COMPLETE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO PUBLIC TRANSPORT in Cities Skylines | Town Planner Tips 

Hey Betchez, thank you for watching ! If you want to download this city, you can! Also the map is of Los Angeles. Here are both links. Enjoy :D Game Save: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1567879803 Map: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1555543207

Sam "just ignore the city, its something I threw together in an hour". Proceeds to show off something better than I've ever managed in the game. :) :) :)

Trains are high capacity general purpose long distance link Monorails are an express for dense urban areas, with a semi-dedicated link between high volume terminals. Subways are like underground monorails, only used in a bus-like mode with well spaced terminals. Trams are medium density feeders looping thru a master planned neighborhood area or the edge of high density. Busses are good for neighborhood circulators that connect to the amenities like shopping or entertainment. That is what I understood from what you said.

Lived near a monorail and train station in Seattle Washington, trains are so much louder, devs got it backwards.

For people who are using buses inefficiently - perhaps they're people like me who grew up in cities where buses were all you had. Take cities like Detroit or San Antonio. Undeniably huge, but yet no trams, no subways, just a single rail station in the downtown area with like a two or three trains per day at an absolute maximum and the first stop isn't for hundreds of miles. All you've got locally are buses and your own cars. So many people will be building cities based upon their own, and that's all they know. Where I live we do have trams and we do have suburban rail services (no subway though), but despite all that, the majority of public transportation is done by bus. You want to go from the East side to the West side? Odds are you'll be doing it by bus. Everything else ferries into the city center. The buses do that too, but the vast majority stay out of the downtown.

Also, looped routes are pretty inefficient, unless you have two routes - one going clockwise and one going counterclockwise.

If you use taxi stands, don't forget to build taxi depots otherwise you will never see taxis! That's what I had to learn first 😂

Thank you for the informative video, Sam. My husband is now addicted to Cities:Skylines and constantly has trouble with trains and public transport. He has been learning a lot and we have both been appreciating your tips as we watch your videos. I am still testing your tips of distribution of industry throughout the city. That is difficult to set up with ground pollution affecting residential, and I just love my green cities, LOL.

You forgot to say one very important thing related to trains. You should ALWAYS keep your train stations divided between local trains and outside world trains. Dont let outside world trains use your local train network. Build few stations on the outside world track and some stations could be close to your local train network but never allow outside world trains use your local train network. The same goes for cargo trains. You can build 4 stations at the edge of the map or you can create train station for outside world trains and next to it build your local train station to allow people from outside the world transfer onto your local train network :) Believe me it helps you a lot when you will have larger city! Also one good tip for PT in general is people in this game are simple and they are not social = they wont go visit their friends. So you need to setup PT in a simple way meaning - Cims want to get to a shops/schools/work/parks nothing more. If you want to reduce a lot of traffic metro is the number one. If you would like to see more traffic on the ground you have to avoid using metro and use buses and trams :) Last tip I can recommend is to subscribe for few buses, trams, trains on the worshkop. This way you can get yourself a bus for 80 even 110 people trains for 300-500 and trams for 120-250. So if you want use articulated buses in your city you definitely can :)

SB made a quick 1 hour city to show a short tutorial on public transport. Still look prettier then my long time city look :\

I’ve played 160 hours of this game but I’m always learning new things from you, thank you so much!

This is probably one of the better and more useful transportation explanation videos I've seen in quite a while. It makes me want to go back and redesign the transportation layout in my largest city. Thanks!

Thank you for explaining this. Public transit is one of my biggest issues other than lack of creativity when building my city roads lol

I’ve just recently got the mass transit dlc and them realised I didn’t know how to use it all properly. Thanks this was a lot of help

"They wouldn't like the noise pollution" Well I'm sure they don't like the garbage piling up into streets either. Just kidding. Amazing breakdown and incredibly useful. Big thanks!

Boat ferries: low capacity "bus on the water", good if used with actual busses on the roads. Still, due to their slow speed and low capacity, it is suggested for small town area to another low population area. Cable cars: personally I love these, while individually they are lower capacity but tend to have quite a few cars. Cims tend to love them, can be used to get them up above busy road ways in unusual routes, or across hills/water ways, and not slowed down by traffic. Still helps to have busses for more local transport. Additional note on monorails. I have used them for longer distance runs, especially as a replacement for trains. When you have long straight flat runs, they actually run pretty fast in game. Add in that once you connect any train line to the outside world tracks, especially if shared with cargo trains, then the tracks get clogged and cause a rail nightmare. This is why I keep inter-city train connections/rails separate, and like the multi-rail stations for this purpose. Still, I've seen these Cims walk all kinds of long distances, even when there is plenty of public transport, so sometimes walkways over/under busy highways is all that is needed, especially to keep them from slowing down traffic.

