Hello,
I know I saw something in the forum 2/3 years ago but I can't find it anymore, ...
This is to talk, and ask, if something will be made in the future to properly model the demand between :
- "former colonies" and "former colonizers", strong cultural and economical links remain
- overseas territories, "islands" such as in the Carribean, Indian Ocean islands, Pacific Ocean islands etc.. and the rest of the world, based on realistic facts.
This particular modeling properly made would allow gamers many new possibilities of creating regional prop. airliners. It is nearly impossible 'til now as the demand has no logic.
Here are some examples from the Jet Age 7, I found similar inconsistencies in every game.
> France has overseas territories in the Carribean all connected in real life : no demand in the games
> Paris Orly is the major airport to serve all those overseas territories, low demand in the games
> All Caribbean islands should have at least a medium demand to Miami, low or no demand in the games from all small /medium airports
> Strong demand should exist between Lisboa and Angola (former Port. colony)
> Demand between Jakarta and Amsterdam should be way way higher than demand from Jakarta to London or Frankfurt
> A good demand should exist between Sydney and all pacific islands such as Tahiti, Fiji, Nouméa etc..., same from Auckland
> A very strong demand should exist between France and Northern Africa etc etc...
Thanx !!
And enjoy the game ;)
I believe there are only few "custom created" routes out there, like Hong Kong to Taipei Taoyuan, Haneda to Sapporo, and the one in South America.
There are tons of routes that needs that kind of fixing. But sami is developing a whole new passenger system, so I don't think that he has time to fix every small route one by one..
Plus to add to this, demand from British and German airports should be waaaay higher for Spanish and Greek destinations.
Quote from: Jules on February 28, 2013, 01:45:46 PM
Plus to add to this, demand from British and German airports should be waaaay higher for Spanish and Greek destinations.
Agree, lots of holiday makers. But it would only be for 6 months or so of the year. We don't yet know if/how city based demand and the scheduling system will handle seasonal demand.
It´s the same old discussion over and over....how could an automated system reflect all special relationships between any two points in the world ? It is simply impossible. Same thing with seasonal demand. Every route would have to be tweaked manually. It´s the question of how much work this system would need to be managed/coded.
How much work would it need on our side to cope with extreme seasonal changes? Don´t forget not everybody is able to play this game for some hours per day.I heard some really have to work for a living, that includes the creator of this game.And not everybody is sitting next to a computer or can watch his phone all the time.
For every lacking demand compared to RL there is a demand in game, that doesn´t exist out there.Why don´t you ask Sami to correct this, too ?
These country relations can be easily modeled even with the current systems if we'd have the data for it. But for most of the world, we don't as it's pure manual work in forming the country-pair relations (over 50 year span in history) and using judgement to determine the level of demand... Volunteers are welcome as always.
Seasonal demand won't be modelled as players wouldn't keep up with it (= change your schedules every 6 months).
Quote from: sami on February 28, 2013, 03:02:17 PM
These country relations can be easily modeled even with the current systems if we'd have the data for it. But for most of the world, we don't as it's pure manual work in forming the country-pair relations (over 50 year span in history) and using judgement to determine the level of demand... Volunteers are welcome as always.
Seasonal demand won't be modelled as players wouldn't keep up with it (= change your schedules every 6 months).
volunteers for what? how could someone help you? with the demands of certain routes maybe?
How do you find out the demand of a route? Just by clicking through real-life timetables? By telling stories of ancient memories about taking a holiday trip with some type of aircraft?
These numbers are fully dependant on airline decisions and don´t tell you anything about the real demands of potential passengers. And this game should not turn into a re-design program of existing airlines.
Sami was answering the question of the OP, who was asking for a very special political and therefore traffic-immanent relation between European states and their overseas colonies over a longer period of time.Obviously that can be modelled, if someone is helping him with global historical dates.
All other posters relate to some "observations" they made especially relating holiday traffic. That won´t be modelled for very obvious reasons.
No, we are most definitely NOT looking for some individual's memories about "demand" on some route. I was talking about the country relations there.
(It's rather simple in this style:
North Korea - South Korea => demand factor 0
Portugal - Angola => demand factor 1.5)
Quote from: sami on February 28, 2013, 06:05:21 PM
(It's rather simple in this style:
North Korea - South Korea => demand factor 0
Portugal - Angola => demand factor 1.5)
Germany <-> Turkey => demand factor 20+ ;D
Seriously, even in winter the supply is insane with a very high LF. TK sends a
daily 2000 seats each way in winter and nera to 25k/week in summer between DUS and IST only. LF 90-100% (which in AWS is a demand of ~900 (MT))
So demand factor should be something like 2.5-3 for GER-TUR.
Only speaking of DUS of course, but it is a good example how off the demand is sometimes.
cheers,
[SC] Jona L.
An example of strong cultural ties between two countries.
Where can I send an excel file with all compiled informations on special links between countries or regions ?
Thanx.
I wouldn´t call demand Germany-Turkey a sign of strong cultural ties. It´s because on one side Turks form the biggest group of foreign work-force that came to Germany since the 60s. On the other side Turkey (especially Antalya) became the most visited holiday spot besides Spain (Mallorca), also valid for people that spend the winters there (pensionists) or own appartments they have to care for.
But the second part of demand formed only some years ago and possibly will decline in the future when cheaper destinations pop up.
I don´t know how something like that can be worked into system except tweaking it manually for every season between 1950-2020.
Quote from: exchlbg on March 09, 2013, 04:31:34 PM
I don´t know how something like that can be worked into system except tweaking it manually for every season between 1950-2020.
I'm sorry you don't consider Turks cultured :(
Sami said it would be as simple to model as changing the value from 1.0 to 2.0, for example, in his earlier post. The fact is that the flights between these countries will be higher due to visiting friends and relatives, and Turks liking to go home for their holidays (similarly Germans like holidaying in such places too?)
