With City Based Demand the airports act merely as gateways for the passengers, but currently they do not have some of the characteristics that would be meaningful to model the passenger flows in a realistic manner. For example currently the London City airport is allowed to expand to be as large as Heathrow while in real life this is not possible.
So for that reason some more airport attributes are needed. A public crowd-sourcing system will be opening soon where users can input data about airports. This includes real-life data about airport name, curfew and runway length changes over the course of history.
Besides of this a new setup of airport attributes will be collected. In this thread I am asking for suggestions what these could be. The attributes would be simple "yes / no" flags on airport data and they will direct the demand properly. An example of such attribute is "no international traffic" - meaning that only domestic passengers can fly from this airport, due to lack of facilities or due to government rules for example.
Examples / list to be added:
- No international passenger traffic [only domestic routes are allowed]
- No domestic passenger traffic
- No international cargo traffic
- No domestic cargo traffic
- Infrastructure cannot expand [stays at the level designated by the system, for example due to lack of land space]
- Infrastructure cannot grow beyond level X [1-9, meaning that airport has some room to expand but not till the full level 10]
- No passenger facilities [airport can handle only cargo, pax facilities cannot be built]
- No cargo facilities
- Runways cannot be lengthened
- Can handle Heavy Cargo (maybe?)
What else?
No LH pax traffic. BVA, for example.
Longhaul and shorthaul won't be a thing in the demand distribution.
And is that BVA airport restricted to shorthaul only by some government rule, or is it only because there are no lh airlines flying to it and/or there is no such terminal?
Difficult to model in a yes/no fashion:
-Limit to length of flights - DCA, LGA perimeter rules, DAL Wright Amendment
Able to handle the A380; quite an important part of a lot of airport's history is building facilities that can handle an A380.
Whether this is best modeled as a specific airport attribute is a further question - should it instead be an 'unlock' at a certain higher infrastructure level? Kind of how it works with allowing large and very large (at levels 3 and 4 if memory serves?)
Would this be a good extension/replacement of the current aircraft size categories - runway length is obviously not the only limiting factor?
ok, maybe not the intention of the whole thing, as aircraft data needs to be adapted as well maybe:
.) runway mtow
.) altitude (makes a difference if you takeoff in denver or jfk)
.) runway-surface (currently all are set to "asphalt" or "concrete" - even though some airports are gravel etc.)
not sure if a proposal or really a bug:
.) when planning a tech-stop at an airport, the aircraft size apparently isnt an issue... so an airport only accepting large aircraft can refuel VL aircraft.
Quote from: schro on September 02, 2018, 03:01:16 PM
Difficult to model in a yes/no fashion:
-Limit to length of flights - DCA, LGA perimeter rules, DAL Wright Amendment
Also, landing requirement for aircraft. At least, KMDW comes to mind. Early jets would be a no-no for the most part.
- I've always wanted historically accurate runways for airports. That in itself is a massive game changer.
Talentz
Great stuff, Sami!
Various points here.
1°) for "no intl flights", when we discussed about the closing of Soviet Union, you said it wasn't possible to close it anymore (cf cargo: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,75950.msg447219.html#msg447219 (https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,75950.msg447219.html#msg447219)) due to the new CBD system. But if you find a new way to restrict it, that's really great (mini-feature request, already asked: during Soviet times, apart from SVO, LED, KBP and TAS were also allowing intl flights -> see https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,75099.msg440068.html#msg440068 (https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,75099.msg440068.html#msg440068)
2°) Opposite to what Dani says, non-asphalt/concrete runways exist in the game (https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Airport/UNOO (https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Airport/UNOO)). Having more info can be used to limit the planes used (another reason to use Soviet/Russian birds).
Would need adding a tag on the aircraft's info page (unprepared runways yes/no).
3°) on a more general matter, the new way to expand airports makes possible a late game diverging quite heavily from RL. So the idea to have only pure rock-hard data on the other hand seems a bit strange. While I agree on some limitations from RL (London City is a good one), some might be a little different and even vary from GW to GW. Thus at the beginning of a game you have to carefully look at the various airports in the metropolitan area you're in.
Obviously, there couldn't be such a thing as LGA + EWR + JFK forbiding intl traffic, that would be a nonsense. But one of them could.
My idea beyond that is that in such metropolitans areas there is an organisation, all airports from a said area work as a system, all together, and thus that very system could just be plain different from RL (given the limitations allow it). The only global limitation is that at least one of the airports of the area has one of each trait.
-> I reckon that this might be a bit disorienting for new players, and an heresy for "sim pictures RL" players, so might be an idea for a mini-game to test it first.
