Yet not understanding blue collars and factories

[unmerged(281401)]

I'd appreciate to see your tips on how to successfully transport a lot of blue collars to industrial areas.

I've completed all scenarios and played on some of the largest built-in and user maps, still I'm not understanding blue collars.

Here's what I have
* Pensioners, tourists and white collars love my services, huge traffic can be generated on lines connecting their homes with churches, hotels and offices, respectively.
* I do not know who like going to shop (it is said, mostly business people, and that white collars do not bother with shopping; my experience is that white collars do like shopping), but traffic is huge also to shopping centres.
* Students sometimes like the services, somtimes not that much, it depends on.

But I never managed to build a successful line or combination of lines transporting many blue collar workers. How is that? First, blue collars should be among those who use public transportation in the first place since they cannot afford for cars. My ticket prices are all green, so that should be not a problem.

In a map I have an industry area of a dozen or more factories, some of which employing 200-250 blue collars (totalling on 1k+ BC employers there). No matter if I cover the entire industry area with above-the-ground or underground metro stations, or whether I only deploy 1-2 metro stations and use dispatcher/collector buses and trams to access all factories, only a few BC will use my services. (Of course, their residental areas are connected to industrial areas.) Even if I only use buses or trams to transport them from their home to factories, they do not seem to like my services.

To put it together: I manage to satisfy the needs of every passenger class, but not blue collars. Did anyone succeed in building a profitable service for blue collars attracting a lot of passengers?

 

[nug4t]

i think i might know what your asking, but what are blue collars? Translated to German it makes no sense, do you mean the ordinary workers?

 

[unmerged(281931)]

Blue Collar workers are generally people who make things (they generally wear overalls, so would have blue shirt collars)
White collar workers are office workers/management

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Quite weird actually. I usually start my networks with low numbered populations as I start games in 1920 with slow, low capacity vehicles.

This said, I did not meet peculiar issues in satisfying blue collar workers. I branch them in when proper vehicles appear. What I usually do is also providing a internal network to the factory sites, shuttles driving with the industrial sites and stopping parking lot side. More a luxury then anything else.

Are the blue collar dense areas of the city properly connected? Blue collar workers might change jobs and need to be able to go to each industrial site, no matter where they live.

 

[giladteller]

i think i might know what your asking, but what are blue collars? Translated to German it makes no sense, do you mean the ordinary workers?

The German version of the game refers to Blue collar workers as "Arbeiter"

 

[douglasrac]

They are the ones with a blue jacket!

How are the ticket prices of your services? I believe that blue collars are more sensitive with prices.
You mentioned Pensioners, tourists and white collars. What about the ones that don' t have a job? (forgot their names). They are also sensitive with prices.

 

[unmerged(280751)]

Hmm... maybe an advertising campaign might help.

Have you figured out if the blue collars are using private cars while they could easily be riding your lines? If they are preferring private cars over an existing line, maybe an advertising campaign would actually do the trick, and get them using the lines.

 

[unmerged(281401)]

Quite weird actually. I usually start my networks with low numbered populations as I start games in 1920 with slow, low capacity vehicles.

This said, I did not meet peculiar issues in satisfying blue collar workers. I branch them in when proper vehicles appear. What I usually do is also providing a internal network to the factory sites, shuttles driving with the industrial sites and stopping parking lot side. More a luxury then anything else.

Are the blue collar dense areas of the city properly connected? Blue collar workers might change jobs and need to be able to go to each industrial site, no matter where they live.

Hi,

Thanks for your notes and questions. Yes, I usually pay attention on connecting residental areas with industrial, commercial and leisure locatioons. In the current situation (following the pattern I found the most useful) I have a well-developed network with metro lines connect these areas, that is, a station in the middle of a high-density residental area, another at a store or a factory. Usually people need to travel 1-2 stops to reach these destinations. Trams circulate offroad or on lower-density roads connecting two metro stations reaching areas where high passenger loads are expected, so that passengers may reach one or the other metro station in 2-4 stops. For short lines or when tram would be unnecessary, buses circulate the same way. So practically you can get from everywhere to everywhere in a map by using no more than 3-4 lines, but the most frequent places can be reached by 0-1 exchange.

 

[unmerged(281401)]

They are the ones with a blue jacket!