I did´t say the Turks have no culture. There are just no historical ties as maybe between UK and their colonies, just a special kind of relation.
I didn´t say anything against the facts of higher traffic, which is obvious, I was asking to which extent any possible special relation between two parts of the globe can be modelled in the database for a 70-year timespan.If Sami says, it´s easy, so let´s go for it.
And please stop putting words into my mouth.
Quote from: exchlbg on March 09, 2013, 05:19:32 PM
I did´t say the Turks have no culture. There are just no historical ties as maybe between UK and their colonies, just a special kind of relation.
Not after Tuesday night... #robbed
Quote from: exchlbg on March 09, 2013, 05:19:32 PM
And please stop putting words into my mouth.
Sorry it's another one of those British humour things apparently. What do you mean above?
Yeah there are no long term political links that I know of, seeing as Turkey was only born in the last century I guess it's impossible. As you say the important thing is the demand not the reasons for it (bums on seats either way).
Quote from: Pilot Oatmeal on March 09, 2013, 05:23:53 PM
Not after Tuesday night... #robbed
Haha, the football. I was raging.
Quote from: Julien on February 27, 2013, 06:11:52 PM
> A very strong demand should exist between France and Northern Africa etc etc...
Thanx !!
And enjoy the game ;)
You can thank me for the high demand between Algeria and France. :)
Now, Morocco and Tunisia are not so lucky (or really any other former French colonies)
Quote from: Seattle on March 09, 2013, 06:45:45 PM
You can thank me for the high demand between Algeria and France. :)
Now, Morocco and Tunisia are not so lucky (or really any other former French colonies)
Seattle and Algeria *shudder* I still have fond memories of being soundly beaten, and that was back in beta... ::)
Since the PAX allocation system does not make a difference between huge amounts of seasonal leasure PAX and the average traffic (business)
PAX, it should be very difficult to get a reasonable all-year-average demand between many destinations.
Maybe the new city based demand model may bring the answer as regions can be differentiated as business/family or mainly leisure areas.
Quote from: exchlbg on March 09, 2013, 10:48:26 PM
Since the PAX allocation system does not make a difference between huge amounts of seasonal leasure PAX and the average traffic (business)
PAX, it should be very difficult to get a reasonable all-year-average demand between many destinations.
Maybe the new city based demand model may bring the answer as regions can be differentiated as business/family or mainly leisure areas.
It would be nice for the pax to be split between business (frequency/service sensitive) and leisure (price sensitive ad more seasonal). This was an old idea but I'm not sure how necessary it is as this was from before the new pax allocation. Sami says seasonality wouldn't be modelled so some average will be taken I guess. City based demand our answer to everything haha.
(Although actually the game is great as it is and I am really enjoying playing it again after an absence of 5 or so months)
Quote from: Name_Omitted on March 09, 2013, 08:40:21 PM
Seattle and Algeria *shudder* I still have fond memories of being soundly beaten, and that was back in beta... ::)
Hehe ;D
Though, after around two years of absence, I'm ashamed to say, I have not yet crushed the competition at ALG. :-[
Quote from: exchlbg on March 09, 2013, 10:48:26 PM
Since the PAX allocation system does not make a difference between huge amounts of seasonal leasure PAX and the average traffic (business)
PAX, it should be very difficult to get a reasonable all-year-average demand between many destinations.
Maybe the new city based demand model may bring the answer as regions can be differentiated as business/family or mainly leisure areas.
Stop over complicating things, exchlbg. Everything does not have to be super specific, and calculating a reasonable all-year average is simple math. There's no need for a perfect ratio between business or leisure travel.
I think what also needs to be taken into consideration which may be complicated however is connecting passengers if there isn't a direct route... for example if there is no flight between Stansted and Prague, however there is a flight from Stansted to Amsterdam and a flight from Amsterdam and Prague, then more people will take this flight, a real life example would be that I fly between Bremen and Riga however we stopped flying to Tallinn for the winter, therefore we get many Estonians on our Riga flight who then take connecting flight to Riga and when we operate Porto we get people who are flying there to catch a long haul flight to South America.
Away that this could be implemented is that if there is no flight between point A and point B, but a flight from A to C which then has a flight from C to B, then there demand between the routes is higher unless someone opens a direct flight between the two routes. For example:
50 people from Amsterdam want to get to Istanbul, 80% of them are willing to catch a connecting flight to London leaving a demand for the connection as 40.
Meaning the demand for the Amsterdam to London is 40 pax higher, then the demand between London and Istanbul is also 40 pax higher.
However later in the year your airline opens a direct flight between Amsterdam and Istanbul meaning the demand for the Amsterdam to London and London to Istanbul flight drops 40 pax... this is just an example, obviously it would have to take into account how convenient the connection is, for example no one would buy a ticket from Amsterdam to New York from New York to Istanbul, you'd have to find a way for the system to recognize the quickest connections to only increase the demand on those routes.... man this is getting complicated, can someone think of another way?
Jules, that are great ideas, but do you really think, those wern´t had already? Discussions about how to bring connectivity into game without a complicating things would fill books.
Normally it´s me who´s talking against changing demand model because of discrepancies between sim and RL, I did so earlier in this thread.
The closer other players want this game tied to RL numbers, the more complicated everything gets, that´s for sure.
If it was me to decide I would leave it mostly how it is, demands calculated on a fixed formula without too much exceptions.
We have to keep the average player in mind, who does not have the time to do special researches about possible cultural ties between two nations in any era.
Likewise I would ask all other players to stop complaining about discrepancies in PAX numbers to here or there. We are simulating airlines in simulated worlds, not replaying todays schedules all the time. Fot every demand that seems to be too small in here there´s dozen of others which don´t apper in RL. Overall traffic number are higher here, anyway.