4°) Beyond traits given at game start, there is this interesting post: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,78252.msg461169.html#msg461169 (https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,78252.msg461169.html#msg461169)
Quote from: MuzhikRB on September 02, 2018, 04:09:44 PM
for pax - yes, companies do not invest by thmeselves.
but usually it their lobby who does - like lufthansa peer in FRA or HON terminal there.
But if i am not mistaken companies invest in maintenance and cargo handling facilities at the airports.
that what we can play around, meaning not always FRA should be cargo hub but any other nearby airport where player will biuld cargo facilities to handle heavy cargo :-[
Basically, by allowing such a thing, ORY (existing already in 1950) could become the main cargo hub of Paris because airlines can invest. Then CDG opens, and gets most intl/LH traffic because airlines weren't able to invest in pax infrastructure in Orly.
Would change from RL but not completely. And the idea to separate pax infra from cargo infra (and with maybe a "general infra" covering both of these) could be a nice way to split the difference.
I reckon I going a bit far from the "yes/no" request, but I think this works a whole and should be taken into account while establishing this "yes/no" part.
Additional possible yes/no:
- soviet aircraft only (if it is decided to force players in SU to use Soviet planes - only the few intl airports wouldn't have this tag - would require the integration of a Soviet tag in the A/C data)
- small aircraft allowed, either to follow RL or to avoid this (thanks to the demotivator thread)
ORY is a special case, as the political goal was to remove all international flights from ORY. Cargo was not thought about. Result, all cargo is in CDG(which is purely coincidental), some domestic traffick is in CDG, and some international traffick is in ORY - despite the political will. No cargo in BVA is indeed a political decision, but no LH in BVA seems coincidental, from what I heard. Ryan air & Wissair(99% of BVA's traffick) do not fly LH.
Going even further(and probably too far given the scope of the game, but I'm still throwing the idea), airports could have a "business" factor, which would be zero in BVA, low in ORY, and strong in CDG. Maximum would be for LCY only.
I do love also the idea to allow only some aircraft on s***ty runways. Would give the A148 another interest.
Quote from: gazzz0x2z on September 03, 2018, 07:53:21 AM
Going even further(and probably too far given the scope of the game, but I'm still throwing the idea), airports could have a "business" factor, which would be zero in BVA, low in ORY, and strong in CDG. Maximum would be for LCY only.
i dont think that goes too far. it would be great if there would be a distribution of passenger-types. business passengers which prefer short-haul-flights to be in the morning or evening and prefer LCY, and on the other hand tourists that do not care if they are flown on tuesday or saturday, or dont even mind if they land at "london" southend airport.
@Gazzz
What I'm saying about ORY/CDG is how in the game it could both follow history when it's important and diverge from reality when it's not (but always staying realistic, though).
-> the strong political decision behind CDG + LH is respected
-> as cargo is not completely planned, it goes where it wants
I have some suggestions:
- The distribution of passengers into domestic/intl/longhaul should be an attribute of the city, not of the airport. This way, all airports in the city will have the potential to have international flights when needed. Of course the infrastructure of the airport will limit attraction of international demand (for example, minimum level 2 for internarional and 4 for longhaul);
- This way, all the cities would have some international (short or longhaul) demand to anywhere in the world. This demand would be grabbed by larger airports nearby and this would help emulate the effects of connecting flights.
- Airport runways shouldn't be changed; the fun of this game is to simulate real world's airline's operations in airports from the real world. The ability to change runway length would descharacterize this aspect and make the game less interesting because of this disconnection with the real world. Besides, finding out which of the hundreds of the airports in AWS could have their runways extended would be an overkill. It's not worth it.
- Curfew times should be dependent on infrastructure level of the airporr, except in special cases (for example, large airports in the urban area of large cities and other famous airports with curfew times known). Airports with infrastructure up to 2 would only allow flights during the day (8-17h), infrastructure 3 would operate between 6-20h and from 4 on would be 24h
- Route image should be calculated with respect to city connections, not airport connections. It won't make sense in CBD to connect some city to London via Heathrow, have a hard time building up route image and then have the same hard time building route CI if you opt to make a second flight to London via Gatwick.
Quote from: Tha_Ape on September 03, 2018, 06:53:38 AM
- small aircraft allowed, either to follow RL or to avoid this (thanks to the demotivator thread)
It could be modelled as a ban of small aircraft in airports with infra (or traffic) level 5 and higher, or each airport have an Aircraft type switch like this:
Aircraft allowed: [ ] small. [X] medium. [X] large. [ ] very large
Quote from: wilian.souza2 on September 03, 2018, 01:36:07 PM
(.../...)- Route image should be calculated with respect to city connections, not airport connections. It won't make sense in CBD to connect some city to London via Heathrow, have a hard time building up route image and then have the same hard time building route CI if you opt to make a second flight to London via Gatwick.
