SimCity 411: The Mass Transit Network

The best cities -- the ones at the top of the leaderboard -- spend design time combining the overall benefits of the various mass transit options into one cohesive mass transit network (MTN) that connects buses, streetcars, planes, trains, and ferries all together into one moneymaking machine.

Even if you have zero tourism, locating these nodes near each other will reduce traffic across your city and open up the local economy and earn you more money.

The MTN and Water

One of the philosophies I've found useful is to have my train station, ferry, and municipal airport all within walking distance of each other. Depending on the map, sometimes this can be unrealistic as getting rail over to the beach where your ferry is going to be may be expensive or take up huge amounts of otherwise valuable space. But on most maps, this is convenient.

The purpose for this is to create a single location where all tourists are going to congregate so that you can send your buses and street cars to that location, pick up the tourists, and then take them to another location specifically made for tourism -- a downtown commercial district. By thinking about tourists in terms of aggregating them, moving them, and disbursing their money, you can turn tourism into a system within your city and generate huge amounts of tax revenue with it.

SimCity 407: Bus Stops

In terms of advanced strategy, one of the best ways to get ahead is to learn how a properly laid out shuttle system can help you. Busing is critical to reducing pollution and making life in your city as awesome as possible for your citizens.

You should anticipate setting aside 4,000 simoleons for twenty bus stops. These bus stops will increase the ability of low-wealth citizens to get to low-wealth jobs. This is key to growing your local economy and you will see a noticeable increase in your total population.

School vs. Shuttle Stops

There are fundamental differences between how you handle school buses and shuttle buses. First is targeting: school buses are about transporting children to and from residential neighborhoods. Period. Shuttle buses cover a much broader area -- namely (ideally) the entire city.

School Stops: Gang of One

Residential neighborhoods need to have one school bus stop for each street. However, there is one exception. Children will walk to school if they can see it from where they live. So you do not need to plop down a stop at either the school or anywhere within, say, twenty houses of the school.

It's much more likely that you will run out of classroom space before you overcrowd your buses, but whenever you happen to plop down a new classroom -- double-check your buses.

Shuttle Stops: Key Locations

Coverage for shuttle buses is much more extensive. In fact, consider it global. Citizens should be able to take a bus from any corner to any other corner. There are several locations that you absolutely want to make sure get a shuttle bus stop. In order by importance, they are:

1. the ferry dock
2. the train station
3. the airport terminal
4. the bus station that sends people out of town
5. all streetcar stations
6. all of your health clinics and hospitals
7. your central business district or shopping area
8. outside your stadium
9. even though it has one of it's own, across the street from a park and ride
10. at any industrial pocket with large factories
11. city hall
12. anywhere weird that attracts tourists like a huge park

As far as residential neighborhoods go, don't get crazy with the bus stops. As you plant stops, you'll notice the color of the streets change. Watch the color changes and -- after planting the essential stops on the list above -- if you still find a pocket of non-green street, then and only then plop down a bus stop.

Don't Double Down

You don't need to set up bus stops across the street from one another -- the game automatically makes your lazy Sims cross the street. Also, just because you see a traffic jam doesn't mean that a stop belongs there. Expand roads to fix jams and persuade people to leave their cars at home by setting up streetcars and adding more buses.

Wait Problems

While watching YouTube, I noticed that a lot of people obsess about wait times. Don't worry about how long someone is warming the bench. Just let them sit there. When you get some extra cash, add some more shuttles. Between now and then, just make sure the bus system as a whole has quality, thoughtful coverage

Post Construction

I forget constantly that when I bulldoze a street it kills off my bus stops. That's mostly because I'm an idiot. Don't make the same mistakes I do.

SimCity 255: Train Station

The train station is a great feature to have in any city. If you can find a way to snake it into the center of your city, that's the best case scenario, as train passengers don't have cars and will have to rely on buses and such if your train station is shoved over in a corner or something like that.

The train station comes with a little piece of starter road attached to the front of it. So you can plop it down anywhere and then connect a road to after it's placed rather than before.

Modules

In the above image of a "fully-upgraded" train station, the sign is the only module that is available and it is only cosmetic.

Upper Class Accommodations

The train only accommodates high-wealth and medium-wealth citizens. It brings in tourists and wealthy customers -- all of which generate tax revenue. However, the train station does nothing for low-wealth Sims. Don't expect these poor souls to travel the rails to their jobs in a distant factory in another city site.

SimCity 254: Ferry

The ferry is a boat that takes Sims too and from their home city sites to other sites for a variety of reasons: shopping, work, crime, etc. The ferry makes regular stops and carries the most Sims of all the mass transit options. In order to utilize the ferry, there needs to be a ferry in a foreign city site as well as your own so that your Sims actually have some place to go and aren't just floating around the ocean getting drunk.