Quote from: sami on February 28, 2013, 03:02:17 PM
These country relations can be easily modeled even with the current systems if we'd have the data for it. But for most of the world, we don't as it's pure manual work in forming the country-pair relations (over 50 year span in history) and using judgement to determine the level of demand... Volunteers are welcome as always.
In regards to my earlier message, I would be happy if someone (1-3 guys) would be willing to work on this.
Some info and instructions:
Basically I am looking for a table (excel for example) that has a list of countries (according to their AWS name/id) and a "relations index" towards other countries. As discussed here, it would be a simple numerical index from 0.0 to 3.0 that measures the travel relationship between the two countries.
- A high relationship is usually because of historical factors; the country was a former colony of the parent, or there have been a lots of immigrants from there. Or in modern times the country supplies a lot of immigrant workers who travel back and forth. For example factor between France and Algeria could be something around 3.0 as they are historically closely linked.
- For poor relationships examples would be mostly political, for example North Koreans are not allowed to fly directly to South Korea. So that factor would be zero.
- Standard value is 1, and if relationship between countries is "normal", then there's no need to change anything. For example Belgium and Australia have no special ties or links, so they'd have a default factor of 1.0. Most of the country pairs are like this.
The number, the factor (0-3) is a number that is factored on top of the standard demand by multiplying it (let's say if France-Algeria demand would be 100, with this factor it would be 300).
Any temporary events like wars or such are not counted here. Also if countries are just located close together (and hence have higher demand) does not apply to these factors.
What the actual number between each country is, is left upon the discretion of the data collector. Most of all I would ask to use common sense and knowledge + sources, and decide a number that is relevant judging the info (ie. 3 = very close ties, 1 = normal relations, 0 = all travel disallowed). The number can have decimals so 2.5 is allowed for example. Do not look at the current demand of AWS games as it may be misleading.
If you are interested, PM me and I can drop you the excel file. Of course all country relations (~200 countries) do not have to be filled, so it's not an immense work I reckon. There are some entries in the database already on this..
(I think I got a PM about this from someone earlier, but may have accidentially deleted it)
Hello,
I already made an Excel file, I asked you before in this post where to send it ?
I think you deleted my PM also.
I have a question : you are talking about countries. Can we consider states or cities ?
Many links above can't work considering only countries.
If anyone can help me by adding datas... here are the rules :
FEEL FREE TO FILL IN WITH RELEVANT INFORMATION
Then we will proceed with exact demand (0 to 3)
1/ Demand influenced by political reasons :
*Cuba to/from US = 0 except Miami
*North to/from South Corea = 0
*Armenia to/from Turkia = very low
*Israel to surrounding Arab countries = very low
*Pakistan to/from India = quite low
*Lhasa in Tibet can't be reached from outside China
Etc...
2/ Demand influenced by historical reasons :
A/ Former parents to colonies :
*France / UK / USA / SPAIN to current overseas territories (only Ceuta and Mellila for Spain)
*French / British / American overseas territories between themselves if geographically close
*France to former colonies : West Africa / Vietnam / North Africa / Djibouti / Lebanon
*Spain to former colonies : South America except Brazil / Fillipines / some Carribean destinations
*Portugal to former colonies : Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cabo Verde
*Belgium to former colonies : Congo
*The Netherlands to former colonies : Indonesia / South Africa / Suriname / some Carribean routes
*Russia to ex soviet bloc
*Denmark to Scandinavia
*Istanbul has both strong natural demand to/from Europe and Asia
3/ Demand influenced by cultural reasons :
A/ Strong demand between same language countries (considered as very old immigration):
FRENCH
*Major cities of major countries where french is official language : France - Canada - Switzerland - Belgium - - North Africa countries - West Africa countries - some carribean + overseas
ENGLISH
*Major cities of major countries where English is official language : USA - Canada - UK - Ireland - Kenya - Singapore - India - Pakistan - South Africa - some carribean + overseas
SPANISH
*Major cities of major countries where Spanish is official language : Spain - Mexico - Argentina - Colombia - Peru - Dominican Republic - Venezuela - Ecuador - some carribean + overseas
MALAYSIAN
*Major cities of Sumatra (Indonesia) - Malaysia - Singapore and Brunei linked together
ARABIC
*Major cities of North Africa - Middle East
RUSSIAN
*Taking back datas from Ex-Colonies + Mongolia (Ulan Bator)
GERMAN
*Major cities + secondary cities (as countries are all packed together) of countries speaking German : Germany, Luxemburg, Austria, Switzerland
CHINESE
*China linked with Taiwan (now opening, see China Airlines B747 daily at PVG), Malaysia and Singapore
PERSIAN
*Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan
B/ Strong demand between countries of a same "cultural bloc"
HINDI/HINDU BLOC
*Nepal/Bhutan/India/Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (major cities)
SCANDINAVIAN BLOC
*Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden
CENTRAL ASIA BLOC
*Azerbaidjan, Afganistan, Tadjikistan etc...
EASTERN EUROPE BLOC
*Eastern Europe countries formerly linked with Russia still remain very linked together
IBERIC PENINSULA
*Portugal >< Spain
ASIAN PENINSULA
*Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Birmania, Vietnam
4/ Demand influenced by geographic reasons : (Regional Effect - same cultural links affects travel, can be language, position...)
