City based demand

[JumboShrimp]

Edit: updated the script a bit, and it actually now saves the data too. But if you test it and save something, no worry since I will erase the database before we actually begin later on. (for the time frame, no clues on that yet)

I just looked into populating one or a couple of small countries in Europe.  The question is, some of the categories where data is collected, I can use a pretty good judgement as far as which parts of countries are major, minor centers (relative to the rest of the country), it may be difficult to judge this in absolute terms.

So is the data entered by users going to be "scaled" by the population, gdp data to get the absolute figures, or is what we are entering the absolute data.

[JumboShrimp]

Ok, populated one country (Slovakia).  It would be useful to have a way to view data (once populated), perhaps have a record who entered it, and a way to update / override data entered.

[Sami]

The idea is that you basically know that country, or have good general knowledge otherwise, so that you are able to fill in the data about holiday/industrial/business to every country without having to really google or search the data. Of course in Africa etc. we don't have locals to do the job, so guesstimation comes into effect ... And so on.

GDP is a factor, but for this tool, the 1-5 figures for the values are absolute. If you choose "large" to the holiday destination, then it will be large in global scale. At least that's how I have figured it out.

But as said, I will need to play and test around with this still (and make the instructions) before this tool can actually be used for real work.


So once again a general reminder: if you edit some data with this tool, it may very well be erased. So pls do not spend time on it just yet. Once the project really starts I will make own subforum for the coordination and talk

[JumboShrimp]

The tool works well on a small country.  Larger country takes a while to load, but still within reason.  View and edit of data enetered is i think something that may need to be added.

Additional improvement possible to this data entry tool (if it is not too dificult) would be to have some easy way of checking reasonableness of data, such as global map by industry, business, tourist destination, roadway quality by color, so that the potential problematic data would stand out.

[andriitis]

Populated Latvia. Hope I got the data +/- alright. One thing about the squares - they are really kind of malplaced when it comes to Latvia. In reality, Riga-Jurmala is the largest industrial and tourism centre of the whole country, with approximately half the population living in the area. Right now this area is in the middle of four squares, making it quite hard to segment it adequately.

With regards to air travel, Riga is the only place. There have been a few attempts for domestic services (on small <30 pax planes) between Liepaja/Ventspils and Riga, but they have all failed since it is not economically feasible. Also the bus&rail services are very cheap, very few would pay 50 EUR+ to go by plane when the bus takes 3 hours and costs maybe 7 EUR.

Over the past years rumours are flying that RyanAir will establish a base at Tukums Airport (plans to convert it to civilian airport at the moment) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tukums_air_base - which could take a chunk of Riga's traffic, but otherwise there is only Riga for air travel and that is how it looks to remain in the near future.

Anyway, if you want some help with regards to Latvia, let me know, I can to try dig up some more data if you want to.

[Sami]

We are looking for a couple of members who would like to be the "moderators" in the data collection.

In other words to be able to spend some time in checking out the data submitted by others. Just to scout for large-scale errors for example. Drop me a note if interested.

[Curse]

I'm really excited this is going forward.

I was not able to follow the forum and the overall development in detail the last month, so please forgive if I ask a question that was answered well before.


Is part of this city based demand system - or an addition to it in the future - something like DYNAMIC city based demand?


As far as I know the data we add is based on actual time line, so 2012? Wouldn't it be an alternative to add additionall data for 1950? An algorithm between those datas could show and express the developmend.

Background: We can do some math to see how most Western states developed, like the US or Germany. But what about states that fall (Russia) or were some kind of desert before a big boom (UAE).


What my questions aim to:
Will there be dynamic city based demand to push cities like it was done in real life for Atlanta, Dubai or earlier Halifax and Tahiti?

An example story of what I mean was once written here (post #1, long text, please ignore everything else beside the Tahiti-development-story):
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,30655.0.html

[Sami]

Country GDP history will take of the historical effects.

However, what we cannot model that in this tool ... -> We tag for example Dubai as major holiday destination, then it will be that also in the 1950s when it was bare desert. Of course the GDP coefficient will have effect on that (1950 vs 2012) but I have no clue how much that will actually be. But we cannot collect the square data on historical aspect, it would be too difficult.

And the GDP can be dynamic/randomn if we want or follow history (I do have historical data globally / per country between about 1970 and 2010).

[Jona L.]

like the US or Germany

Bad examples... either ones (especially Germany) developed a lot better than most other countries (*cough*PIIGS states*cough*) which means that the worlds economy would be boosted by about 5-6% every year, while some countries degraded by over 10-20%...