I’ve been playing since pre-release in 2015 and I still love your beginners’ videos. It really helps to refresh me on a lot of stuff I likely either haven’t used in a while, or have learned to use them inefficiently and never retrained myself. Great videos. Keep up this type of content too.

I tought I knew everything, but some details really surprised me! Thank you! Oh and I didn't know your were a town planner, that's interesting

I don't know about others, but I find this fascinating. I've actually got Skylines in my Steam library, but I've yet to give it a fair shot. I assume that it also allows for other infrastructure considerations, such as sanitation, waste processing, utilities, road maintenance, etc. Great job!

Thanks, Sam. Although I'm a 3000+ hours player, I always like a refresher. This video covered old ground BUT also gave me quite a few "I didn't think of that" moments.

This is one of the best vudeos you have ever produced. Got to know many things.. I was doing many good/bad things but you kinda summarised all in one. Keep going 👍

in the video you mentioned that you shouldn't rely on busses, because they increase congestion, but surely if a bus can carry 30 people that's maybe 20 or more cars that are not on the road, thus reducing congestion? Or does the game not work that way?

Your videos have helped me more than you know and has stimulated a lot of creative thought in my own cities. Thank you!!! It is MUCH appreciated :)

Hey Sam, here's how I use my mass transit systems. I use taxis to primarily service tourists. Sometimes, tourists don't go to places covered by metro lines. I came to this conclusion because I noticed that the vast majority of taxis in my (mega)city queue up for tourists coming from my space elevator. Trams, I use to connect adjacent districts. The idea is to concentrate short-travel private vehicle traffic into the tram lines to give way for freight, which is the main source of traffic in my map. I use them for both low and high density areas. I don't use buses at all precisely for the disadvantages you outlined. That said, I'm thinking of changing that by creating bus lines that connect nearby districts not currently covered by trams. The metro gets the lion's share of ridership. I use it pretty much conventionally: long distance travel options connecting disjoint high density residential, commercial, and office areas with each other. No monorails. I don't use them because I genuinely don't know what their niche is in my current system. No blimps because they're too whimsical/impractical, no cable cars because I don't have high-altitude areas. Trains are dedicated solely for freight. No passenger lines. Just from all that, what do you think can be improved?

These taxi stops you shown don't create taxis. This is a place for taxis to wait. In my 100k population town I have about ten taxi depots, but still always zero taxis availabale at any stop at any moment, they are all always busy. I wonder how many taxi depots is needed for 100k population. Before I always put one taxi depot and many taxi stops. I saw that something going wrong, but mostly I had never really been concerned about taxis and just let it be like that.

Owesome video! I watched it yesterday but wanted to test the idea. So i tested it today and am amazed. Bus and metro are the best combo. Alot learned and alot more to learn. Great tips and amazing explanation. Thanks sam👌

Great timing lol I have been looking for this for ages.

Thank you for making these videos. I have only recently had the chance to start playing it and I am utterly lost, now I can at least start addressing my congestion issues. :D

This is super helpful. I'm struggling with public transportation a lot. Thanks!!!!

Hi, Sam thank you for your dedicated work. You have made many aspects of the game more clear to me. I’d love more vanilla videos, since I am an Xbox player. Cheers!

All things being equal, which they aren't, I find that the most popular form of public transport are... 1. Metro 2. Buses 3. Trams 4. Trains 5. Monorail 6. Ferry 7. Cable Car 8. Taxi Putting aside ships and planes, the are kinda specific for tourism, cables cars are somewhat niche as well. Don't even think about blimps, apart from their fun element. I can completely swamp my bus services as well as Metro. Unrealistically perhaps, altho I have seen photos on Google of people hanging on the outside, I have increased the bus capacity to 100...! I see that you could also edit transport capacity. It was either that or have so many busses on the road packed 30 at a time that they were making congestion. Metro also is typically popular, outer and inner rings fill well when used in relation to a central bus hub. Each other form of public transport, with the exception of trams, can be a poor second to Metro and Buses. I could totally isolate an area from a road connection and then force a monorail or train service for them to commute, but it does seem that I have to force them to use that over their own cars or either buses or metro. Might be my city design that could influence that, but in any situation taxis are useless, unless they and their stands are for decorative purposes. Using mods like demand master and not being bothered about your city budget can greatly change how you build and style a city as well as considering public transport choices, they can be very costly to run on some occasions. Good video again Sam.

Good video bro, very informative even for Cities Skylines old timers! Keep up the good work!

This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, thank you so much

Thank you, this kind of video is what I was searching for about public transport: planning pros and con show to use each type of transport….most videos are how to make up a line and use the interface, but that can be learned I the game

As a fairly experienced cities player, I can say that this is a great tutorial for beginners! Well played sam. Keep it up.

Thank you so much for this video. It is nice to have alittle bit more explains on the public transport uses than what is available in game . I am new to your site , but would love a video on sightseeing buses and sightseeing tours .