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Caribean
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Caribean ++ when same language
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Pacific Ocean
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Pacific Ocean ++ when same language
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Indian Ocean
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Indian Ocean ++ when same language
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Caribean and the regional capital considered Miami
*Demand between countries and overseas territories of Pacific Ocean and their regional capitals considered Auckland and Sydney
5/ Demand influenced by recent immigration (regular demand from families / workers etc abroad)
*Turkia >< Germany
*China >< Major East african cities
*China >< Malaysia + Singapore
*California >< Latin America
*Miami >< Latin America
*Major US West cost cities to major Asian cities
*Major + secondaries North African Cities with major french cities (already in historical but here too as second wave of immigration in 80s 90s)
*Pakistan >< UK
*Albania >< Italia
EXCEPTIONS :
Actually you had maybe the idea to include those datas but there are no longer available :
*Taiwan/China = 0 is no longer available as Taipei is now directly linked with major chinese cities
*Filipines (former Spanish colonies) is not linked anymore to Spain for decades as demand is not strong enough anymore
I am now filling the demand quantity from 0 to 1 if negative and from 1 to 3 if positive by searching real traffic, information and sources.
SEASONAL ROUTES NO COMPILED
Thanx.
Sami, I pmed you a couple days ago as well. I'd be happy to work with Julien to come up with the country relations data.
Julien is that the criteria you came up with or what Sami did? Anyway, I'm fairly knowledgable about such historical connections and looking up current flights is fairly easy.
Just to join in the discussion about demand and transfer, I wondered if the index system which Sami has proposed could be extended to certain or particular airports.
There is a lot of discussion in the forum about the complexities of modelling transfer traffic and how airport-to-airport demand reflects this. If I take for example my local airport, Durham Tees Valley (EGNV/MME), you can now only fly to either Aberdeen or Amsterdam and the latter route is served by KLM three times daily with a F70. The recession has clearly affected the local area and the selection of flights offered from the airport, compared to the success enjoyed several years ago.
My point is that to get anywhere international from MME you need to fly via AMS and change with KLM or another airline to your onward destination (or drive an hour north or south and fly from Newcastle or Leeds Bradford direct if they offer such a service). I'd be pretty sure this situation is representative of most airports with connections to hub airports, unless a direct flight is offered and the service/flight times appeal to passengers.
When this game world started the demand to certain hub airports such as LHR, CDG and AMS was already very strong which emulates the real world to an extent despite those airports not providing a 'hub and spoke' network immediately. Could demand from smaller airports to major airports be more dynamic in that the demand reflects the amount of potential connections offered as well as any inherent demand on the route?
For example (and these figures are arbitrary)...
If Airport A has flights to 5 or less destinations:
the demand to airports which have over 200 destinations is multiplied by 3.
the demand to airports which have over 100 destinations is multiplied by 2.5
the demand to airports which have over 50 destinations is multiplied by 2.
If Airport B has flights to 20 or less destinations:
the demand to airports which have over 200 destinations is multiplied by 2
the demand to airports which have over 100 destinations is multiplied by 1.4
the demand to airports which have over 50 destinations is multiplied by 1.05
The frequency, route image and aircraft type then play their usual part in simulating how many passengers fly with your airline. If an airport with few destinations suddenly sees itself with new flights to an increased number of destinations, this would then affect the demand on the route.
Perhaps this suggestion may raise issues I have not predicted for which I apologise, but I merely submit this suggestion as a potential solution to the connections debate and as a way of allowing players to establish non-traditional airports as hubs in this virtual world.
Thanks
I don't know if you know, but AWS will be switching to a city based demand system, where airports simply serve sets of population (with a few other factors, such as an area's business/industrial output and tourism). How exactly this system will work is still being ironed out, but like you suggested, flights to certain airports will affect those to other ones, as each airport has a catchment area (and can "steal" passengers from neighboring catchment areas, regardless of an airport being there).
What you're also suggesting is connecting passengers and I am not sure what's going on in terms of development, but I'm pretty sure Sami is focused on getting the new demand system in place before touching that.
To marchayes: since the base data for existant demand model relate to reality, they already reflect the fact of transfer PAX. Otherwise the demand from small airports to hubs would be much smaller.All tries to model connections on top of these data would lead to an widely exaggerated air traffic.Worldwide numbers already are much higher as in reality.If Sami would imply connecting traffic, then hub traffic numbers generally will be much,much smaller before users are starting their conections there.
Thanks for the responses.
I realise that the issue of connecting passengers poses considerable issues. My idea isn't necessarily to create connecting passengers within the sim, but to reflect the possibility for smaller airports with low demand to most other airports to experience increased demand to airports which offer good connectivity.
My proposal/suggestion was to replicate the demand from smaller airports to larger 'hub' airports based on the connectivity of the hub airport. Exchlbg suggests that airport demands reflect reality, but surely this then restricts the growth of virtual carriers within the Airwaysim world. If my airline is based in Rome or Madrid and I offer worldwide connections, shouldn't the demand from a feeder airport to my hub be increased because of the connectivity offered and not just be based on real world demand, which may in fact be minimal?
Yes.With city-based demand we hope these issues will be solved, it´s a new demand model in the making.You can learn about it in the announcement forums. That´s why changes to current system are unlikely to happen.
Ok, so I did not read all the post on this topic but I can say that the demand modeling between the North America-Caribbean & Europe-Caribbean is completely waaaaaay off and inaccurate. It really needs to be looked at and fixed so it reflects the real world model, the caribbean is a big market and it is poorly represented in this game.
Quote from: hotboidavz on April 11, 2013, 03:17:10 AM
Ok, so I did not read all the post on this topic but I can say that the demand modeling between the North America-Caribbean & Europe-Caribbean is completely waaaaaay off and inaccurate. It really needs to be looked at and fixed so it reflects the real world model, the caribbean is a big market and it is poorly represented in this game.
..and a lot of that demand is seasonal : its holidaymakers, a fair chunk of whom fly charter on package deals. Currently, the game doesnt model such seasonal charter traffic as it would complicate matters enormously, both for the game itself and for players : it would require spare planes and the player opening new routes at start of season, then closing them at end. This would create havoc for RI and staffing, just to think of two areas not best adapted to seasonal work in the game. In the rw, charter traffic can be moved around, the planes get redeployed to where its high season elsewhere, temporary staff can be employed, pax levels (revenue, in other words) are guaranteed by the holiday companies by pre-booking capacity. None of that can be easily replicated.
