Don't you hate bunching buses?

In this photo, 3 buses from service 240 have bunched up!

Bunching buses - a term used to describe buses that (somehow) end up traveling together, even though they may have left the bus terminal/interchange at regular intervals. Ideally, buses that leave the bus terminal/interchange at regular intervals should keep their "spacing", so that buses arrive regularly at the bus stops (and passengers don't complain about irregular buses!).

In my Simutrans world, I have found out that when I simply let the buses run, they will end up bunching. And so the first bus is constantly packed, and the buses behind sometimes run empty (and this is unprofitable!). Therefore I had to come up with possible solutions to get the buses to keep their "spacing" between each other.

Screenshot showing the bus route that is the focus of this post

The bus route in detail. Note the first stop is an interchange and provides connections to the MRT network, and the 8th stop, the terminal stop.

One solution that I came up is applied to one of my (many) bus routes, shown in the screenshot above (with highlights showing the bus route and stops). What I did was to add a minimum load criterion for the terminal stop (8th stop in the route details), as well as a maximum waiting time (after which the bus will leave for the next stop, regardless of its load); what this meant is that buses will leave the terminal stop at regular intervals.

This measure was used with great success, and buses now run at regular intervals along the entire route. I am currently working on using this approach on other routes, but there are some significant problems:

• Most of my bus routes loop somewhere, unlike this example where buses simply run back and fro along a fixed route. This means that there are problems in deciding where the "terminal" stop should be, since there really isn't a terminal stop to begin with! Nonetheless I am experimenting this approach with some routes that loop somewhere, and hopefully I can get buses to run more regularly along the routes with loops.
• There is a need to monitor and adjust the maximum waiting time so that crowds of passengers don't build up at the interchange stations!

Coming soon, another post on the design of bus routes in the cities!

Documentary: Building The Biggest Railway

Hi there! Recently I have been wasting my time on Youtube instead of doing other more productive stuff (eg. going to the gym), and I have come across a few series of interesting videos, which I thought I would like to share on this blog.

Here's the first one. It's from the Discovery Channel, and it's called Building the Biggest Railway. This episode focuses on the maintenance and replacement of the train tracks from London to Glasgow, one of the most busiest stretch of railway in the world. Which of course reminds me of the MRT breakdowns that occured last month. Here are some of the defining photos of the breakdowns:

The tunnel walk!

So much for emergency lighting ...

The single photo that spawned multiple spoofs. What a field day for SG's photoshoppers!

WP's Chen Shou Mao among those having to take the shuttles on the Sunday morning when trains started operation later than usual for thorough checks on the MRT system. Just got to like his trademark smile! ;)

Transport Minster Lui Tuck Yew observing maintenance work at the tracks near Marina Bay MRT. Got to commend him on his proactive presence on the ground, checking the transport system ever since he stepped into office. Keep up the good work!

Coming back to the main point of this point, the first part of the episode is below, and the rest of the clips can be found under the related videos. Enjoy ;)

Cities, cities, and more cities!

After the introduction to the MRT system in my Simutrans world, it's time to introduce the various cities, and I'll start off with the Western cities: Springby, Mallilock, Baringham and Heppville.

Springby city

Springby is one of the first few cities to be developed, and as such, it plays an important role (think capital city!). Many monuments can be found at Springby, and passenger volumes through Springby station is very high, because the city itself is very big. While only 3 bus services serve this city, a total of 40+ buses run around to ferry people around the city.

Mallilock city

Mallilock is one of the last few cities to be developed, as it was born primarily to fill up the empty space between Baringham and Springby cities. It is a small-sized city, and has about 20+ buses running around to shuttle people around the city.

Baringham city

Baringham is one of the first few cities to be linked up to the freight network through its freight yard, primarily because it has a steel mill that produces steel when coal and iron ore are supplied to it. It is a mid-sized town, with 3 bus services and about 20+ buses shuttling people around the city.

Heppville city

Heppville is another one of the cities to be developed first, and Heppville station also has high passenger flows, as it provides a direct link to a medieval castle (tourist attraction). Currently, it is a mid-sized city, with buses going around to transport people between various parts of the city and the MRT station.

And now for the Eastern cities: Ashlock, Hillchester, Pollingwick, Pinemouth and Brentham ;)

Ashlock city

Hillchester city

Pollingwick city

Pinemouth city

Brentham city

And finally, here are the cities on the MRT Middle line!

