Shuttle Mode Confusion

[jakecminihan]

Hi all,

Just building my first monorail system and have selected the shuttle option instead of closed loop. Does this mean I can have only one car on the line? If so, why is this an option, it seems ridiculously inefficient!

Thanks!

 

[retainedkitten]

I agree, maybe it would be nice if you wanted multiple non connected stations?

 

[Indiglow]

I was JUST about to post this...shuttle mode for monorail doesn't seem to work at all...unless you have 1 (ONE!!!) car. You can't have a train of cars. Basically, shuttle mode is 100% useless unless you are ok having 1 small car.

 

[Jileha]

Shuttle mode IRL means transporting people back and forth between two places. The word comes from the weaving tool that is being “shot” between the threads from one side to the other and back again. No stops in between, and a relatively short distance. And as such, a shuttle in the zoo with just one car does make sense. If you have a large safari park and guests don’t want to walk all the way to get there, you can have a shuttle service between that habitat and the zoo’s center, for instance. A shuttle is not meant for sightseeing, so you can increase its speed.

If the distance is so long that people have to wait too long before the shuttle comes back, then build a circuit with as many cars as you need.

It’s great to have different options and you don’t have to build an entire circuit when you don‘t need it. It’s definitely not useless.

 

[Indiglow]

Shuttle mode IRL means transporting people back and forth between two places. The word comes from the weaving tool that is being “shot” between the threads from one side to the other and back again. No stops in between, and a relatively short distance. And as such, a shuttle in the zoo with just one car does make sense. If you have a large safari park and guests don’t want to walk all the way to get there, you can have a shuttle service between that habitat and the zoo’s center, for instance. A shuttle is not meant for sightseeing, so you can increase its speed.

If the distance is so long that people have to wait too long before the shuttle comes back, then build a circuit with as many cars as you need.

It’s great to have different options and you don’t have to build an entire circuit when you don‘t need it. It’s definitely not useless.

The problem is you can't really use the shuttle service effectively. If you want to shuttle people from 1 point to another, all you get is ONE CAR. You don't get a true monorail chain of cars. You get 1. As in 1 small car. Even if you wanted to shuttle a small distance....say from one end of a habitat to another...it's STILL not good because as soon as either line has more than 1 car full of people in it, it's a failure.

Long distance shuttle is absolutely out of the question worthless.

Try it out and see for yourself. It is, in current form, USELESS.

 

[jakecminihan]

Shuttle mode IRL means transporting people back and forth between two places. The word comes from the weaving tool that is being “shot” between the threads from one side to the other and back again. No stops in between, and a relatively short distance. And as such, a shuttle in the zoo with just one car does make sense. If you have a large safari park and guests don’t want to walk all the way to get there, you can have a shuttle service between that habitat and the zoo’s center, for instance. A shuttle is not meant for sightseeing, so you can increase its speed.

If the distance is so long that people have to wait too long before the shuttle comes back, then build a circuit with as many cars as you need.

It’s great to have different options and you don’t have to build an entire circuit when you don‘t need it. It’s definitely not useless.

You make a fair point but I do just want to use it as a people moving service. One car however is hugely inefficient - transporting 6 people at a time is just insanely ineffective and more guests are queuing at the monorail than seeing the animals!

As I said, the shuttle issue is not the time taken between rounds but rather the capacity issue. Ideally it would be something like the Miami Airport people mover:

It acts as a shuttle between only two stops but has a much larger capacity.

I don't want Cities Skylines levels of control over my public transport but actually being able to use it would be nice!

 

[jakecminihan]

I've just searched the issue tracker and found this:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/10068

This may be related to the issue as at first I could add 3 cars in loop mode and now, having made a loop, I can't add more than 1 car.

 

[Bo Marit]

Thanks for reporting it to the Issue Tracker, we will look into this!!

 

[MyRCTisbrokefixit]

2 years later, we still don't have a working shuttle mode because it's "working as intended" which is a code word for "completely useless and we don't feel like making it work".

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Admittedly, it took me two years to build my first monorail.
And lo and behold, I also found the one-car-shuttle mode completely useless. Hence I had to rebuild the whole thing immediately as a loop.

With large-enough stations and multi-car trains, the shuttle mode would probably work just fine and be actually interesting & fun.
Currently, it is pointless.

Oh ... and moderators ... please don’t close this thread as a necro. Apparently, the topic is still quite relevant and the thread’s age (including Bo’s response) seems meaningful in it’s own right.

 

[Kolikokoli]

You can do the same trick as in PlanCo where you "loop" the track into itself so it then creates something like a shuffle mode (there will be only "one track" - actually two tracks inside of each other).
Just turn off track collision and make miniloops after stations. You can have as many vehicles as you want. The only thing that is bad about it is that they will go through each other when they meet but that is a small price for having a shuffle mode on it

(you can turn track collision back after you are finished with building the track)

 

[Roxxsmom]

In real parks, tramways, ski lifts etc that shuttle back and forth often have a two cables running parallel and at the stations there is a sort of geared circle that allows the "cars" or "chairs" to slow down for passengers to hop off before it hops to the other side and goes back in the other direction. I guess there's no way to create that in the game. Monorails seem to run on a big loop more often, such as the ride around the perimeter of several of their big animal enclosures at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Maybe with the monorail, or other ride, the closest approximation to a set up where multiple cars go in one direction then the other along the same route would be to create two tracks side by side and to put a station at either end with the "loop" for changing direction right after it , or maybe even to have two separate rides that run parallel in opposite directions with stations connected by paths? It would take up a fair amount of space given the game's current minimum size of 4 x 4 for laying track, but it might work with planning.

The shuttle monorail with just one car may be useful for short distances up a hill or something, for guests who don't want to climb stairs of ramps? Almost like an elevator on an incline but with just one track.

I am terrible at planning and nice, realistic layout with my rides. Never played the coaster games, though. It was the animals that were the gateway drug for me with PZ, but I have come to enjoy the building (or trying to build) things element of the game.