Opinion on New Mass Transit Items

[Promethian]

Just some thoughts and observations on the DLC Mass Transit items I've used.

Monorail: Runs over roads so it is non-disruptive to city planning. 180 people per train. Cheaper than railroads. Plus those amazingly useful dual purpose stations. I am currently using the dual monorail/bus stations with monorail as a kind of regional transport with buses picking up people in small runs (3 stops on average) to ferry them to the station. I am very pleased with implementation and effect. It looks good and it can fit into any city. I think Monorail brings the most to the game of all the new options.

Cable cars: My favorite addition. Cheap, flexible and efficient. The lines follow the same placement rules as power lines which basically means, everywhere. The stations are nice and small so they can fit in wherever I want. Finally the throughput is great and very cost efficient. I have put cable cars all over my current city (on Prussian Peaks).

Blimps: The mechanics are good. Draw your own paths. Air travel so the only restriction is on placing the platforms. Cost isn't extreme. With the huge advantages the throughput is reasonably low. My problem comes in that the demand for use is too high. I have huge mass transit redundancies in my city. Monorail with buses feeding and cable cars. I shouldn't have huge buildups of people at my blimp platforms but I do and I can't assign enough blimps to the line to keep up. Its not the 500% limit either. Its that I literally have a blimp waiting to land at every platform as one is loading/unloading.

 

[SmileyBalloon]

I agree monorails are really efficient and it's good they run on top of roads, and also having a similarly high demand for blimps with long queues.

What do you think about ferries? Like in some older threads, I cannot get them to work (pathway not found) despite trying various ways.

 

[skifans]

Personally I like ferries but they tend to be rather slow so I usual find it more efficient to build a tramway along the shore. They can be good for cutting large corners but in the long term I usually end up replacing them with a metro as demand grows. Iv never had any pathway not found issues.

 

[Promethian]

Personally I like ferries but they tend to be rather slow so I usual find it more efficient to build a tramway along the shore. They can be good for cutting large corners but in the long term I usually end up replacing them with a metro as demand grows. Iv never had any pathway not found issues.

Increase the numbers of boats. In the window that lists the ferry lines click the magnifying glass. The window that opens has a slider that lets you increase the number of boats. The same window has a graphic showing how many cims are at each ferry stop. As long as the ferries zero out each stop occasionally you are doing it right. Generally one stop will be heavier so that is the one to watch. (note: do this with all your mass transit, it really pays off)

Also use the ferry stop that can dock two boats. Set up parallel lines going opposite directions. This way the passenger demand will split a bit. I recommend doing this with the trains/monorails and metro as well. There is no need to run parallel paths for the boats when doing this. The paths have effectively two lanes so boats going the opposite direction don't interfere.

It doesn't cost more money to run the extra lines or increase the number of vehicles (for any of the mass transit types). You are already paying for everything with the stops so using less is actually letting that upkeep go to waste.

Finally use multiple mass transit methods. The more that is available the more cims will use mass transit instead of driving. Its also a good way to keep any single service from making huge queues.

@SmileyBalloon Beyond this I don't have much more to say about ferries at the moment. I set some up in an existing save to see the mechanics but didn't really study how effective they are in detail. The above advice is over 50% general advice for handling mass transit. I am satisfied with the city I am currently working on (Prussian Peaks map) using 3 of the 4 new mass transit items. Its why I gave informed opinions on them and not ferries.

 

[chris_dftba]

I've struggled with ferries. Getting the paths to work has been difficult. And even when I can force the ferry lines to connect no one seems to want to use them so they're not really worth it imo.

Monorails's are cool but it kinda sucks how noisy the stations are as it requires 2-3 blocks of non-housing just so citizens don't get sick from noise pollution.

Blimps are nice

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I used the ferries a fair bit in the Ferry scenario, and they worked pretty well, and didn't have much issue making paths and lines. I even had a pedestrian bridge (in place before I could get ferries) that competed with a ferry route when I finally got ferries, but I still had quite a bit of ferry usage, so I didn't even get rid of the bridge.

Probably not very helpful, other than that it can be done.

Noise-wise, a lot of the MT stuff is noisy. The monorail should not be so noisy though. Only monorail I have experience with in real life was at Disney World, and I suppose they are not all that fast, but I found them fairly quiet. The noise in CS is at the stations, where they would be slow anyway. Monorail-Bus hub makes as much noise as the massive multi-platform train stations. Really???

 

[Promethian]

Monorails's are cool but it kinda sucks how noisy the stations are as it requires 2-3 blocks of non-housing just so citizens don't get sick from noise pollution.

I don't have problems with it. The stations aren't any louder than metro or other mass transit. Just don't stack a bunch of mass transit stations near each other.

 

[ristosal]

The stations aren't any louder than metro or other mass transit.

Monorail stations are much noisier than metro stations, the index is 115. They should basically be used for nearly as long distances as trains.

 

[Shadow86]

Yeah, metro is 50, monorail is 115. Madness. In reality, monorails are much quieter than trains, if you've ever ridden one.

In Disney World, they have monorails running straight through (and stopping in) something like three resorts. That gives you an idea how quiet they are. And thankfully, there's mods for CSL which bring noise down to more plausible levels.

 

[Promethian]

Well I don't notice a difference. All my zones near monorail stations upgrade just fine and my health services can apparently handle the area no problem. I really only sweat sound in that I don't put heavy commercial or leisure spec near residential.

 

[Promethian]

Said this in another thread but its on topic for this thread: The new Monorail/Train/Metro station is godlike. Metro for short range. Mono for longish range. Train for crossing major distances on the map. It even has two train ports so you can do an external line and an internal line on the same station. It has been way more effective than the Mono/Bus station I did in my previous game tho the Mono/Bus set up was cheaper (Buses are profitable).

Also I have found the monorail's big disadvantage over trains. No underground tracks. I have seriously felt this one a few times now and it contributes to my love of the triple station.