Well, IRL, there is a strong RI between BVA & WRO. There is none between CDG & WRO, or ORY & WRO. It would need time for people used to go to BVA to get the hint. So I'm not sure the game is not realistic, there.
There's the example of São Paulo, too, where CGH is the most desirable and VCP less desirable because the first is closest to the city center (after MAE, but this one doesn't have scheduled, commercial flights) and the latter is the most distant. But route image is not about which airport is the most desirable or more accessible, it's about the passenger thinking, "Well, that airline has a flight from city A to city B so I'll take it" without caring much about which airport it will depart or arrive - considering the average traveller's thinking.
If your thinking were applied to AWS, no route pair would ever achieve RI 100. I think CBD's catchment areas of airports and the (slow) demand shift will do the job of limiting demand attraction on its own and RI shouldn't be a problem if the airline wants to open a new connection to the same city it already connects through a different airport.
Quote from: wilian.souza2 on September 03, 2018, 01:36:07 PM
- This way, all the cities would have some international (short or longhaul) demand to anywhere in the world. This demand would be grabbed by larger airports nearby and this would help emulate the effects of connecting flights.
if you look at cargo, it already works like this and will probably do so for pax as well. Which is quite strange as you can fly cargo from all of USSR to the world in 1950 but have to wait until 1991 to have an intl pax flight that doesn't goes through SVO.
In the case of USSR, though, I'm for reestablishing the closing (bar SVO, KBP, LED and TAS) and the bottleneck effect: it's part of the flavor of playing in USSR, not many countries have such larges changes in the game and I think they ought to be preserved.
Quote from: wilian.souza2 on September 03, 2018, 01:36:07 PM
- Airport runways shouldn't be changed; the fun of this game is to simulate real world's airline's operations in airports from the real world. The ability to change runway length would descharacterize this aspect and make the game less interesting because of this disconnection with the real world. Besides, finding out which of the hundreds of the airports in AWS could have their runways extended would be an overkill. It's not worth it.
They might be changed only according to RL. HKG, for example, with plenty of changes over the years. And you got to wait and play differently until the runway gets lengthened. In the end it's a little like what I just said about USSR - more immersive.
Quote from: Mort on September 02, 2018, 05:55:07 PM
Able to handle the A380; quite an important part of a lot of airport's history is building facilities that can handle an A380.
Whether this is best modeled as a specific airport attribute is a further question - should it instead be an 'unlock' at a certain higher infrastructure level? Kind of how it works with allowing large and very large (at levels 3 and 4 if memory serves?)
Would this be a good extension/replacement of the current aircraft size categories - runway length is obviously not the only limiting factor?
I think the "Unlock" should be guiding principal here for most or all of the airport features, instead of prohibitions or un-earned granting of these features on GW start.
Airport would have to achieve certain threshold for the next feature to be available to be unlocked.
As far as the features listed, I think rather than Yes / No, it should be "Encourage / Discourage / Don't care".
If the airport has a "Discourage" on certain feature, for example lengthening of the runway length, then the unlocking the next level would have a higher threshold then normal.
This way, nothing would be set in stone, almost anything will be possible, but some things will just have more resistance. For example, the longer, take-off runway at LGA is stopping at waters edge. It would just go a little further over the water. It would just take a little extra effort than extending runway into an empty field... So threshold to unlock "Extend runway" would be a lot higher.
Quote from: Sami on September 02, 2018, 12:48:53 PM
- No international passenger traffic [only domestic routes are allowed]
- No domestic passenger traffic
- No international cargo traffic
- No domestic cargo traffic
- Infrastructure cannot expand [stays at the level designated by the system, for example due to lack of land space]
- Infrastructure cannot grow beyond level X [1-9, meaning that airport has some room to expand but not till the full level 10]
- No passenger facilities [airport can handle only cargo, pax facilities cannot be built]
- No cargo facilities
- Runways cannot be lengthened
- Can handle Heavy Cargo (maybe?)
What else?
