Workers not leaving bus stop

[dentyneiceberg]

As the title says. I have workers in a bus stop that will not go to a Heat Plant less than 50 M walking distance away. The workers behave like there is not an available job within their range. They will stand in the bus stop until their waiting timer expires while my people freeze.

[Stele]

is that plant in range of any residentials? Workers walking by foot will reserve spot for themselves.

[ulzgoroth]

Are these workers who walked to the bus stop? I don't think they'll then walk from there to other places.

If they're people who were delivered by bus to the stop, that's more confusing. Unless you managed to configure it to not be allowed to send workers from there?

[dentyneiceberg]

The only supply of workers within walking range is the free bus stop. I've set up different lines in testing this, Domestic Workers, Foreign, and a mix of both. Domestic workers aren't ideal because they only wait 1 hr before despawning, foreign workers wait much longer. My goal is to have a supply of workers available within walking distance to the heat plant without putting Residential close and damaging their health with that industrial area's pollution.

I have intra-city bus lines funneling workers to a large capacity bus stop so my COs and Industry (including heat plant) bus stops only have to pick from 1 source. The heat plant stop is the only one showing this problem. I suspect it is due to how often workers 'ask' the area they are in for available work.

My Worker flow to the heat plant stop goes like this:

Foreign Workers have a line
Customs House ==> City Bus Stop

All Workers from City Bus Stop
City Bus Stop ==> Heat Plant Stop (people sit here with work available within walking distance until they despawn)

Other various lines to and from act as I expect and do not show this issue. I suspect it is due to how often workers 'ask' the area they are in for available work. Waiting Workers are most likely to move open jobs in the heat plant right after a bus makes a delivery, however more often than not, (~80% or so), only the new workers take the open jobs, leaving the waiting to wait longer or time out and despawn.

Any Ideas?

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by dentyneiceberg:

I suspect it is due to how often workers 'ask' the area they are in for available work.

Could be, because they do it once* - when arriving at the stop free of any further orders like transfer. If they sit there doing nothing, they are waiting for a bus - as ordered by the line that got them there.

edit: * - twice in some cases - when the bus stop has an on foot destination set it will check for that at the end of waiting limit (1hour) So you can set Heating plant as destination, or remove the transfer order so they go immediately.

There is also a trick of transfering workers back and forth between two bus stops to "buffer" them but that comes with its own caveats so better read up on it first in guides.

[ulzgoroth]

...So you totally left out of the OP that you meant 'workers you've forced to debark at the bus stop and didn't have an available job to at that time don't later leave the bus stop to go to the job when it opens up'.

Which, yeah, they do not. There's no structure that provides a standby labor pool naturally. Having enough spaced-out buses on the line so that there are frequent new arrivals is the basic if imperfect solution.

I've seen somebody describe a hack involving a bus line set up to make the bus basically park in the bus stop releasing and reboarding its passengers or something? That'd probably work.

[dentyneiceberg]

I did not understand this mechanic at time of post. It's why I asked. Thanks for clearing it up.

I can't bank workers at a bus stop by forcing them off the bus and onto the platform. They won't continuously search for open jobs, taking them as they become available. They will only take what's open when they first get off the bus.

Is that correct?

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by dentyneiceberg:

I did not understand this mechanic at time of post. It's why I asked. Thanks for clearing it up.

I can't bank workers at a bus stop by forcing them off the bus and onto the platform. They won't continuously search for open jobs, taking them as they become available. They will only take what's open when they first get off the bus.

Is that correct?

Yes, they wont search for jobs while waiting, but i just remembered, if you set a destination from that bus stop, they will, at the end of their waiting for transfer bus time of 1 hour, look there before despawning.

So you can force them to work at the heat exchanger that way. Its not good solution thou since it forces them to wait for no reason, its better to remove the transfer order.

What is possible with it thou is to have two bus stops nearby one feeding the other by foot, with workers not despawning, and looking for a job each time they walk between stops. BUT if they cant find job for too long they will loose happines. So its very easy to make things WORSE with this unless you have everything well planned in advance.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

I've seen somebody describe a hack involving a bus line set up to make the bus basically park in the bus stop releasing and reboarding its passengers or something? That'd probably work.

It does indeed work pretty well, but it can trap excess workers there for too long (or forever) if you don't limit the supplying line's throughput enough, and it can block other vehicles from entering the station if you aren't careful. You also need a decent understanding of the citizen routing mechanics and line settings to make it work.

Originally posted by ling.speed:

What is possible with it thou is to have two bus stops nearby one feeding the other by foot, with workers not despawning, and looking for a job each time they walk between stops. BUT if they cant find job for too long they will loose happines. So its very easy to make things WORSE with this unless you have everything well planned in advance.

I find the trick is to make two consecutive stops at the heating plant station; one to let workers off and walk onto empty jobs and the second to force excess workers off to check for jobs a day later. This gives workers two chances to fulfill a job there and it also solves the issue where nobody will board if all the jobs on the line happen to be full at the same time.

[Cpt_Beefheart]

Personally my trick is simply a line with a few prison busses bringing prisoners from my prison(s) directly to the heating plant. When not winter I optionally re-task the prison buses to scrapyard, scrap recycling, and the like as needed.

[Gorlos]

Originally posted by dentyneiceberg:

As the title says. I have workers in a bus stop that will not go to a Heat Plant less than 50 M walking distance away. The workers behave like there is not an available job within their range. They will stand in the bus stop until their waiting timer expires while my people freeze.

And you have everything ok at the plant? Electricity, water, sewage and Coal?

[Gorlos]

Garbage?