How are the ticket prices of your services? I believe that blue collars are more sensitive with prices.
You mentioned Pensioners, tourists and white collars. What about the ones that don' t have a job? (forgot their names). They are also sensitive with prices.

Hi,

Well, I can keep prices in the green zone, and I usually do that. I think lower prices yield in more profit. I especially investigated if blue collars (who's popularity index is above 90%) appear in greater amount, but this is not the case. It seems that they would not really use my services even if it was free.

 

[unmerged(281401)]

Hmm... maybe an advertising campaign might help.

Have you figured out if the blue collars are using private cars while they could easily be riding your lines? If they are preferring private cars over an existing line, maybe an advertising campaign would actually do the trick, and get them using the lines.

Hi,

Well, to be honest, I am not patient enough to click a hundred people , but by checking the roads I find that residental areas do not have big car traffic, while industrial areas have huge traffic, but mostly vans appear on the streets, not cars. There are, of course, houses from which a blue collar might get to his job faster by car than by using my services, but generally the factories can be reached via metro lines (in 1-2 stops). So I guess, for the most BC my services are faster, and no heavy car traffic can be noticed.

I regularly run advertisements (now I have enough money to run continuously) but it seems it does not have too much impact on blue collars.

 

[unmerged(281401)]

Quite weird actually. I usually start my networks with low numbered populations as I start games in 1920 with slow, low capacity vehicles.

This said, I did not meet peculiar issues in satisfying blue collar workers. I branch them in when proper vehicles appear. What I usually do is also providing a internal network to the factory sites, shuttles driving with the industrial sites and stopping parking lot side. More a luxury then anything else.

Are the blue collar dense areas of the city properly connected? Blue collar workers might change jobs and need to be able to go to each industrial site, no matter where they live.

Forget to mention the shuttles! Well, I have tried all three variations: I have deployed metro stations in the industrial area close to each other, so that they even overlapped a bit. 10-20 people waiting in the stops near several factories, each of which employing 200-250 workers. Then I reorganized the system and left only one or two metro stations. I then made shuttle tram lines with a high coverage circulating from the metro station to factories and back. Almost no passengers, again. I have tried buses instead of trams to see if tram tickets are too high for the guys, but nothing has really changed. What works the best (but still far from being good) are tram lines with low coverage as shuttle services: it seems these guys like walking a bit. With less dense tram stops I can generate as many passengers as two small trams become profitable, but still, this means 10-20 people per tram stop, with the coverage area of the stop including hundreds of workplaces.

I also tried bus and tram lines directly connecting BC residental areas with factories to see if they have problems with metro tickets. Well, a bit more passengers arrived, but in such distances, buses and trams cannot be made profitable. So I'm quite clueless.

 

[unmerged(7333)]

I'm seeing this behavior in Vienna too. Everything I have connected seems to be working as you think it would, I was even surprised by the traffic generated by the church and the amusement park. But all lines to/from the factory districts which are full of factorys and canneries which employ hundreds have like 3-7 people using them. Is someone still working on this game? It doesn't seem like this would have been hard to miss during testing and the breakdown rates are so high I can't even play anymore.

 

[unmerged(281401)]

I'm seeing this behavior in Vienna too. Everything I have connected seems to be working as you think it would, I was even surprised by the traffic generated by the church and the amusement park. But all lines to/from the factory districts which are full of factorys and canneries which employ hundreds have like 3-7 people using them. Is someone still working on this game? It doesn't seem like this would have been hard to miss during testing and the breakdown rates are so high I can't even play anymore.

I think the big problem with the development of this game (as well is with many other tycoon games) is that testers do not play in really big. On my map I have 60+ lines, and I cannot imagine any tester built so much lines during normal gameplay to test how gameplay or experience changes. If you do a test and create 60 lines one after the other to see if the game crashes or not, that is good. If you make a small line with two small bus to see if some people travel to factories from home, it is also good. But a third test case would be necessary to test how many people use your services to get to the factories when, for example, you deploy shuttle buses connected with metro lines, to say an example.

Nevertheless, this game is definitely worth its price, but I would be happier with a game that costs four times more than this, but in exchange its algorithms are better designed (enough to mention the lack of zoning and zone pricing, or the express bus lanes).

 

[unmerged(281698)]

I usually connect workplaces last. It seems CIM citizens rarely go to work, but often go shopping.