I think the infrastructure should be broken down to 3 (maybe 4) areas:
- handling passengers
- handling cargo
- runways
- external road / highway / rail link (maybe)
For passenger handling alone, it could be up to 10 levels
- can handle passengers (of any kind, anywhere)
- dedicated international / immigration facilities
- dedicated customs facilities (one for pax, one for cargo)
- small domestic / international passenger hub
- medium domestic / international passenger hub
- large domestic / international passenger hub
- regional specialist (Short SH flight's should get a +1 or more)
- International LH specialist (International LH would get +1 or more)
- small terminal / medium terminal / large terminals (maybe up to 10 levels that would also account to gate facilities)
- jetways in terminals (none, some, most, all)
Each airport could earn (unlock) these features by reaching certain threshold, which could unlock (either automatically or by some other mechanism) infrastructure growth of the airport.
More important than having these features is what to do with them.
Anyone who looked at or played CBD cargo in very large metropolitan areas (NYC, London, LA) knows that CBD is badly broken.
These airport infrastructure "points" I outlined above can serve to fix CBD. This is how it would work.
Suppose there is demand from Manhattan NYC to downtown LA. Currently, there may be 25 airport pairs that can serve this square. The breakdown of CBD is that each one of the 25 airport pairs is treated equally.
The cure for CBD would be to take infrastructure "points" into account. If JFK has 20 of these passenger infrastructure points, and Lehigh Valey has 1 infrastructure point, then the passenger from Manhattan will be 20x as likely to take the passenger flight from JFK than from Lehigh Valley International (in Pennsylvania)
Right now, the system is treating them equally, and additionally, gives Lehigh Valey in Pennsylvania boost up to 10% of its potential demand, even though the slicing the demand to equal 25 route pairs would only amount to only 4% (still too much).
OTOH, even if the features outlined in Sami's list are all implemented, if will fix only about 5% of the 100% broken CBD system
(examples in GW2)
It's not normal to be able to think "I just set up cargo in ORY and will steal 80% of CDG's demand" while cargo infrastructures in ORY are weak.20% of the medium Cargo demand from Bratislava to Paris being still is reserved to ORY, while since ages, only CDG is served with medium cargo capacity(I don't know exactly when, but both companies fly thre since forever).
After 20 years or more of 2 companies from CDG carrying medium cargo to Bratislava, and none from ORY, ORY's actual demand should be 1% of CDG's, maximum. It's 530kg for ORY, 2480kg for CDG. Nearly 20% of cargo demand fool enough not to have gotten the memo in decades that medium cargo from Bratislava to Paris flies only through CDG, not ORY.
That's the broken thing. There is light cargo offer on both routes, so it's not shocking to have actual demand on both routes. But there has never been any offer for medium cargo on ORY, so actual demand should be a joke.
Infrastructure comes only after. Cargo infrastructures IRL are trinkets in ORY compared to CDG. This should be enough to limit demand. But, the trap is, it should be enough to limit overall demand. Let's say the capacity in ORY is 20 tons per day of medium cargo, then a few lines could be maximized.....and then actual demand in any other line would stop growing, due to lack of infrastructures. I mean, capacity can be spread aout amongst multiple destinations, or focused on a few key destinations. In Jumbo's example, you could fly LeHigh valley at full capacity to Stansted, and there would be no more actual demand at all for any other detinations. All the capacity would be used by a single cargo line. In pax terms, a good chunk of ORY's domestic capacity is eaten by ORY-NCE. Etc...
So 2 things should limit actual demand more than it is limited now : (1) Lack of actually flying capacity when a nearby airport does actually fly the destination for the class(in my example, the class being standard cargo), and (2) Overall capacity in the class. There should not be a minimum at 15/20% as we can see. Companies flying BTS-CDG should enjoy at least 3010kg of actual demand for the 3340kg of potential there. The only have 2480kg to share, while 530kg are still reserved to ORY for never flying. I believe we can safely consider CDG dos have enough capacity for those additional 530 daily kg from BTS.
if we go in this infrastructure thing, display shall be essential. "CDG has 87% of its medium cargo capacity currently being used" should appear somewhere. Or if we go more to a Jumbo-like solution, "Lehigh Valley is limited to 250kg of medium cargo demand per destination, due to limited capacity". There are different solutions possible. But the "minimum" thing is horribly broken. And has to be corrected before going to CBD for pax.
Quote from: JumboShrimp on September 05, 2018, 12:39:52 AM
The breakdown of CBD is that each one of the 25 airport pairs is treated equally.
That is incorrect statement.
Sure, if the airports would all be equal in infrastructure and traffic level and they would all be at the exactly the same point (on top of each others), then they would have the same potential to catch the demand from the big city nearby. But they aren't...
