Problems with inter-city transit...

[pottebaum 0]

I'm having a problem I haven't encountered before. I have one city with a population of around 20,000--but the majority of the commercial jobs are distributed elsewhere in the region. The roads work fine, but I wanted to start using bus stops for travel between the two cities. So I put a few bus stops in one of the surrounding commercial job cities. When I go back to my main city, and query the road to see who's all traveling on it, I see that there are quite a few buses crossing the city limits. Yet when I go to the other city, the bus stops report absolutely no usage. The oddest part is that, once in a while, the stop will report usage--but then it goes back to 0% less than a second later.

The same thing happens with trains. Any ideas?

[giorgos69 52]

I think maybe it only shows residential commuters and by that I mean, perhaps it will only tell you how many residents in that city are using the bus.

Since no one in your commercial city is using the bus, it wont be showing usage and since the other city is the one with the residents, it will show the percent of people using a bus service...get it?

(ps im Giorgos from ssc)

[pottebaum 0]

Thanks, giorgos! I'll check that out.

[pottebaum 0]

Well--I tried that, and it didn't work. What's really weird is that when I query the bus stops, it shows car commuters traveling to it from the other city.

[pottebaum 0]

^

huh?

[SC4BOY 20]

You just have inadequate demand and longish travel times I'm guessing.. I expect this will reduce as you develop the city. I don't seperate COM and RES by cities, so I don't know this exact problem, BUT you can have a very similar problem even when they both are in the same city.. I expect it shows not enough worker need jobs to find their way over here yet.

[pottebaum 0]

^Well, I don't think that's it, because a lot of people work in these cities. And when I check the main city's traffic flows, it shows buses going into the other cities.

[pottebaum 0]

Oh, and I'm playing with Deluxe.

[giorgos69 52]

Im pretty sure its not your game, its just SC4 itself.

Does the problem affect your gameplay at all?

[DOXXP29 5]

I've given up paying too much attention to the query numbers, especially commercial. I have buildings where the main query has a set of numbers for jobs, is not abandoned or dilapidated, but the route query says workers: none. One city, one side of the block for several blocks does this, while the "back" half of the same block is normal. Commercial seems to be much more affected with this phenomenon. Another example, I'll have a road saying cars: 0, but have multiple businesses showing car commutes going down the same road. I also have residential where the main UI says population, 600,000, but the query tool says city population 450,000. All of these issues and more lead me to bepieve the simulator, especially when seeking commute times and building populations (of workers or residents) is buggy or very confused. You should have a pretty good idea of what is really going on with your city by general observations and go with your instincts. I don't think what's happening is anything you can do much about. Lord knows, I've been trying to get it figured out for a long time. I've also read numerous posts here and on other sites where similar problems have been encountered. Good luck, and don't sweat it too much. Even though the info might not show correctly, the game usually runs ok and grows "normally" despite the misinformation.

[tungston 19]

Originally posted by: pottebaum ^Well, I don't think that's it, because a lot of people work in these cities. And when I check the main city's traffic flows, it shows buses going into the other cities.quote>

 

I think the operative word is "work", at start/quit times you will see more usage.  Similar to rush hour.  Check your stations at those times.  The traffic flow lines will remain, even though there is no/little traffic at that time.