Fully utilizing a large customs house

[gilfrenkel89]

I have a large customs house, but I can't fully utilize it.

I saw some threads about this, and I understand why custom houses are intentionally a bit slow, but I have 2 very specific problems which I really think are not intended, and I am not sure how to solve them (at least without bending over backwards and\or using mods):

1. No matter how I setup my roads leading to the customs house, trucks just use 1 of them and back up:
Screenshot 1 [ibb.co]

2. Even worse, the customs house itself has many docking stations but they are not being used, it's as if the large customs house is acting like a small customs house:
Screenshot 2 [ibb.co]

Is there any way to fix this? At the very least problem number 2, which has a bigger impact and definitely feels unintended.

Thanks!

[Silent_Shadow]

Customs houses use old code that only allows one vehicle to move within a building at a time, so it doesn't really matter how many roads you connect to the customs house because the time a vehicle takes to get into or out of one of the slots is the limiting factor. To maximize the throughput at customs, you need to use the biggest trucks with a lot of engine power.

You can use the three road connections to set up "express lanes" for priority trucks to use instead of waiting behind all the other trucks waiting there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1I935CIws

[gilfrenkel89]

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[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by gilfrenkel89:

I can live with the roads not being fully utilized, but is there at least a way to make the customs house utilize all of its loading bays?

Also, what does engine power has to do with this?

The customs house will use all of its slots provided all the vehicles within it are loading or unloading within them, so unless you have really big trucks, you probably won't be seeing all the slots occupied very often, if at all.

Engine power and weight determine how quickly a vehicle accelerates. More engine power means faster acceleration (and more fuel/energy consumption). More weight means slower acceleration.

[melkij]

The real limitation is that only one truck can move within the customs area.

5 BelAZ trucks can use all loading and unloading places without problems - they are loaded slowly. Small trucks or goods loaded quickly - it turns out that not all stations are occupied or even most of the vehicles are waiting for the opportunity to drive.

I agree that if they add a time delay before loading or unloading for bureaucracy, it will look more logical. But the developers are happy with it as is.

[Incrediblejimmy]

I haven't tried it yet, but since we got all the mini-infrastructure elements in the latest versions like single track stations/fuel stations, and the pig loco that costs truck-money but can still pull hundrets of tons, I think maybe really early rail might be the most efficient way to go...

[kiky]

Larger vehicles with full loads is what you want.

The larger the load a vehicle pics up at a given time, the longer it will load, if it is still loading wile the next vehicle in the q reached the customs house, the new vehicle will go to a different loading spot.
that way i usualy find 3 of the loading spots in use prety much all the time, sometimes 2 sometimes 4.

how to do that:
do not let every vehicle that is importing pic up at the border:
For example COs.
lets say your building an electric substation:
2 dumpers, a concrete mixer, 5 open and one covered truck will each load just very tiny amounts of material, + maybe busses for workers.
the same number of vehicles could unload full loads to storages (besides asphalt and concrete) from which your CO pics up the materials.
If we stay with the electric substation example, that way you could build 3 or 4 of them with the same trafic at the border and therefore reduce the q.
Same goes for delivering goods for your citizens, loading 0.3tons of cloths basicly takes the same time as loading 5 tons.
set up some storage closer to where you need the goods and keep it stocked with Lines or a DO that is set up in a way it will only ever send a truck with a full load.
collect waste in containers and bring it to the border by dedicated line to stop garbadge trucks deliving just a bucketload of waste every time.

that also safes on fuel and repairs in the long run, way more than setting up a storage or 5 may ever cost you.

to spread out trafic between lanes you might look at which lane the DOs and COs use the most, and set up your lines with a waypoint (any road sign) to the other road, that way there will be 2 or 3 q's but they will never use all available lanes.
i do not think this will speed things up a lot, but maybe a little since there is already a vehicle waiting and les stop and go going on if there is a free spot in the customs house.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by gilfrenkel89:

Also, it is unclear from your video how to set up prioritization?
What differentiates the prioritized truck from the rest of the trucks?

In this case I use waypoints (the signs you see over the roads) to force trucks to take a specific road, but you could also use the various restriction signs to limit which roads trucks/buses can take. Here the prioritized truck is told to take the express road where no other trucks are waiting.

It can be a struggle to force trucks from distribution offices or technical offices into specific lanes because they cannot use waypoints, which is just one of many reasons I don't like using them.

[gilfrenkel89]

Thanks for the help everyone!
I will try experimenting with bigger trucks (in the hopes that it cuts down the "trucks aren't going in and out because only 1 truck can do so at any given time" time.

[TNT]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by gilfrenkel89:

Also, it is unclear from your video how to set up prioritization?
What differentiates the prioritized truck from the rest of the trucks?

In this case I use waypoints (the signs you see over the roads) to force trucks to take a

How do you set up DO/CO waypoints?

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by TNT:

How do you set up DO/CO waypoints?

That's the thing, you can't.

[Fekin]

I try and go rail as soon as possible for a lot of imports and exports because customs houses are so badly designed, or mod in additional customs points.

[TNT]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by TNT:

How do you set up DO/CO waypoints?

That's the thing, you can't.

lol, I know. Oh, I see where I went wrong. I attributed another posters post as an OP post.