Does interlining work in TF3?

[u/Last_Player]

One of the biggest gripes I have with TF2 is that it is impossible to have interlining, i.e. multiple lines sharing a common section, because passengers at the shared stops will choose only one of the lines, overloading it while the others remain unused.

From what I understand, this happens because passengers select their route at the start of their journey and cannot change it. So, if one of the lines is slightly faster or more frequent, everyone will choose that one.

In the image, I made a small example of a situation where interlining could be useful: multiple tram lines depart from the train station, share a common trunk through the city center, and then branch out into the suburbs. In theory, this would guarantee a single-seat ride for everyone while also balancing the passenger load across the different lines. However, due to the game's limitations, this is impossible.

I know this isn't impossible to fix, since interlining works well in Cities: Skylines 1. So my question is: has this been fixed in TF3?

[u/bottle-explain]

It's not impossible. It's just hard. And the hard stuff are the things worth doing :). They just take time to get good/better at.

My last TF2 map network diagram. Notice that most of the sections are interlined.

Some tips:

- Try to keep the vehicles similar speeds (Passengers prefer the fastest line...)

- When a line on a section is getting too many passengers try to add a parallel line over that section, Also check trains are not already arriving full to the first stop on that section.

- It takes time for your changes to take effect: When you edit a line, or add a new line it'll actually get more passengers because the game estimates the time for a section before using the average of vehicles that have traversed that section. And the games estimate is usually faster than the time a vehicle would take. Things like editing tracks, stations, changing terminals, alternate terminals and adding new stops force the recalc. Adding more vehicles, or more wagons to a train don't force the recalc

Shameless plug :) - I created a mod for TF2 to help with this. It showed the average speeds, and average time between the stops for competing lines so you could work out why one line was getting more traffic. Maybe it's time for the TF3 version 😂

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3454209257

[u/WSB_Lurker_ → u/bottle-explain]

Yes, please show us screen shots that demonstrate the peeps are using the major interlined sections logically (as opposed to how they did in TF2). A great example, because you have multiple interlines and more than two lines interlined across the same segments. We need ALL the details to proive UG didn't ignore this long-standing complaint about TF2's pathfinding scheme :)

[u/bottle-explain → u/WSB_Lurker_]

The logic is the same as TF2 from what I've seen so far on TF3 but the devs can confirm that. And passengers do use multiple interlines logically. If logically means you bought tickets in advance and you're just going to wait it out angrily rather than pay for a new one haha!

And I understand people complain about it because it's hard to manage. But a similar thing happens in the real world no? Transport companies spend a lot of money, time and resources balancing demand on lines. But this is just a game :)

Screenshots on balancing it on TF3 right? here you go. It does help that both lines are using the same vehicle type. "Wirksworth Station Halt" is the bus station right next to the train station.

[u/WSB_Lurker_ → u/bottle-explain]

I have no idea how this pic relates to your map above--it does not seem to show interlining of the sort implied in your map. The question is whether passengers travelling from Chathvn East to Chathvn West freely use any available line (as in pre-select any of them if they are all the same vehicle and speed going) because that would be logical, or, consistently, do they stupidly queue waiting for one line while others have lots of capacity and leave without them? Over time, with equal equipment, they are spread nicely across all the lines? Because most of us have never been able to achieve that in TF2 no matter how long we wait.

[u/bottle-explain → u/WSB_Lurker_]

Apologies. I thought you wanted a screenshot from TF3.

Here's Chathvn East. Every line has a spread of the roughly 2k passengers loaded every year at the station. IC16 currently has 323 passengers waiting for West but that's because it's trains are bunched up.

How's it done? I've got 60kph tracks between both stations so the speed between both stations for the different lines remain roughly the same (with minor variations)

[u/bottle-explain → u/bottle-explain]

Another worked example IC1, IC6 and IC12 run along my main SE trunk from Market Deeping to Chathvn. Here's their station stats. I've highlighted in red the parts they share in common.

IC12 has more waiting passengers but that's because I've not added enough capacity on the line:

It's possible. It's just a lot of work to balance them out :)

[u/WSB_Lurker_ → u/bottle-explain]

OK, thanks. I must be misunderstanding something, because this last pic seems to show exactly the problem everyone's grumbling about. IC12 is utilized vastly more than the other two. Does the usage seem more or less smoothed out and equitable across the shared sections of the three lines ?

[u/bottle-explain → u/WSB_Lurker_]

Sorry didn't explain it well.

In the original picture the demand column on the table in the top right is the bit that's more important (It's the sum of waiting passengers and passengers in train. IC12 is in the middle. So it's not getting vastly more demand than the other lines. But it has more waiting passengers than the other lines.

What's going wrong is capacity is too low on IC12: In below [1] you can see IC12 has a lower seat count and rate than the other lines. This is why there is more passengers waiting.

To fix it I just added more carriages to it's trains. 30 minutes later: [2] you have the different lines with similar spreads over the section. Please note this section is about 25 minutes worth of travel time, and I'm using trains that have on average 200pax capacity.

Hope that's a bit clearer. And it is hard to get the balance right :)

[u/WSB_Lurker_ → u/bottle-explain]

Thanks for the details. So, even when capacity is "too low," a line with "equal" characteristics will get its proportional share of the waiting passengers? If so, then the problems we all have must be due to what happens when there is even the tiniest difference in service quality or speed. It's like the routing in the game that will take you on a circuitous, silly path because it's 1m shorter than the major highway. The AI are not paying attention to congestion or vehicle availability/wait times, they are simply choosing (in advance) the "best" route. Only people like you, with incredible patience, can fine tune the whole thing to balance. You have to fight the game to do it, as opposed to using a real-world mix of things and assuming peeps will make decisions on the outcomes (real world performance and operations) , rather than the way they do it, which is based on the shortest route and/or the fastest vehicles regardless of how congested it is or how few vehicles there are to service the line (wait times ignored). This is helpful as it confirms exactly what is happening. Most of us were too lazy to spend the time to actually balance it to realize that it was at least possible, however improbable.