The game does its best to replicate traffic between points over the year without too many major upheavals : it tries to reflect the general popularity of those routes : its not perfect, but buy Sami a roomful of Crays and a few hundred code monkeys, and he probably could build such a model... but, I fear, not this year.
To add a bit of info for Scandinavia, demand from Norway to Spain and the Canary Islands is strong. Typical destinations are Alicante, Malaga and Barcelona due to a large number of pensioners residing in Spain. I would also include oil-related demand between Norway and certain destinations in the US and UK, typically Aberdeen and Houston.
In addition, there are cultural ties between Scandinavia and some states in the US due to immigration. Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota have a relatively large population of Scandinavian heritage, and that generates some demand.
Quote from: TFC1 on April 11, 2013, 06:28:48 AM
To add a bit of info for Scandinavia, demand from Norway to Spain and the Canary Islands is strong. Typical destinations are Alicante, Malaga and Barcelona due to a large number of pensioners residing in Spain. I would also include oil-related demand between Norway and certain destinations in the US and UK, typically Aberdeen and Houston.
In addition, there are cultural ties between Scandinavia and some states in the US due to immigration. Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota have a relatively large population of Scandinavian heritage, and that generates some demand.
I can vouch for that. It seems that the UK - Spain traffic is boosted, and the Norway - Spain traffic should be boosted as well. Norway - US traffic has to increase as well, right now it's very very limited. While in real life, there are multiple departures to the US from Oslo daily. At least enough to fill up an A330/A340, a B757 and a B787. The rest fly via Stockholm/Copenhagen/Frankfurt/Amsterdam. Either way, the Norway - US traffic should be boosted by a 3x factor compared to what it is now. Oslo - Bangkok should be increased too.
I'm pretty sure the traffic is there for most of these routes, but all the pax are funnelled through a major international gateway hub like JFK or ORD, which is why their demand is so much higher than an airport like Appleton or Fargo.
If you boost traffic on one side, you will have to take that boost away from other relations, like all demands between small airports.I never hear a wish to set every combination that isn´t served by a real-life airline to zero. All you wish wish for is boost, especially for that part of the world you are just sitting in.
You can´t hear anything about all other markets across the world.
Sami possibly can´t control every airport timetable of the world and design demands as-is, especially because we are not playing just traffic of today. What about 1952 dates or 2020 ?
If I look at my home airport, game demands never meet actual numbers, in any age.
Why not wait for new numbers of city-based demand ? Maybe they differ a lot. And as long we are not able to build connecting traffic, we are not able to rebuild "realistic" traffic.
Since every model is based on worldwide traffic numbers, a wish for a boost should always include a tip, where other demands are too high and can be scratched, to keep overall balance.
Quote from: brique on April 11, 2013, 03:34:43 AM
..and a lot of that demand is seasonal : its holidaymakers, a fair chunk of whom fly charter on package deals. Currently, the game doesnt model such seasonal charter traffic as it would complicate matters enormously, both for the game itself and for players : it would require spare planes and the player opening new routes at start of season, then closing them at end. This would create havoc for RI and staffing, just to think of two areas not best adapted to seasonal work in the game. In the rw, charter traffic can be moved around, the planes get redeployed to where its high season elsewhere, temporary staff can be employed, pax levels (revenue, in other words) are guaranteed by the holiday companies by pre-booking capacity. None of that can be easily replicated.
The game does its best to replicate traffic between points over the year without too many major upheavals : it tries to reflect the general popularity of those routes : its not perfect, but buy Sami a roomful of Crays and a few hundred code monkeys, and he probably could build such a model... but, I fear, not this year.
Actually its NOT Just Seasonal. Maybe if you did your research you would be a bit more informed. The demand is DAILY and with more of a demand on the weekends (Friday-Sunday) for obvious reasons. And this daily demand is for over 25 destinations and its from the major hub cities on the East Coast of the U.S, Canada, the UK, France, Amsterdam, Germany and the larger market in South America. Yes there's seasonal traffic and charter but that only accounts for a small % of the Yearly traffic coming to the caribbean.
Quote from: exchlbg on April 11, 2013, 02:39:32 PM
If you boost traffic on one side, you will have to take that boost away from other relations, like all demands between small airports.I never hear a wish to set every combination that isn´t served by a real-life airline to zero. All you wish wish for is boost, especially for that part of the world you are just sitting in.
You can´t hear anything about all other markets across the world.
Sami possibly can´t control every airport timetable of the world and design demands as-is, especially because we are not playing just traffic of today. What about 1952 dates or 2020 ?
If I look at my home airport, game demands never meet actual numbers, in any age.
Why not wait for new numbers of city-based demand ? Maybe they differ a lot. And as long we are not able to build connecting traffic, we are not able to rebuild "realistic" traffic.
Since every model is based on worldwide traffic numbers, a wish for a boost should always include a tip, where other demands are too high and can be scratched, to keep overall balance.
If you boost for instance the Norway - US traffic by a factor of 3, the drop in demand to other destinations would barely be noticable. So that's not an issue whatsoever. Regarding the past and future, the traffic was there in the past too but not in Airwaysim. In 2020 it will most likely be even more. This really isn't an issue. I'm pretty certain Sami wouldn't have asked for these things and handed out Excel sheets to people, if he didn't plan on using it for his city-based demand system.
Quote from: LemonButt on April 11, 2013, 01:11:48 PM
I'm pretty sure the traffic is there for most of these routes, but all the pax are funnelled through a major international gateway hub like JFK or ORD, which is why their demand is so much higher than an airport like Appleton or Fargo.
