What's the secret of water buses?

[unmerged(295061)]

I can't get water buses to be profitable xD.

I've played many sandbox games and I managed to earn lot of money without water buses, but now I'm playing scenario 6 (Helsinki) and I got a mission to create some water buses lines.

I started to recap my experiences with water buses... I've built 5 or 6 and I've never managed to carry more than 15 people in them, but their capacity is somewhere between 25 and 40. So how can I get them to be full (so they're actually profitable)? Is there any particular spot in any city that you know people will use water buses often?

Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad English xD

 

[ElvinDrude]

I find the best way to make waterbuses profitable is to make them the only link between two busy lines. It's not so obvious where to do it in Helsinki, but routes I find are good are from the town centre to the coast near the airport, and then run a tram/bus line from that to the airport. The passengers will still use your line, even if the waterbus stop has no other destinations nearby apart from the tram/bus stop.
Another possibility is to run a waterbus to the western island. I can't remember the date of that scenario, but at some point in the 1990's a whole bunch of high-density office buildings appear there, which make a waterbus and bus just about profitable.


P.S. Your English is fine, I wouldn't have guessed it wasn't your first language if you hadn't said so

 

[speedking34]

I find that the best way to make waterbuses profitable it to keep lines short (no more than 3 stops) with one boat and to try and use it to connect two shores together rather than using them for long trip on just one side of the water.

To be clearer, use them only for journeys that can only be efficiently achieved using waterbuses and not by tram/bus/metros

 

[unmerged(295061)]

I find the best way to make waterbuses profitable is to make them the only link between two busy lines. It's not so obvious where to do it in Helsinki, but routes I find are good are from the town centre to the coast near the airport, and then run a tram/bus line from that to the airport. The passengers will still use your line, even if the waterbus stop has no other destinations nearby apart from the tram/bus stop.
Another possibility is to run a waterbus to the western island. I can't remember the date of that scenario, but at some point in the 1990's a whole bunch of high-density office buildings appear there, which make a waterbus and bus just about profitable.


P.S. Your English is fine, I wouldn't have guessed it wasn't your first language if you hadn't said so

Thanks for the compliment xD and for the advice. I've finished that scenario already, but I'll play that level again in sandbox soon.

To be clearer, use them only for journeys that can only be efficiently achieved using waterbuses and not by tram/bus/metros

That was my mistake. The waterbuses lines I've created so far worked as an alternative to buses and trams, so people didn't use it very often.

Thanks