Baringlock city

Torwick city

Brentmouth city

Torton and Newbury cities

Malliville city

More updates on the bus services are coming soon!

How would you design a MRT system?

First of all, Merry Christmas to you, my valued readers!

I have always been interested in MRT networks. Specifically, how to design such a network. Through Simutrans, I could experiment, design and build (and even monitor and test!) my MRT network. So to start off a tour of my Simutrans transport network, I thought the best place to start would be by introducing the MRT network in my network:

An overview of my transport network, showing all the cities, but I'm sure nobody can figure out where are my MRT lines!

 Since the map above is not so clear, I specially drew a system map:

And here the MRT lines are highlighted in the overview map: (the colours follow those in the system map)

And now it's time for some history behind the development of these lines:

Initially, when I first started playing the game, I had planned for a MRT line to link up all the cities (all 8 of them at the start), but then I realized that the positions of the initial 8 cities did not allow me to simply build a "Circle line" linking all the cities. Therefore I opted to build (or "found", as in Simutrans) more cities so that I could build such a "Circle line".

Hence, the first line to be completely built was the Circle line (currently the West and East lines). This line was built in stages (just like Singapore's Circle line) :

1. The section from Heppville to Pinemouth (clockwise direction) opens. All stations except Mallilock and Malliville are operational (those 2 cities were not founded yet). Trains went from Heppville to Pinemouth, and then back to Heppville.
2. The section from Pollingwick to Heppville opens, thus Baringlock station was opened (Brentham station was not opened as Brentham was not founded yet). Trains either went in the clockwise or anticlockwise direction around the line.
3. Mallilock and Brentham stations were opened as those 2 cities were founded, thus providing residents of those 2 cities a direct and quick link to the rest of the network (and residents of other cities more places to go to!).
4. Malliville was the last station to be opened on the Circle line. This station was opened in conjunction with its inauguration as the northern terminus for the Middle line (see next paragraph).

With the opening of the Circle line, Torwick was the only city not to have direct MRT service. Thus I started to plan for another MRT line to link up Torwick to the MRT system, and with this, the Middle line was born! 3 new cities of varying sizes were founded (Newbury, Torton, and Brentmouth) so that there would be sufficient ridership on the Middle line, and initially, the Middle line terminated at Springby and Baringlock stations. However, I decided to shift the northern terminus of the Middle line to Malliville station, where there is more space to build interchanges (and space to contain people - Springby station was getting too congested!).

After a while, I noticed that the trains tend to bunch up together, even though I deployed the trains at regular intervals. Therefore, to reduce the bunching, I decided to cleave the Circle line into 2 separate lines, the East and West lines, so that the trains have a terminal station that they can terminate at (and thus I can better space out the trains). Furthermore this allowed me to add more trains to the line segment that was experiencing higher ridership more easily.

With the overview of the MRT network complete, the next few posts would elaborate on the various cities in my Simutrans world :)

My Simutrans World

Hi there! Ever since the A Levels have ended (almost) a month ago, I have been playing this game (almost) every day; from when I wake up to when I sleep, which is about 12+ hours each day. While others are addicted to MMORPGs like DOTA or WoW, this is the game that I'm addicted to:

In a nutshell, the goal of the game is to transport passengers, goods and mail by a variety of modes of transport (rail, road, monorail). Seems easy? Consider the transport system that I'm working on, shown below in the screengrab:

This screenshot shows all the buildings. However it hides most of the road network!

This screenshot hides all the residential buildings, so that the road network is more visible!

Currently, my system comprises of 15 cities of varying sizes, 3 MRT lines linking up the cities, a railway network that is used to transport freight, as well as over 600+ convoys (buses, trains, monorails) running around in my Simutrans network!

In the coming few days, I will be posting more information on the following:

• Details, as well as the (feeder) bus network, of each of the cities in my Simutrans network
• Development of the MRT network as well as the freight network

So do check back to find out more about my cities in Simutrans!

Long time no post!

It's been a very long time (more than 1 year I think) since I have come over to Blogger to update my blog. Quite a lot of things have changed since then:

• Myself! I have since completed the A Levels (my last post was after the Promos!) and now I am waiting to get myself a boat ride into the resort island of Tekong. But more on that on another post (that is if I do decide not to procrastinate!) ...
• The Blogger interface has changed drastically! After changing to a brand new look, Blogger looks like it has totally shed its old look (like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly?), and I'm still getting used to it. Upon exploring around, it seems that my blog still can get some pageviews which I don't know if it is due to friends coming to this blog or by bots. Hahaha :)

Later and in the next few days, I will be posting images of the things that I am involved in now that I've completed my A levels. So do check back for updates soon!