True. Northwest operated a daily DC-10 between OSL and MSP back in '99-01 which had a load factor of 80-85% off season. KLM experienced a decline in sold seats from OSL via AMS to MSP to such an extent that Northwest was told to terminate the route. Which goes to show how passengers prefer direct routings over connections ;)
Quote from: hotboidavz on April 12, 2013, 02:47:59 AM
Actually its NOT Just Seasonal. Maybe if you did your research you would be a bit more informed. The demand is DAILY and with more of a demand on the weekends (Friday-Sunday) for obvious reasons. And this daily demand is for over 25 destinations and its from the major hub cities on the East Coast of the U.S, Canada, the UK, France, Amsterdam, Germany and the larger market in South America. Yes there's seasonal traffic and charter but that only accounts for a small % of the Yearly traffic coming to the caribbean.
I never said it was 'just seasonal' : but your suggestion I go research is amusing when you fail to provide any data yourself, but, obviously, you must be well informed so its not required.
But here's an example for you : Sangster International (Jamaica) in 2012 had 360k pax in march, but only 180k in November : kindly inform me which is your 'daily demand' and which can be attributed to the 'small %' of seasonal traffic?
hotboi...:This game is not just the year 2013. What about traffic data of the last 60 years? You "researched" just one region of the world, what about all others? Are you ready to "research" their data (for the last 60 years), too ? Or will you leave that task gracefully to Sami ? We are not talking about this or that destination, this is all about the "big picture" and Sami already asked for specific help earlier in this thread. You are free to offer your help researching the data he was asking for.
andre....:nobody outside Norway cares about traffic numbers of Oslo, everybody around the world has his airport which he thinks is not modelled "realistically" that includes my home town. This thread is about a demand modelling SYSTEM handling world traffic in a balanced and streamlined way to keep this game playable and data base technically handable.Until now you have many options for opening routes you would never see being served in RL.I would not like to see that go.A close remake of reality is impossible for the game anyway.
Quote from: exchlbg on April 12, 2013, 05:58:12 PM
This game is not just the year 2013. What about traffic data of the last 60 years? You "researched" just one region of the world, what about all others? Are you ready to "research" their data (for the last 60 years), too ? Or will you leave that task gracefully to Sami ? We are not talking about this or that destination, this is all about the "big picture" and Sami already asked for specific help earlier in this thread. You are free to offer your help researching the data he was asking for.
i offered to do this help/research for an area of the world. but was told it was already being covered. but i think it is one thing to 'research' via wikipedia, and another if you have the actual facts/data. i am not getting on the work sami has done...i just think it would help more if accurate information was given. it does seem to be a complex model that has to be figured, so it will be interesting to see what comes about once a first view of this demand model is ready.
the whole transit pax thing would be very complicated to implement if some variables stay the same (a heavy aircraft couldnot operate from a small airport even if the demand is there from that small airport...therefore a transit thru large airport is required). and i think the whole 'seasonal' situation is up to another level of complex. it sounds that a majority of players are in the northern hemisphere which has a different 'seasonal' demand than holiday pax in the southern hemisphere throughout the year.
i just think it will be interesting what comes about with the in-progress demand model.
Obviously Sami has limited possibilities to accept every offered help. That also is tied to the fact that you are willing to research special relations between special parts of the world the way he is wanting to implement them. He does not need thousands of PM´s giving him traffic data of March 2013 of some remote airfield, especially because he does not plan to model demand after airport traffic, but economic and social data of countries and metro areas.As I know which region of the world you are talking about I fear it doesn´t play any distinct role whether in world economics or air traffic.
I have to say, my own attitude is, 'why worry about demand levels?' : You can see if your desired base has demand to other airports, that should be the basis for your decisions : what aircraft you use, do you need a pricing policy, how competitive will those routes be, and so on. Its hardly a major matter if demand between A and B is not 100% accurate according to global stats collected in some archive for the period : it would be nice if it were, but, in the end, we are playing a game in a game environment and should work with what's actually there in the game, not what 'should' be there in some perfect world.
Otherwise, I'd get really depressed as only 3 goats and a shaman turn up for my 06.00 POM-LAE flight, and no amount of telling me its 'real' is going to make me smile about it...
Quote from: brique on April 12, 2013, 06:46:02 PM
I have to say, my own attitude is, 'why worry about demand levels?' : You can see if your desired base has demand to other airports, that should be the basis for your decisions : what aircraft you use, do you need a pricing policy, how competitive will those routes be, and so on. Its hardly a major matter if demand between A and B is not 100% accurate according to global stats collected in some archive for the period : it would be nice if it were, but, in the end, we are playing a game in a game environment and should work with what's actually there in the game, not what 'should' be there in some perfect world.
Otherwise, I'd get really depressed as only 3 goats and a shaman turn up for my 06.00 POM-LAE flight, and no amount of telling me its 'real' is going to make me smile about it...
i have to agree. even though i am still learning how to play, i have to admit i would at some point like to try from my current home airport and native home airport. but that isnot until i get the metrics of playing to where i can try operating at 'small' airports.
as i stated in another thread i think the real 'issue' would be towards the pricing/staffing/etc mdel that is built into the sim. this maybe causes some discouragement from the size 4 and smaller airports to operate as base because the pax demand levels arenot 'high enough' to 'have fun' operating from those airports.
It depends on what you call fun. :) You're right that you can't operate a 777 fleet from a size 3 airport, but neither do people in real life. There are plenty of smaller airports, particularly in the Modern Times scenarios that can offer quite a challenge. If you pick the right fleet types, you can be successful...