(for example: City area of Helsinki; there are two airports of which Malmi is the tiny training/business airport located some 10km from center and Vantaa the big intl airport some 20 km from center. With current setup and strengths set to each attribute, a city person has 25% likelihood to choose Malmi (just because it is close by) and 75% to choose Vantaa, based on the combination of infrastructure, possible available flights (i.e. traffic level) and distance. The calculation combination of all these might be fine tuned more later, as here the 25% "score" is still a bit too much since it's a level 1/1 airport only. However these figures do not mean that 25% of the demand goes there - the actual per-route distribution and actual demand level takes then also into account the actual flights, those figures mentioned are the baseline airport score)
Quote from: gazzz0x2z on September 05, 2018, 02:12:48 PM
After 20 years or more of 2 companies from CDG carrying medium cargo to Bratislava, and none from ORY, ORY's actual demand should be 1% of CDG's, maximum. It's 530kg for ORY, 2480kg for CDG. Nearly 20% of cargo demand fool enough not to have gotten the memo in decades that medium cargo from Bratislava to Paris flies only through CDG, not ORY.
From what I am seeing at my test server is zero CS demand at LZIB-LFPO, but in live game there seems to be some. Meaning that someone has possibly flown CS there a while back, and it's declining back to zero or near zero, or then the latest update did something to it that was unwanted. (just taking a closer look)
(Edit: Found a possible reason for that, fix is pending)
And in any case, this is out of scope of this thread already. Since the airport attributes are meant as an easy way to deal some of the strangeness in political and geological environment of the world (that cannot be modelled in the demand system anymore with the new system, where the basis is that everything is open and expandable etc.). For example the fact that in Soviet Union there were only a couple of international airports.
I want to add for 380 fleet
if the feature with special infrastructure that can handle 380 will be added, then we should make 380 fleet excluded from 4th fleet penalty.
otherwise it would be no sense at this feature.
currently in gw 2|3 i see that average 5 companies uses this birdy.
I know that it is not ecenomically reasonable to use it everywhere. But like Concorde - even me at ZRH can use it at small portions for dedicated routes but surely not sacrificing fleet for it.
IRL we have the same. many companies bought small packs of it just to cover specific routes, so why not do the same in AWS for really special fleet family.
the same could exclusive attribute can be done for Concorde like planes.
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 03:38:41 PM
That is incorrect statement.
Sure, if the airports would all be equal in infrastructure and traffic level and they would all be at the exactly the same point (on top of each others), then they would have the same potential to catch the demand from the big city nearby. But they aren't...
(for example: City area of Helsinki; there are two airports of which Malmi is the tiny training/business airport located some 10km from center and Vantaa the big intl airport some 20 km from center. With current setup and strengths set to each attribute, a city person has 25% likelihood to choose Malmi (just because it is close by) and 75% to choose Vantaa, based on the combination of infrastructure, possible available flights (i.e. traffic level) and distance. The calculation combination of all these might be fine tuned more later, as here the 25% "score" is still a bit too much since it's a level 1/1 airport only. However these figures do not mean that 25% of the demand goes there - the actual per-route distribution and actual demand level takes then also into account the actual flights, those figures mentioned are the baseline airport score)
That's excellent that there is already this differentiation. But it is impossible for us, players to see, since, in my example, just about all of the airports in NYC, LA, London areas are 3+ infrastructure, 6+ traffic. It just seems like they are all equal, and someone flying from downtown Manhattan to downtown LA or London City has 25+ nearly equal possibilities as far as airport pairs to fly from.
For example, between NYC area and LA area, there is 1,000 tn of cargo demand. It is impossible to fly a single Very Large aircraft between any of the airports in the area. But it is possible to fly a single Large (757, A320F, 738F) at or just slightly above breakeven on perhaps all 25 route pairs.
This just tells me that the differentiation should be far greater.
Quote from: JumboShrimp on September 05, 2018, 06:03:35 PM
This just tells me that the differentiation should be far greater.
I plainly agree with that.
I don't feel an airport should be able to gain all traits (see it as specificities if you prefer), and several airports over the same area could obviously share some traits, but with that kind of more specialized system we could get closer to RL (where +1 here and 0 zero will draw a line) or at least work like RL (in case +1 and 0 get inverted due to the in-game evolution).
And my opinion is based on a completely different situation from JS's one: Moscow. Plenty of routes worth putting a 737F but not enough for two. However the demand gets split between 2 departure airports (if not three on some routes).
Thus making cargo from/to Moscow mostly an economical nonsense, because both me and my competitor fly it, from different airports, and divide everything in two.
I don't mind not having some "cargo trait" on my airport and giving it up, but the current situation in which we divide in two an apple that's already quite small makes things look awkward and is a waste of energy and money from both of us.
This looks like we're unable to check the correct level of competition and should base our flights only on results. While I agree this is an interesting idea, I feel it shouldn't go too far as us (as players) can't spend our time revising all our routes because some butterfly took off at the other end of the globe.
