Making passengers make multiple changes per journey?

[Barkydog]

I've just done another change around of a few things in my CIM map of Chester and I'm trying a new way of routing passengers instead of them just taking the bus everywhere and making me only a small profit.

I'm just wondering if you make passengers use more than one change of vehicle will they only take the shortest route?

On some of my routes I I’m now aiming to have passengers taking a combination of buses and trams so I'm wondering if I have a passenger who takes a bus to the nearest tram stop and takes a tram part way then takes a bus to change between tram lines will they pay each time?

A typical journey on my Chester network is towards the city Centre would be:

-Passenger boards Bus in Hoole and then rides to nearest tram stop

-Gets tram to Boughton

-They are then unable to get direct tram to city centre so then they get local bus to Boughton Heath Tram stop.

-Gets on Tram from Boughton Heath to City Centre then go to final destination when they leave the tram in the city Centre.

Does that sound like too many changes? Here in Chester in real life we don't have trams just buses so I'm getting a bit creative by adding a tram system.

I know if I was a CIM passenger I would be fed up by the time I got a tram to Boughton and I would probably just give up and call a cab to get into the centre to avoid the constant swapping between lines.

I'm just wondering really is it a good idea to make passengers make a lot of swaps between lines and if so is there a maximum number of changes to make them do?

Last time I tried this I had one passenger on my number 3 tram that was going to the railway terminal but as he got off at one of the stops where he could have changed onto a bus to the railway terminal but instead he just stood there starring at the tram shelter

My thinking was maybe the changes he needed to do to get to his destination was too confusing for him and he was just lost or something?

Thanks for reading this one guys I will go and see what happens now when I start off my tram system and hopefully with the buses and trams feeding each other I will get some profit.

 

[unmerged(252034)]

Line Statistics Plus shows how many people transferred on your lines and on my Brooklyn-queens map there's thousands of people transferring between all the lines. As long as 2 stops are close by, the riders will transfer.

 

[TH1]

2-3 stops are OK for CiM citizens as long as they find it better/faster than going by car. In my city that i'm playing now, i know some citizens, who go to work by taking a tram then metro and then tram or bus to reach their place of work. And yeah, if you force them changing lines, it earns you more...

 

[giladteller]

There are a few good reasons to make people transfer between different types of transport:
Transferring between two lines of the same type is free (bus to bus, metro to metro etc), but when transferring between different types of transport your passengers have to pay again.
My strategy is to take people with local bus and tram lines into the metro stations, and then taking them most of the way by metro. The metro can take the largest amount of passengers and with the highest speed, so I use them for the long way (like from the suburbs to city center).
Your passengers don't mind taking a few transfers on their journey, as long as the stations are inside each other's catchment radius.
Your passengers plan their journey before they leave, they know where they are going and how. If their planned journey is changed, they might stop somewhere and plan a new journey (you might have closed the line for a moment to add a stop or replace a vehicle).

 

[douglasrac]

[...]I'm just wondering really is it a good idea to make passengers make a lot of swaps between lines and if so is there a maximum number of changes to make them do?

Last time I tried this I had one passenger on my number 3 tram that was going to the railway terminal but as he got off at one of the stops where he could have changed onto a bus to the railway terminal but instead he just stood there starring at the tram shelter

My thinking was maybe the changes he needed to do to get to his destination was too confusing for him and he was just lost or something? [...]

I don't think he got lost because they know exactly what to do and where to transfer before starting the journey.

Maybe is a good idea to make a lot of transfers maybe not. Just have in mind that people take time in account to plan a journey. And a lot of transfers means more time, so car could be faster.

I'm not so sure how CiMs use the lines. I had recently 2 cases. There was a bus line, crowded and with bad service. I built a monorail line in the exactly same way, same route and same places of stops and run the game for a while (like 2 months) and people did not abandon the bus line and start to use the monorail. Sure the monorail was being used, but people kept going to the bus line. Wouldn't the monorail be faster so they should always choose this one?
Oh, I just realize CiMs also take price into account.

The other example was a metro replacing a boat route. At the end I demolish one of the routes because I don't want to maintain duplicate things, even that both are profitable.

Anyway, force transfers is not a good way to design a public transport. You should consider time and convenience. Faster transfers, faster and profitable routes, meaning as fast and easy as you can but considering profitability. So buses and trams for short routes and metros for long routes.
I do like giladteller, "take people with local bus and tram lines into the metro stations". Eventually I end up with all trams and metros, because buses won't handle the demand.