Welcome to my Simutrans world!

Welcome to my blog!
I have posted details of the game that I'm playing now, Simutrans, in this blog. They can be accessed by clicking the following links:

• An Introduction to my Simutrans world
• The MRT system
• Cities present in my Simutrans world
• More about my bus services in my Simutrans world: Part 1 and Part 2
• The freight network [Currently under construction]
  

I Made It - Kevin Rudolf

I finally made it to the top! With a mindblowing rank point of 78.8/80, I got ahead of everybody else of my cohort; essentially I'm the top student among the JC1s in AJC!

Thus, today's song, I Made It by Kevin Rudolf, is appropriate to express my emotions :P Anyway, enjoy!


Lyrics to I Made It [Kevin Rudolf]

[Intro - Birdman]
Yeah
Cash money heroes
Private jets
Polish, fly!

[Chorus - Kevin Rudolf]
I look up to the sky
and now the world is mine
I've known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt
I made it, I made it!

[Verse 1 - Kevin Rudolf]
Known from the city where no one believed in me
But I never gave up the fight.
Yeah, but now I'm on top.
I told you to let it rock (Rock!)
Now the money's fallin' from the sky-y-y-y-y
I made it.

[Chorus]
I look up to the sky
and now the world is mine
I've known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt
I made it, I made it!

[Verse 2 - Birdman]
Yeah
YM
CMB baby
Birdman
Swagged out
100
Rooftop, hella choppa burning smoke
Louis bag stay strapped wit' a priceless glow
High life, flippin' and gettin'some more.
Paradise, the luxury marble floor
When I hit, hit me full of that cash
More money than I seen in a garbage can
On Stunna Island, money and the power
That's how we do it, make it rain make it shower
Top floor, big timer doin' big things
Over city views bought shawty new Range
Flip another 100, poppin' throwin' hundreds
In a new Bently, uptown stunna!

[Chorus]
I look up to the sky (to the sky!)
and now the world is mine (the world is mine!)
I've known it all my life (all my life)
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt
I made it, I made it!

OOOOH I made it
i made it
i made it
i made it
I-I-I made it

[Verse 3 - Jay Sean]
Yo, ay, ay, ay, listen
See I don't live for glamour, and I don't care for fame
I'm in this for the love of the game
Funny how things can change
They didn't believe in me then
Now callin' my na-ame
Now look who cashed in
They didn't wanna know me back then
But ever since I done gone platinum
Everything turned around
And now the sky is falling downnnnnn

[Chorus]
I look up to the sky (down now)
and now the world is mine (mine)
I've known it all my life (oh oh oh oh oh oh)
I made it, I made it! (i made it)
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt (oh ho)
I made it, I made it!

[Verse 4 - Lil' Wayne]
Came from the gutter, lookin' like my motha
Made it to the goal line, straight out the huddle
Cash Money goldmine, Weezy stay loyal
Boy we gettin' money like we just found oil
Uh and that's word to my red flag
I live first and leave the bull s**t dead last
I lay it down so hard I got a bedrash
And i just tell 'em to loaf it when the bread pass
Starin' at you from the top of the game man
I might drop the world if I change hands
Uh, it feel good to be here
Weezy in the building got this b***h rebuilt
Young Money

[Chorus]
I look up to the sky
and now the world is mine
I've known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt
I made it, I made it!
i look up to the skyyy!
i made it!

Ooo!
i made it
I made it
I-I-I made it
i made it
i made it
i made it
Yes I did
Yes I did
Yes I did
Yes I did
Yes I did
I-I-I made it

I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas

Before today, I had a good feeling about my Promo results. After all my left eye had been twitching continually yesterday. So when I received my results today I got a shock. A good one though :) Especially with GP: From MYCT's S, now I got a B!!! All the other results also had their results upgraded, and Geog was also surprising, with a shockingly high A! Looks like I can have a good night's sleep tonight :D

So here's a nice song to fit today' mood. It's I Gotta Feeling, by the Black Eyed Peas. Enjoy!