The ferry comes with a little piece of starter road attached to the front of it. So you can plop it down anywhere where there's water and then connect it to the main road after rather than the reverse, which would be insanely inconvenient.

Due to the fact that this ploppable must be dropped near a coastal body of water, you need to set up bus stops outside the ferry to maximize the efficiency of the ferry.

Module: Cruise Ship Dock

This is a huge bonus to your local tourism system. Not only do the cruise ships bring in tourists from foreign lands who shop in your shops, but they also accept local tourists looking for adventure.

SimCity 251: Shuttle Bus

Shuttle buses tote local passengers around the city so they can accomplish the day-to-day tasks they set out to do. This service is especially important for low-wealth citizens who can't afford to own their own car.

Another important aspect of a thorough shuttle bus service is the transportation of workers and tourists who come into your city site but have no car to travel long distances. Failure to service train stations, ferry piers, and streetcar hubs with shuttle bus stops will reduce their effectiveness and cost you money.

Module: Bus Garage

When thousands of Sims depend on your bus service to get where they need to go, wait times can begin to approach and then exceed an hour -- unless, of course, you add more buses to the system. Garages are required for each bus that travels a route and the more you have, the less time your Sims will need to wait. This may, at first, not seem important. However, the faster your Sims get to work, the more money you'll make in tax revenue. So keep your bus system well lubed and your passengers in motion.

SimCity 146: Mass Transit

There is a limit to the amount of traffic your roads can hold. In addition to space considerations, cars create a huge pollution problem. To alleviate (if not eliminate) these two headaches, turn to mass transit for all your transportation needs.

Traffic

Traffic jams are the result of poor mass transit planning. The idea behind mass transit is to convince people to leave their cars at home by providing a fast and convenient alternative that gives you citizens the flexibility to get everything done that they need to get done.

Buses

Buses are the most widely-utilized of the mass transit systems. There are two reasons for this:

• they are adaptable
• they are inexpensive

Buses stop at designated stops around your city (you have to designate where the buses stop) and pick up passengers that they then drop off at other stops. The more stops you have, the more versatile the system. But there's a catch. Each stop that the bus makes can slow traffic on low-density roads -- in effect causing, ironically, a traffic jam.

The buses info icon on the mass transit HUD gives us the following information:

• Buses reduce the number of cars on the road
• All buses use the same bus stops
• Only low and medium-wealth Sims use buses
• Buses bring commuters and tourists from outside your city
• Buses provide a way to remove homeless from your city
• A bus terminal will transport Sims between cities
• Sims will walk 400 meters to a bus stop
• Commercial buildings like bus stops

You can also establish "park-n-rides" -- little parking lots around the city that will consume a small number of cars and come complete with a built-in bus stop. This allows citizens to park their car and then use the bus instead. Done properly, these depots can remove huge amounts of pollution and aid in getting your people to and from work.

Trains

The train info icon on the mass transit HUD gives us the following information:

• Trains carry low and medium wealth commuters and tourists
• Trains run less frequently but carry more passengers
• Trains allow factories to ship freight outside the city
• Trains can only send commuters to cities with a train station
• Trains will ship resources in and out of the global market
• Trains can ship resources between cities

You can set up a train station and then connect it to the main rail line that runs by your city. Doing so will allow you to exchange citizens with your neighbors, increasing workers, taxes, potential citizens, tourists, and reducing the number of cars in your city every day.

Boats

The boat info icon on the mass transit HUD gives us the following information:

• Ferries carry many medium and high wealth commuters and tourists
• Ferries arrive less frequently, but carry the most Sims
• The ferry terminal must be placed along a shoreline
• Ferries can only send commuters to cities that have a ferry terminal
• Ferries can ship resources to neighboring cities
• Ferries can ship resources to and from the global market

Ports allow tourists to go on day-trips and seamen to sing shanties. Both are very profitable.

Planes

The plane info icon on the mass transit HUD gives us the following information:

• Planes carry medium and high wealth commuters and tourists
• Add a cargo terminal to a municipal airport to ship industrial freight
• You need a municipal airport to get EMS helicopters

Planes are expensive for people, so they are only for the wealthiest citizens. However, having access to an airport will increase the wealth factor of your citizens. Beyond that, there is also a bonus to industry as airports also boost cargo movement.

Enjoy them while you can because when we run out of oil, you'll never ride in a plane again.

Streetcars

The streetcar info icon on the mass transit HUD gives us the following information:

• Streetcars give low and medium wealth Sims new ways to get around
• Streetcars carry more Sims than buses and are more efficient
• Streetcars run on special avenues with their own stops

Streetcars attempt to mix the adaptability of a bus with the cargo capacity of a train. When successfully done, an entire city could be run on only streetcars provided there were enough places to park.