I have an airline in MT8, I try to be a regional airline but I have noticed its very hard to operate with little competition out of the smaller but still big ( ex minneapolis, memphis, houston hobby) Becuase I dont think that the passenger demand models on the routes to regional airports in this region are accurate. Here is an example: RDU to MEM in MT8 only has estimated 100 passenger a day, but in real life RDU to memphis has 2-4 daily nonstop flights, and all are CRJ 900's. (so at at about 70% lf's and a day where there are only 2 flights, the Passengers a day is 150, which is very different from a max of 100. DSM to MSP (yet again another regional flight) is got 6 nonstop flights a day on average (CRJ900's). That is ~ 500 passengers a day. Very different from 140. So I am wondering if this is something being worked on, and being updated. Are the PAX numbers from a formula- or are the numbers real life based?
There are so many posts throughout the forums and archives that explain how demands of this game basically are calculated, that I ask you to look for that.
It really doesn´t make any sense to repeatedly tell us about any discrepency to real-life here, there are 100 000 (or more?) possible relations to tell from, where should this end?
I had a regional prop-only business out of Bob Hope and Sacramento in another game , and nearly all flights besides those to hubs wern´t existant at all in real life, and I bet it´s the same with your airport right now, but all you see are some special flights you do.
And Brique is right, this is not a simulation of world air traffic for any age, it is a game to be played with given numbers. The hard facts like airport infrastructure and flying material are pretty exact, so it´s no complete bull we´re simulating, but weak facts like demand can be discussed to nausea without any result.
RL airline traffic may tell you that some people are willing to book flights, but they don´t tell you about real demands between two points in the world ,they reflect airline decisions for whatever reasons.And in this game you are asked to make your decisions, not to copy RL concepts.
Think about Ryanair , not serving but generating demands that haven´t been there before with some dubiuos but clever concepts. It´s not yet replicable, maybe a bit more with new system, when choice of airports to serve is more left to players.
After some time of thinking I would like to suggest something instead of turning down something else.
To add some reality overall, there should be added some more complexity to scheduling issues. It´s not overall demand that seems a bit way off, but the very simple method to serve it. Especially SH and LH/ULH demands should be handled differently.SH demand should be split into am/pm (arrival) demands , that means only one connection per day(time) should get only half of overall demand to reflect business traveller needs, whereas LH demands above a certain distance could be changed to weekly figures where one weekly flight is sufficient to serve all weekly demand,because the longer the distance/flight time, the more flexible you feel about staying at destination before coming back.
We already have a "too small" warning for LH , there is no "too big" warning for SH, where using one widebody per day (without competition) shouldn´t get all PAX neither.
Demand columns could reflect something like this:
SH: am/pm column, or split on mo-fr,not split on sa/su (for example 50 am/50 pm mo-fr/60 sa/70 su would make a weekly of 630 PAX)
MH: daily as is (maybe combined for sa/su) = (for example 100 each mo-fr/130 for sa and su combined makes a weekly 630)
LH: first/second half of week,or mo-tue/we-thu/fr-su combined demands = (for example 200 for mo-tu,200 for we-thu and 230 for fr-su make 630 PAX)
ULH: one weekly = (you´re free to serve this number with one,two or more flights of any date)
I know it sounds a bit complicated and can´t be handled with given calculation routines, not to speak of graphical demand charts changes.
But it would make traffic look more "realistic", make medium demand LH routes and some ULH routes servable (very small SH routes unservable) and maybe reduces the need of 7-day scheduling for these.
I´m ready for some re-bashing :-[
Quote from: dmoose42 on April 12, 2013, 07:56:52 PM
You're right that you can't operate a 777 fleet from a size 3 airport, but neither do people in real life.
have to disagree on this, as there are alot of real life examples.
i read in a forum the city based demand based upon airports serving geographic areas. i could see how it can be helpful to smaller airports (ex RTM v AMS). i can think of quite a few in eu and us/canada. it seems like the sim doesnot account for this yet but it would be nice. it wouldnot give the preference to the size 5 airports and some size 4 airports.
Quote from: exchlbg on April 12, 2013, 06:27:27 PM
Obviously Sami has limited possibilities to accept every offered help. That also is tied to the fact that you are willing to research special relations between special parts of the world the way he is wanting to implement them. He does not need thousands of PM´s giving him traffic data of March 2013 of some remote airfield, especially because he does not plan to model demand after airport traffic, but economic and social data of countries and metro areas.As I know which region of the world you are talking about I fear it doesn´t play any distinct role whether in world economics or air traffic.
my offer was to give whatever assistance with gathering historical and current information, since i have access to the information. from your last sentence, i would have to ask why have airports outside of europe, southeast asia, and us/canada if sami is only going to program the sim for these 3 areas? is the point of the sim to be challenged around the world and not just 3 areas?
from reading some forums it sounds that this demand modeling is coming about from people wanting to use airports outside these 3 areas as bases or fly to areas outside these bases with some 'realistic' numbers (even though this isnot 100%) possible. that is just my guess from the amount of topics on airport/city/geographic demand.
Can you please let me know what size 3 airport has daily 777 passenger service? I would like to know. Thanks much.
Quote from: npercy1 on April 12, 2013, 10:58:17 PM
I have an airline in MT8, I try to be a regional airline but I have noticed its very hard to operate with little competition out of the smaller but still big ( ex minneapolis, memphis, houston hobby) Becuase I dont think that the passenger demand models on the routes to regional airports in this region are accurate. Here is an example: RDU to MEM in MT8 only has estimated 100 passenger a day, but in real life RDU to memphis has 2-4 daily nonstop flights, and all are CRJ 900's. (so at at about 70% lf's and a day where there are only 2 flights, the Passengers a day is 150, which is very different from a max of 100. DSM to MSP (yet again another regional flight) is got 6 nonstop flights a day on average (CRJ900's). That is ~ 500 passengers a day. Very different from 140. So I am wondering if this is something being worked on, and being updated. Are the PAX numbers from a formula- or are the numbers real life based?