Less caricatural, if we say both my competitor and I fly from the same airport, we'll:
- pull more demand towards us than by dividing our efforts (if we consider both airport cover the exact same area)
- renounce this of that route because we can actually see it's already oversupplied like hell and we can't get any juice from it (today, I don't know, I have to try and fly it for at least 6 months before deciding if I keep it or not).
In the case of cargo, obviously, LC and SC could be transported from/to everywhere, but HC could for example be restricted to X airport(s) every Y square kilometers.
-> areas with few airport wouldn't have any change (or barely), and airport-rich areas wouldn't be such a mess.
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 03:38:41 PM
From what I am seeing at my test server is zero CS demand at LZIB-LFPO, but in live game there seems to be some. Meaning that someone has possibly flown CS there a while back, and it's declining back to zero or near zero, or then the latest update did something to it that was unwanted. (just taking a closer look)
Just for info: Found an issue on this and update will be made (among other changes), and the system calculated "correct" figures are as follows:
With current flights the "true" demands will be:
LZIB-LFPG: aCL = 1260, pCL = 1830, aCS = 3350, pCS = 3350, CH = 0
LZIB-LFPO: aCL = 520, pCL = 1170, aCS = 0, pCS = 2150, CH = 0
(aXX = actual, pXX = potential)(LFPG has higher potential since it is 1 scale higher in the traffic level, and probably catches some area where LFPO can't reach; infra level for both is the same)And demands shown will be so that actual CS for LZIB-LFPO will show as 220kg (instead of 0 kg), since there is always the 10% displayed (or smaller amount if certain threshold is exceeded, at high demand routes) for purposes of allowing easier addition of new flights (refer to manual), and this demand is not deducted from other airports.
Changes towards this happen gradually over coming months.
(Note also that "actual-LFPG + actual-LFPO" is not the same as "potential-LFPG + potential-LFPO" because they do not catch the entirely same areas, so the two pairs cannot be directly compared since airports are not of the same size)
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 07:17:51 PM
And demands shown will be so that actual CS for LZIB-LFPO will show as 220kg (instead of 0 kg), since there is always the 10% displayed (or smaller amount if certain threshold is exceeded, at high demand routes) for purposes of allowing easier addition of new flights (refer to manual), and this demand is not deducted from other airports.
But if exactly this 220kg is flown, then it would be deducted from the other airports, correct?
This, IMO, is a huge problem. An airline can add a flight with zero risk, guaranteed return, while the airline trying to serve more than minimum has all the risk. This situation should never exist. It is one sided. It doesn't exist anywhere in the real world. It strongly encourages flying what would otherwise be uneconomical routes and it strongly discourages more capacity of the most economical routes.
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 07:17:51 PM
LZIB
Couple of observations of some possible anomalies (or may be nothing).
I filled out the info for Slovakia, I have a good feel for it but somehow it did not come out so well.
- LZIB (Bratislava - BTS) catchment area covers probably 1/2 of country's GDP but comes out as far less than that.
- LZPP (Piestany - PZY), LZZI (Zilina - ILZ) are the tiniest, 1/1 airports with no flights, yet have more potential demand than BTS. I wonder if it is just the most peculiar placement of airport to surrounding demand squares.
- BTS being on the edge of the country, half the catchment area is in Austria, maybe some in Hungary and Czech Republic, but the borders are still impermeable, EU borders should be open. Luxemburg would benefit most from this in EU. It is actually quite a significant cargo airport in RW.
- BTS airports and its catchment area overlaps with VIE airport, which serves most of the pax and cargo demand in RW.
ok... what would be needed for CBD to work better, from the perspective of the dumbest user here (aka me, since apparently i dont get it yet)
I try to make a route between my airport (PTY) and the NYC area:
1) Well, obviously I check for airports to connect in the airport list. Now I see a will try to some airport that is close to New York. I search for "New York".
2) I check the demand to the two airports I find. In total the demand is 3200, it seems. JFK: 4590 / 1990 LGA: 4150 / 1210
3) Now if I am a new entrant to the market, I have absolutely no clue to which one of the airports I should fly... so i check the infrastructure/traffic levels are: JFK: 6/10 LGA: 5/9
4) Great! Noone else is flying to those airports, I can make great profit! I install my route to JFK and expect the "possible demand" to get to me
5) I realize: it seems I dont get it all... why not?
6) Oh... there is other airports in the area... like for example EWR:
EWR: 4380 / 2380 with 6/10 and other airlines are flying that route.