P.S.:

A typical journey on my Chester network is towards the city Centre would be: [...]

You are torturing your CiMs!!
You could make a test. Just copy and paste your saved game. Now in the new copy make the journey a lot easier. Maximum 2 transfers (3 routes), and see which one you get more passengers. If the journey takes less time and it's cheaper you get more customers, less traffic and more profit!
Don't be a greedy corporation!

 

[feelotraveller]

I'm just wondering if you make passengers use more than one change of vehicle will they only take the shortest route?

...

I'm just wondering really is it a good idea to make passengers make a lot of swaps between lines and if so is there a maximum number of changes to make them do?

Last time I tried this I had one passenger on my number 3 tram that was going to the railway terminal but as he got off at one of the stops where he could have changed onto a bus to the railway terminal but instead he just stood there starring at the tram shelter

My thinking was maybe the changes he needed to do to get to his destination was too confusing for him and he was just lost or something?

We are told that passengers take time in transit and cost into account when planning journeys. But I am sure that these are not the only factors. (In places attractiveness is said to make a difference to.)

The path finding algorithm for CiMs is weird - at least at times. In one of my early games in Berlin I had built a ferry line from the NE suburb/island to the southern part of the map and had a connecting tramline stop at the southern ferry terminal (which took them to the nearest metro). The CiMs however, refused to take the tram, even though it was cheaper, quicker and closer and instead set off on a cross country hike to get to the bus line (and this hike took them in a beeline for the stop until they ran into a fence whereupon they walked for a couple of months east and then a couple of months west to get to this stop - if they had of gone slightly west to start with they would have avoided the fence and after going east they ended up walking back west past another bus stop to get to the stop they originally tried to beeline for, and the bus was running east to west! go figure). Even more surprising was that a good proportion of these passengers were business people who usually show a marked preference for trams over buses.

I waited for years to see if they changed their pattern but they never did. Generally waiting a couple of months for a change of passenger behaviour is not long enough as many crosstown trips take many months to accomplish, especially if they need to change from one line to another.

To answer your first question - it can be good to get them to swap (more usage/income) but be sensible about how you make them do this. If it is too inconvenient they won't use public transport at all. Also expect weird behaviour. Frustratingly you can't plan for it but rather you have to plan/play around it.

 

[douglasrac]

The problem you see is reported here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?530720-Stupid-CiMs&highlight=stupid+cims

Seems that the algorithm to walk is different from the algorithm to choose routes.

 

[feelotraveller]

Okay, that's enlightening. But that means there were actually two problems compounded in my example - the walking in a straight line route calculation although it is impossible one and the not using the tram line one. The second is a worry as the ferry terminal and tram stop were right next to one another and the bus stop some distance away.

On a related note I often see CiMs get on a train to go to the next station and then come straight back again. For example in a game where I was trying out one stop (i.e. two station) metro lines [conclusion: it's not worth it, you lose more from the time to change trains repetitively than gain from being able to adjust the number of vehicles on the different lines] a CiM took the bus to metro A then the metro to to metro B. Here they should have changed to the tram line they needed to get to their destination but instead got on a train for metro C. When they got to metro C they got a train back to metro B and only then got on the tram. I see this behaviour from time to time; the only variable I have noted is that I have only seen it with the metro.

 

[Barkydog]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your replies it's good to read what everyone thinks on how passenger's travel within the game. I've managed to sort out one of my tram lines so the passenger who gets on a tram in Hoole can now stay on the tram till they reach the city centre and maybe swap onto my number 4 bus route which I have circling the city centre area's so I still get money and they get a smoother ride with fewer changes.

The longer tram I have going out into my CIM version of Mold is the longest line I have running and that is still popular with people using that and swapping between bus routes as well as the new helicopter route I have serving my stadium and business park and railway terminal.

Oddly enough although I have a frequent tram route going out to one of the outer Housing Estate here with frequent passengers using it as an experiment I re-started the circular bus route from the city centre out to the housing estate so passenger can take either tram or bus and I'm charging the same fare of £4-10 for bus or tram so there must be some passengers who still prefer the bus even though the tram would actually work out faster.

Although some of the passengers might just board a bus within the estate and travel as far as the tram stop so I'm going to follow someone and find that out.

On one of my saved Chester maps I'm trying to introduce a circular Metro route and that seems to be attracting passengers although it's early days on that yet so I'm going to see what happens.

I’m up to 6 tram lines at the moment and up to about 18 bus routes although to be fair most of the buses operate on a series of short circular routes that serve the tram stops as well as the helicopter stops.