But the idea of considering a couple of countries to find a possible average-growth, though this would lead to under-real development for some countries (such as West GER) and over-real development for others (e.g. East Germany)...

cheers,
Jona L.

[Curse]

US and Germany were examples of relatively constant growth from 1950 to 2010.

@ sami

I see your point.

But could it be possible that some kind of algorithm takes into account when cities are very well served (that means they have a base of a very large airline in there) and when some are poorley served (small airline, no airline, airline BK)?

This would make it much more attractive to base at a random airport like Marseille or Kansas City instead of always choosing Paris and Chicago.

Unfortunately I have no clue if this could be coded some way.

[JumboShrimp]

Curse,

I think modeling relative rise and fall of different areas within countries would be a nightmare from data collection, and also, it would add complexity to the system.  For example, within the US, the relative rise of the South and West, and relative decline of the North East and Mid West would be one example of this.

As far as dynamic growth of the squares depending how well they are served by airlines (for passengers and cargo) would be a fantastic feature, but I would leave it after we have a bare-bones square demand and passenger connectivity implemented.

[Curse]

I'm fully on your side. I just wanted to bring the idea up again to avoid something like "oooh, hm, why didn't you have said this before we gathered data" or something like that.

I can't wait to see the first step, city based demand, go online.

[JumboShrimp]

We are looking for a couple of members who would like to be the "moderators" in the data collection.

In other words to be able to spend some time in checking out the data submitted by others. Just to scout for large-scale errors for example. Drop me a note if interested.

Sami,

I was wondering about something before we the project is started.  I suspect we will get a lot of inconsistent data.  To combat that, I would store, on country level, industrilization level, comerce level and tourism level.  Let's say the scale is 0 to 16.  Then, on the square level, we would be entering data relative to the country, maybe the current 6 (IIRC) degrees.  They would be +4, +2, +0, -2, -4 and absolute zero.  Adding the relative level to the coutry level would produce the absolute level on a scale of 0 tp 20.  So let's a country is a major commercial center (let's say Japan), it may be, a 15 as a country.  Then, Tokyo city center would get a +4 on commerce, and would be a 19 on an absolute scale.

The contribution to the absolute (from country data and relative within country) could be different, it is just an example...

The country level data could facilitate industrial and commercial development over time, while within country, the relative figures to the country would remain fixed.

[plasticforks]

Entered data for Taiwan

[alexgv1]

Entered data for Taiwan

How will things like HSR (high speed rail) be modelled which are built at a set time (1990s?) and dramatically change Taipei-Kaoshing air demand? Same for Channel tunnel (LHR-CDG, BUR).

[Sami]

Entered data for Taiwan

As it reads in this thread and written in the data editor tool at the page top too (the large warning box!), this is still useless work as the actual instructions have not been published and the tool data will be reseted when it actually starts.


(and since people are missing the obvious info, the tool is now offline)

[ICEcoldair881]

How will things like HSR (high speed rail) be modelled which are built at a set time (1990s?) and dramatically change Taipei-Kaoshing air demand? Same for Channel tunnel (LHR-CDG, BUR).

shhhhhhhh, keep that to yourself.

[Jona L.]

shhhhhhhh, keep that to yourself.

if I were you, I'd see a couple of solutions:
a) place a bomb on the HSR; b) buy the HSR and terminate the service; c) choose different location and don't care for rail; d) simply l2p and stop caring about unimportant things...

Austin, just live with it, life is unfair... e.g. FRA being closed at night now, Environmental TAXes on flight tickets in the EU, etc, etc, etc....

[Sami]

GDP will be one value that will affect the demand (most studies show that GDP change equals 2x air travel demand change, roughly). This can be actually installed to present-day demand module too.


Here's an example from admin area view:

Data pre-1970 is missing for all countries, otherwise data is historical & real for most of the countries, and post-2010 are estimates. I will also create global and world area specific graphs in similar style so countries with no real data can follow the global economic model.

By default all data is based on this, but each game would also allow customization of these graphs. But I would suspect that goes to be too difficult.

(have to say that the future estimated values of this data are quite optimistic ... each country is labeled with a ~2-7% growth. will probably discard the future estimated data)

[Sami]

And while talking of the desert countries, here's Qatar.

Gives you an idea how the demand of a single country will change over time .. take 2010 for example, and scroll back to 1980 and look the difference. Similar difference is expected in the pax demands in/to this country.