What i want to say: it would help if there were a graphic interface for all this data, a map, that shows what airports are in the vicinity and which ones are affecting the demand to my airport. Since else later i might realize: wait, in the NYC area there is also westchester county... i have absolutely no clue how big such a circle around an airport is!
So a map, showing demand density, maybe by colour, airports, airports "influence circles" - also with various degrees of influence, to make it comparable which airport is more in demand: the big airport 50km away or the small one 10km away. Or is the sphere of influence of the airport 100km? Or 400?
Without this, i am afraid the whole concept of CBD is going into the long list of AWS "secretive knowledge", that already is including the "too small rule", the "fourth fleet penalty", aircraft data, price insensitivity, etc. etc.; a clique of experienced players knows every detail, and everyone else starting is just wondering and likely to give up on the game for a lack of information.
Quote from: JumboShrimp on September 05, 2018, 08:45:11 PM
But if exactly this 220kg is flown, then it would be deducted from the other airports, correct?
This, IMO, is a huge problem.
No. The "fixed minimum 10%" (or lower on big routes) is only shown if nobody is flying on the route on that travel/cargo class. If one starts to fly that route, the actual demand will be calculated based on what you offer there and it can be less than the 10% too, or it can grow higher over time etc.
For the first few game weeks you have (sort of) no risk of demand falling (due to calculations being performed at a slow/gradual pace) but that is the entire idea of the minimum shown demand! As if all demand would shift to the other airport the whole city demand and shifting between airports would be a moot point since nobody would be able to start at the secondary airport if all demand is shown as zero.
(And also yes the border crossing rule set is not active yet.)
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 09:10:15 PM
No. The "fixed minimum 10%" (or lower on big routes) is only shown if nobody is flying on the route on that travel/cargo class. If one starts to fly that route, the actual demand will be calculated based on what you offer there and it can be less than the 10% too, or it can grow higher over time etc.
For the first few game weeks you have (sort of) no risk of demand falling (due to calculations being performed at a slow/gradual pace) but that is the entire idea of the minimum shown demand! As if all demand would shift to the other airport the whole city demand and shifting between airports would be a moot point since nobody would be able to start at the secondary airport if all demand is shown as zero.
(And also yes the border crossing rule set is not active yet.)
This is solving a problem that does not exist.
For all practical purposes (considering the strong influence of RI on cargo routes), the amount of cargo picked up in first for months by the airline rounds to zero. And since the demand shifting (based on my observation) seems to be a function of supply, not of the amount currently flown, in the first 4 months, just about all of the shift has already takes place. The pace of demand shifting is now very swift, all of it happens before the high RI kicks in and player starts delivering cargo. Problem solved - or no problem existed in the first place.
So the stated purpose of the minimums is effectively eliminated. What remains is all negative
- freeloading - flying un-economical routes at unearned, artificial, system guaranteed minimums (just about all of the route pairs between NYC, LA, London are there, so no CBD in places where it was supposed to work the best)
- leaching all of the demand from economical routes - no RW equivalent of dedicated cargo demand between secondary and tertiary airport (except specialized hubs, like Memphis, Louisville, Leipzig)
- fragmenting of the demand to the tiniest component - which has no RW equivalent
- destroying Very Large cargo Aircraft as a viable strategy - unlike RW, where cargo airlines are now searching the deserts for 747 that could be converted to cargo
Showing potential demand as zero is very useful information. It means that all of the demand is being served by other airports, and any of the demand shifted will have to be earned, by taking it from other airports. (There is no other graphics, no UI to give player this information, other than opening 25+ tabs with all the combinations of route pairs to provide this info. The minimum actually misleads the player into thinking there is some unserved demand, while there may be none).
Hopefully, low starting infra and traffic numbers, reworking of infrastructure to make number of different categories (cargo, pax, runway, transportation)and levels that have to be earned / unlocked, some airports will develop while others will not - which I think was the original intention of CBD.
It is not attempting to fix or patch anything - showing a small part of the potential demand on unserved routes has been part of the design from the very start and has been there since the first test version. And again, it is not reduced from the figures of the "active" airports. (Although on some very high potential areas the shown amounts for this are still too high compared to what is reasonable, have not yet fine tuned that fully)
Quote from: Sami on September 06, 2018, 03:21:16 AM
It is not attempting to fix or patch anything - showing a small part of the potential demand on unserved routes has been part of the design from the very start and has been there since the first test version. And again, it is not reduced from the figures of the "active" airports. (Although on some very high potential areas the shown amounts for this are still too high compared to what is reasonable, have not yet fine tuned that fully)
I am all for tuning the CBD with cargo, so that it can be rolled out more effectively for pax. But to tune it, it is important to recognize what the problems are that need to fixed by tuning. The problems are:
1. excessive fragmentation of demand
2. one of the results of the excessive fragmentation is that Very Large cargo aircraft are obsolete in all but about 5 airports.