What is the date in MT#8? As I write its the end of 1999 : what is the date on the demand figures you state above as being correct? Today, I'd guess, as you describe them in the present tense : be careful not to assume then, that todays demand figures are also those of 15yrs ago...
If you could only for once forget about AMS and Suriname? Maybe Sami has worked that into his new model already,as he was asking for special cultural or whatever ties between nations over the decades, what´s the big deal anyway?
New allocation system will give smaller airports a better chance, as long they are close to an economically dominant region as new system will focus on regions, not just airports.
So we will see new numbers. But I bet they won´t be the numbers of April 14th 2013.Or any other day.They will be our world to play in.Like existant values are. They are good enough to have a reasonable base to play with.
@exchlbg....i amnot only talking about that area and i amnot talking about current day. maybe if you werenot so anal on everything someone says, and be open minded on where some thoughts are coming from. i never specified an certain area, but you assume that is all i am pushing for. and you assume a whole lot from your responses to what others are saying. it seems you take everything personal that is posted about the sim in the forums. why? why do you feel you have to comment on every forum post? if you donot like what is stated, then just donot reply. very simple. if you chose to reply, then make it beneficial and helpful (as most of the forum posts are looking for). if you are the 'better' player in the sim compared to the new players (such as myself), why not give a different tone or positive response (if you chose to respone), instead of quickly repling so harsh. i donot see any stir-up over your suggestion earlier in this forum on demand model, so why go around and assume/critique/etc what others are saying. i would be willing to hear where you are coming from on that thought more, instead of responding back in the manner you have been doing towards others.
I have noticed that the demand from Southern California airports to SFO, specifically, as in reality, since the 60's, demand on that corridor has always been the busiest in the world. Yes, in the world. To have a demand of 60 people in the 70's, from BUR, ONT, LGB, and SAN is just not the way it was. I'm not even going to go into LAX except to say that whatever demand you put in for whatever time period should be doubled, if not tripled from Southern California to the bay area airports of SFO, SJC, and OAK. Let throw me throw in SMF for that matter. I lived in the area, flew the routes so many times I can't count for 40 years. Demand must rise on theses routes dramatically in all scenarios on these routes. :-\
First I ´d like to ask you to watch your words. Especially if you call anything I do or say "anal". I don´t call you what first comes to my mind either.
These forums are based on open discussions, and you may just leave it to me, which post I answer and which not. Within this topic it doesn´t play any role If you are an experienced or good or bad or whatever player.First topics were circling around new demand system and how to improve it´s yet not known new numbers.Sami was asking some people for help, not with real life traffic "observations" and "researches", but with data about cultural/economical connections between nations.
The thread was then hijacked by those reporting some discrepancy they see between RL and in-game numbers. And now post after post new observations ,complaints and so on.
Game demand system never claimed to produce real -life figures in the first place, it produces numbers for a world we are playing in. And since every airline in this game is playing with the same numbers, there is no need to manually adjust those numbers to some claimed "realistic" values, on the contrary, every change you make is throwing world traffic balance over board. There are so many things different in-game and outside, that those values possibly can´t be the same (there´s no connection system,no alliance feeder system, no subsidized flights,but there is the total freedom of connecting to whatever country you like without respecting traffic treaties.) Only few reasons in-game traffic won´t meet RL figures ever.
This topic was already discussed over and over before.And sometimes you will just loose your temper if you read the same bull for the 100th time, even from people who should know better.
Sorry if I misjudged your researched area, but since you didn´t mention it one starts asssuming. Be destinct about facts, so nobody would have to guess.
But one thing is for sure, if Sami says, that he has informations already,it is not your task to judge about the source he used and claiming yours to be the better. How could you know?
This topic is a discussion about a game system feature (demand modelling) of past and future times. I don´t see any reason for being "helpful" to newbies here. If you don´t know what you are really talking about in a discussion because you lack knowledge of experienced players you will have to face critical comments. Question is if you really should discuss game system topics before having insight of how everything works.If you do, it is the right of every member to comment that without being helpful.
I´m not turning down newbies in BW forums if they have a question. I´ll turn down anybody just stating things that are not true or can´t be proved, newbie or oldie.
It´s not my fault I have only few people that support my point of view, although they could. Maybe they got sick of it and let babbling pass by graciously. Maybe I`ll resign,too, very soon.
Quote from: exchlbg on April 14, 2013, 06:57:19 PM
First I ´d like to ask you to watch your words. Especially if you call anything I do or say "anal". I don´t call you what first comes to my mind either.
You do realize, that anal is not necessarily meaning the same as the German anal?! In this case it shall mean, that you shouldn't be such a nit-picker. ;)
Consulting a dictionary might help sometimes.
anyways... LOL about that post :P
I don´t need your translations and couldn´t care less if you laugh or cry. He used this word instead of any other well knowing it´s origin latin meaning and if not, he should learn it.
And who really is nit-picking? People that complain in-game demand doesn´t fit real-life figures of 100 seats more or less per week between Sacramento and San Diego,
or the one that tries to explain that absolute numbers don´t have any meaning unless they don´t fit game system/mechanics ?
Ok, go ahead, cry over "unrealistic" demands, telling Sami he "has to" alter that instantly because you "researched" it.
I bet Sami has enough work and trouble getting his new system on the road, offering even more oportunities for route creating than ever, to ignore this outbreak of wisdom completely.
Okay, enough. Exchlbg, your attitude is not appropriate to the forums, since you seem to turn every thread into an argument, or at least your messages have a very negative and rude tone. Pls refrain posting in such tone anymore.
I am not locking this thread but anyone posting should refer to my post in the first page. = I am not interested in what number of seats are available on certain route on a certain date. There is a plan to develop the pax demand systems further and there is a bunch of guys helping out in some data modelling/collection already.