Lyrics to I Gotta Feeling [Black Eyed Peas]
I gotta feeling...
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

A feeling... Woohoo
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

Tonight's the night,
Let's live it up
I got my money,
Let's spend it up
Go out and smash it
Like oh my God
Jump off that sofa,
Let's get, get off

I know that we'll have a ball
If we get down and go out and just lose it all
I feel stressed out, I wanna let it go
Let's go way out spaced out
And losing all control
(Chi CHi Chi)

Fill up my cup,
mazel tov
Look at her dancing,
Just take it off
Let's paint the town,
We'll shut it down
Let's burn the roof,
And then we'll do it again

Let's do it,
Let's do it,
Let's do it,
Let's do it
And do it and do it,
Let's live it up
And do it and do it
And do it, do it, do it
Let's do it, let's do it,
Let's do it

'Cause I gotta feeling, woohoo,
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

A feeling, woohoo,
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

I gotta a feeling
Tonight's the night
(Hey! )
Let's live it up
(Let's live it up)
I got my money
(Paid! )
Let's spend it up
(Let's spend it up)

Go out and smash it
(Smash it)
Like oh my God
(Like oh my God)
Jump off that sofa
(Come on! )
Let's get, get off

Fill up my cup
(Drank)
Mazel tov
(L'chaim)
Look at her dancing
(Move it, move it)
Just take it off

Let's paint the town
(Paint the town)
We'll shut it down
(Let's shut it down)
Let's burn the roof
(Whoooo)
And then we'll do it again

Let's do it,
Let's do it,
Let's do it,
Let's do it
And do it and do it,
Let's live it up
And do it and
Do it and do it,
Do it, do it
Let's do it, let's do it,
Let's do it, do it, do it, do it

Here we come,
Here we go,
We gotta rock
(Rock rock rock rock rock)
Easy come,
Easy go,
Now we on top
(Top top top top top)
Feel the shot,
Body rock,
Rock it,
Don't stop
(Stop stop stop stop stop)
Round and round, up and down,
Around the clock
(Rock rock rock rock rock)

Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday
Friday, Saturday,
Saturday to Sunday
Get, get, get, get,
Get with us, you know what we say, say
Party every day, p-p-p-party every day

And I'm feelin', woohoo,
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

I gotta feeling, woohoo,
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night

Woohoo

Magic - B.o.B feat. Rivers Cuomo

I'm back after a 1 month + hiatus! Now it's time to chill out and today's song shall be Magic, by B.o.B, featuring Rivers Cuomo. Enjoy!



Lyrics to Magic [B.o.B feat. Rivers Cuomo]
I got the magic in me
Every time I touch that track
It turns into gold
Everybody knows

I've got the magic in me
When I hit the flow the girls come
Snappin' at me
Now everybody wants some presto

Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
I got the magic in me

These tricks that I'll attempt
Will blow your mind
Pick a verse, any verse
I'll hypnotize you with every line

I'll need a volunteer
How about you, with the eyes?
Come on down to the front
And stand right here and don't be shy

I'll have you time-travellin'
Have your mind babblin'
People tryin' to inherit the skill
So they askin' me

Even David Blaine had to go
And take some classes
And I see Mindfreak like
What's up man, what's happenin'?

So come one, come all
And see the show tonight
Prepare to be astounded
No Ghost or Poltergeist

You know I'm no Pinocchio
I've never told a lie
So call me Mr. Magic Man
I float on Cloud Nine

I got the magic in me
(I got the magic, baby)
Every time I touch that track it
Turns into gold
(Yes it turns to gold)
Everybody knows

I've got the magic in me
(I got the magic, baby)
When I hit the flow the girls come
Snappin' at me
(They be snappin' baby)
Now everybody wants some presto

Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
I got the magic in me

Well, take a journey into my mind
You'll see why it's venom I rhyme
Stay on the road
So I call my mama when I got time

I hit the stage, go insane
Then jump into that crowd
See, see, when I rhyme
I flow on the beat like pidda-dow-dow

See I deceive you with my
Intergalactic ether
I sing just like Aretha
So respect me like I'm Caesar

I kick it like Adidas
Flowin' sticky like adhesive
Be cautious, 'cause what I be on
Will leave you with amnesia

I break all the rules
Like Evel Knievel
It's a spectacular show
'Cause my heart pumps diesel

So whatever you saying
It don't entertain my ego
I do this everyday
Hocus pocus is my styl-o

I got the magic in me
(I got the magic, baby)
Every time I touch that track it
Turns into gold
(Yes it turns to gold)
Everybody knows

I've got the magic in me
(I got the magic, baby)
When I hit the flow the girls come
Snappin' at me
(They be snappin' baby)
Now everybody wants some presto

Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
Magic, magic, magic
I got the magic in me