Making it easier to carry demand from Manhattan, NYC to downtown LA through Lehigh Volley (ABE) to Ontario (ONT) airports by subsidizing it is, IMO, not even a top 10 issue to address.
Yet, the system does subsidize ABE-ONT route to the tune of 20 ton phantom
actual demand, with no flights, 0 supply
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/KABE/KONT/?go=1
For comparison, airports with massive cargo facilities, JFK, LAX, with far greater catchment areas only get 66 tn
actual demand with 300 tn supply
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/KJFK/KLAX/?go=1
(GW3 links)
If I were to add a cargo flight from the most likely airports, JFK and LAX, I would have a guaranteed loss. If I were to fly from the most unlikely airports (ABE, ONT), I would have a guaranteed profit. Further, flying ABE-ONT, with a single flight would chip away even more demand from LAX-JFK.
This is the most urgent issue in CBD to solve. Fine tuning in different areas will be needed to fully solve this fragmentation
- Fine tuning the minimums (lowering them drastically) will solve perhaps 10% of the problem.
- Making Infrastructure level, Traffic level, perhaps #of cities served from the airports (to temporarily simulate the connections) to supercharge the attractiveness of well developed airport, fine tuning how demand gets shifted may solve 50% of the problem
- Connecting traffic may solve the remaining 40% of the problem
Refer to the latest changelog entry:
Quote from: Sami on September 05, 2018, 07:28:50 PM
- The minimum "dormant" demand shown on a route (in City Based Demand) was in some cases counted incorrectly, and was reported as too high. (e.g. This is demand that is always shown, even if there are no flights on that route and the neighbouring airport is taking all the demand. This is 10% of the potential, or a certain maximum level if route has high potential demand and it is not deducted from the demand of the other airports; ref. manual for more details)
Takes time to take effect.
edit: And actually, with a closer look, you are not correct there: route KABE-KONT
does have supply and (a) flight (GW#3). So that is not any "phantom" demand. But in case there would
not be any flights, the total demand shown on that route would be somewhere around 1500kg. (and those once again in that case are not taken away from any other airport.)
edit 2: gave wrong figures there (4000 -> 1500), updated
Quote from: Sami on September 06, 2018, 04:59:28 AM
Refer to the latest changelog entry:
Takes time to take effect.
edit: And actually, with a closer look, you are not correct there: route KABE-KONT does have supply and (a) flight (GW#3). So that is not any "phantom" demand.
Sorry, I overlooked that one flight on ABE-ONT route. and there is an adjustment taking place on that route.
Portion of the actual demand on the route, when it was 20k demand was earned demand, part of it was the system minimum. The system minimum portion seems to be going down as part of the last adjustment Total is now 12k.
It would not be the problem for the player on the ABE-ONT route to have full airplanes, if the demand was not being served, but the demand is oversupplied from far more appropriate route pairs.
Quote from: Sami on September 06, 2018, 04:59:28 AM
But in case there would not be any flights, the total demand shown on that route would be somewhere around 1500kg. (and those once again in that case are not taken away from any other airport.)
edit 2: gave wrong figures there (4000 -> 1500), updated
Hmm... Is that 1500 kg from demand squares not being served, excluding any system minimums?
Looking at similar route pairs, the demand looks higher that 1500kg. Part of it must be (lower) system minimum. Which may still be too high. Adding flight with a large cargo aircraft (737, A320, 757) on a route with unserved 15k demand results in printing money. Adding the same flight to 3x oversupplied route from EWR, JFK, LAX would be a money loser.
Here is where similar routes stand:
8,500kg, 4.5% of potential
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/KABE/KSNA/
15,670kg, 4.8% of potential
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/KABE/KBUR/
14,660kg, 4.7% of potential
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/KABE/KLGB/
Going back to ABE-ONT:
12,050kg, 4.7% of potential
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/KABE/KONT/
So it does not seem we are yet at the point where the ABE-ONT flight is earning anything on its own merrit. Entirety of the demand is still from the system assigned minimum.
We will see that the ABE-ONT flight is actually earning its demand when the other similar route pairs with no flights are substantially bellow with thier actual demadn as a percentage of the potential demand.
From my observations, demand shifting takes 2-4 months to substantially shift based on the new reality of supply, generally all done in 6 months, so we still have a little bit of time for the full effect of the last fine tuning adjustment to fully take effect.