjo]

There are several potential issues with exploiting worker travel times... first: you can indefinitely extend it, but that comes with costs.
The longer a person was travelling yesterday, the more they have to catch up on. Normally they will fulfill 100% of their demands per day, but if they traveled for 3 days they will try to fulfill 300%. That's all things they missed (food, meat, clothes, booze, movies), they have the potential of blocking your buildings when that happens.
They also take some small happiness penalties when they travel that long.
A bigger issue with this extension: you may waste your workers. Unemployed workers get counted when they never made it to work or get picked up by a bus. If you have the transfer option on, everyone will get on the bus, and gets counted as employed, even if there is nothing at the end. This can really scew your numbers, and have you making some bad decisions. I did a test on the transfer option, not with this issue in mind, but just to explain it a little more.

[Silent_Shadow]

Workers will spend more time at work as their "total time travelling" timer elapses, which is partly why they spend roughly 1/3 of their time working, and why you need about 3 workers to keep a job constantly staffed. The issue is that the length of their work shift reaches a limit at the "4 hour" mark and will not increase further, so any additional travelling just makes them spend less of their time working, so you need more of them to work.

Exceeding the "5 hour" mark on the "total time travelling" timer also gives a hit to citizen happiness/loyalty, so you have to be careful not to exceed it too often, but you can if you must.

Travelling for a long time on the way to work also amplifies needs quite severely, so citizens will need to spend more of their free time on satisfying needs. This leaves less time to use public transport to needs and less time to consume radio/TV programming.