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Topic: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes? (Read 17669 times) previous topic - next topic

Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

;D

And what can I do about it? There is almost only one way demand - people want to go to a village (MK) from a largeish town (Preston). Can I balance it with lines from elsewhere to MK, so then there is additional traffic of people who want to travel via MK to Preston? Oh. Well I don't know why I am asking actually :p I guess I will just try it out. Anyway, why do Simutansians travel so much from large places to small? Isn't it typically the other way around in the real world?

P.S. As a counterpoint to all the people saying p****enger traffic only makes money later on, I've started in 1880 and run goods/freight traffic for four years, and while each individual line seems to run a profit the "company" as a whole produces big fat red numbers. A year or so after putting one longish distance horse-bus route (the one in question) and a couple of local city ones in, I'm rolling in cash.

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #1 –
Is there any major tourist attraction in Milton Keynes? The Iron Ore Mine also attracts a fair number of workers....

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #2 –
Nope. Nothing. Terraced houses. A pub. Tenements. A small factory. The mine isn't covered by the "main" MK stop (where everyone from Preston seems to want to go), that's the Mine Stop.

I mean, okay, MK is the only out of town (Preston) destination there is! But still... it's Milton Keynes :D

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #3 –
I've seen that there are other destinations from Preston Stop. Are all served by the same line? As far as I know, in Simutrans people will wait for a bus, train or whatever at the stops for their entire life. Call them faithfull customers ;D
So, even if the number of p****engers generated to Milton Keyins is very small, it's possible that they are piling up because there is no room on your vehicles.

If there are stops between Preston Stop and Milton Keynes Parish Hall stops: vehicles always pick up the p****engers for the next stop first, then, if there is other room, the ones for the second stop, then the third, and so on. If the line is very long or if the vehicles have small capacity, it's entirely possible that the p****engers for the last stops are never picked up, so they start to pile up and the stop gets overcrowded.

If MK Parish Hall is the next stop but Preston is not the first stop in the line, it's possible that the vehicle gets full in the previous stops, so there is no room to pick up other p****engers at Preston, so they start to pile up and the station, again, gets overcrowded.

Try to follow closely one of your vehicles in the line for some time.
If one of those is your case, just add another parallel express route with fewer stops .
It seems that you are playing with pak Britain: if you are still in XIXth century, your only street vehicls are horse coaches, which in my experience are all too small to efficently serve a multiple stop line. they can be enough for a two stop shuttle, but not more. Trams are a little bit better, but not much. Before XXth century, IMHO, trains are the only viable option for a smoothly working (and profitable) p****engers network, even if they are expansive. If you'd like to, you can actually run trains on tram tracks.

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #4 –
From what you say, I understand that more people want to go from Preston to Milton Keynes, because there are more people in Preston. It's a bigger town, generates many p****engers, who then want to go somewhere that isn't Preston. Milton Keynes simply doesn't have enough residents to generate a similar return flow of p****engers.

My suggestion would be to extend the route beyond milton keynes, to somewhere else, ideally somewhere bigger, to generate more people who want to go to Preston (and MK). However, I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it with horse-and-carriages; build a railway.

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if you are still in XIXth century, your only street vehicls are horse coaches, which in my experience are all too small
Pak.Britain is currently lacking a (fast) viable c19th urban m**** transport solution as Lord Vetinari has said - but that may not be your problem if the routes are as straightforward as suggested (though I agree, street-running trains-as-trams is the way forward if the town is large enough to sustain it, if not, use post boxes to extend station coverage and do one-stop-towns).

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #5 –
Quote
Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes

[sarcasm]Argh! Something must be seriously wrong with your savegame - people normally want to run away from Milton Keynes as fast as possible, screaming! [/sarcasm]

On-topic, there isn't anything faster than the horse on roads/in cities because in the 19th century, that's all you had.  Electric trams only started appearing in the 1890s; for a few years before that steam trams filled a niche, but it was still mainly horses.  I'm not aware of anything that existed in those days that had a high capacity on the roads (correct me if I'm wrong).  Before the days of electric trams local railways were a lot more viable.

As to why people are only travelling one-way, I thought in simutrans when a trip was generated and completed successfully a return trip was also generated?  So you shouldn't get m****ive unbalanced flows...

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #6 –
The reutrn trip is only generated, if the stop in question is not overcrowded. Otherwise only unhappy p****engers are generated. If MK has few and Preston many stops, then the few ones in MK would be overcrowded fast. And you will have many unhappy people walking back ... (or are there Horsemen citycars in pak128.britain?)

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #8 –
Obviously the destination ...

1\
2-+-----Destination
3/

When 1, 2, and 3 generate 64 p****engers, then at Destination 192 return p****engers will be generated. If the Destination has only a capacity of 64, then it will generate 128 (- transported) unhappy p****engers.

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: The Hood – on
There isn't anything faster than the horse on roads/in cities because in the 19th century, that's all you had.  Electric trams only started appearing in the 1890s; for a few years before that steam trams filled a niche, but it was still mainly horses.  I'm not aware of anything that existed in those days that had a high capacity on the roads (correct me if I'm wrong).

It's a problem, this, in gameplay. Before the days of trams, stations had, in simutrans terms, much larger catchment areas, due to a proliferation of bicycles, horses-and-carriages, and people willing to walk longer distances. In your average town one station covered the entire settlement (often from half a mile down the road!), no need for underground railways etc to get people to the station.

However, there were some quite viable options much earlier:

1830-1865 Steam Buses
1870s - 1890s (and beyond) Cable street railways
{1890s - Steam + Elec trams}

To be realistic, introducing either of these needs a way-constraint, to city-roads-only for the bus (the turnpike trusts set the tolls too high due to perceived damage caused to the road surface, so they weren't used inter-city very much I believe). Also to (e.g.) cable-track-only for the cable railway. I think the latter in particular has potential, since it would need programming to disregard gradients (hills don't affect speed), and indeed would allow the creation of freight inclined planes as well, something else missing from the early game in pak-britain which would prove useful, since Victorian railways and locomotives dislike(d) hills.

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #10 –
In old age there were much less peoples (less than 1/6th for 1830) and much less people did travel. To mimic this, p****enger factor and city growth rates would needed to be table dependent. Not to forget: ships were the only real m**** transport these days; even on rivers!
 

Re: Why do so many people want to go to Milton Keynes?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: The Hood – on
[sarcasm]Argh! Something must be seriously wrong with your savegame - people normally want to run away from Milton Keynes as fast as possible, screaming! [/sarcasm]

Well... quite ;D
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On-topic, there isn't anything faster than the horse on roads/in cities because in the 19th century, that's all you had.

That's okay. That's the fun of playing that period (for me, anyway). Anyone who doesn't want to doesn't have to start then, or can uncheck the timeline box.