A lot of great information and advice! Thanks Sam! This vid earned you my sub! Thanks!!

Good work, I really enjoyed this video. You seem to know what you're talking about and that is refreshing.

Thanks for the video. I learned a few cool things in it. I also learned that I've been setting my cities out so stupidly since I've been playing this game - Starting in the middle and just sprawling outwards in random directions as I saw fit.

What I've learned from 1,500 hours playing this game. Still too many problems though. - Cluster parks, offices and businesses near train stations. Make sure you make mutiple clusters and not centralize them if you haven't implemented a robust LRT/High Speed Rail hub. Dealing with more traffic headache in of itself to deal with (especially at double digits) - External connections I think should be paired up. That means external rail connection should pair up with your airport or seaport. - Make sure you plan ahead when you expand certain parts of your cites. This means a bigger/multiple connections between districts. - Certain policies can have a butterfly effect on your city. This ranges from upkeep costs, land value, pollution, crime rate, etc. Hard stuff. - Don't practice Urban Sprawl, its really bad for the environment and a possibility of wildlife roaming your streets. - Green tech isn't always great.

Hi Sam, brilliant video, when I watched it s pretty much common sense once explained. I am now going through my Taveeno City and changing some of the public transport elements to try to take advantage. I basically have three large areas and I’m now changing the most recent one I created the utilise metro in to a commercial area, with trams running around that commercial area with buses going into the residential. I noticed that my commercial area is pretty small, so it looks like the CIms walk from the metro to their destination so the trams aren’t needed. One other area has two large area connected via a bus only road, linking that with a bus terminal. I have changed all the bus routes, they now target smaller routes but all go back to the terminal. Anyway, great video.

in Public transport there are many modern thoughts like: Cable car can be used as transit system, trams are used two connect two small town or light rail to be specific Bus rapid transit can take over as trams , this is your video so cycling deserves a place as well, Monorails are used as a tram as well subway with small distance in between station can be built in your downtown areas as well. another thing I thought you should mention as well as the number of people carried by a system is imp as well. and carrying capacity of vehicles in this game is seriously screwed, trams can carry way more than 90(vanilla) or 30 for the bus so I suggest the use of IPT2 mod to fix it. thanks.

Great, helpful video, transport is something I can never seem to get right. Your city you knocked up in an hour still looks a million times better than mine I spend days on lol

This is a very useful video. I've always struggled with the hierarchy, but then my style of city building is very haphazard and I end up with situations where I've got one or two ludicrously busy roads where public transport only ever adds to the issues. I shall definitely be taking your advice here! One thing that bugs me with trams is the need to create a loop. The trams we have in Manchester can reverse (as do the trains, subways and monorails in game) and I'd have hoped they'd fix this, but clearly I'm not going to see it any time soon. One thing I've tried to emulate is having off-road stops for the trams, where they either take up their own lane in the middle of the road, or spur off to the side of the road for a stop. It does help lighten traffic when they are stopped, but the cutting across the road negates it a bit.

This was exactly what I needed! Thanks!

It would be interesting to see further development of this map. You picked an interesting landscape with the valleys downstream.

Thanks for this - I've had a tendency to just slap some roads down and go "hey, maybe I'll put a monorail here but idk", which has essentially made my library a wastebin full of crumpled up paper balls. This knowledge should give me a better framework for my overall layouts.

Thanks for all the information! Very useful!

this is so beautiful

A really useful video Sam, thanks

This is a phenomenal tutorial. Thank you!

Thanks for the info. You’ve convinced me to tear down bus routes and give my city more diverse public transport.

For a new player to the game, this is fantastic info! Thanks!

GREAT VIDEO I love public transport but I have struggled to use them right, using mostly buses despite dense populations. Your real world experience shows in how naturally you understand the hierarchy and uses for each type.

I like the way he keep telling "i know its alot, i hope you can follow" Bro. No one forces me to watch this. But i do cuz its pretty helpful and trust me english aint my motherlanguage but i still get your points on 100%. Awesome Video.

Yes, just bought it so really helps the newb here. TY.

Thanks! This was helpful!

Reall relax and beautiful city! And all those bus lanes trams and small town just remind me of Melbourne.Which is my favorite city. Thank you! I am new to City skylines.While I am watching your work I just notice that not every city should be big and have a big amount of population. It has so much fun to complete every detail in every corner of the city. Which is my next goal of my city.

Yes, i was using the buses terribly bad. Thanks for the heads up Sam!

I’m definitely will start using your train and bus tips!!! It makes more sense to use buses in smaller areas instead of using the for my main transportation and then use the trains for them to use to transport between towns.

Cool video, dude! Have learned something

Great video Sam. Learned a ton. Thanks

this is the best video about public transportation i've ever seen. congrats. can you, one day.. maybe, tell us about boats and taxis?

It's very helpful. Cheers!

Very useful, thanks! Have subscribed. So much info / advice to take in that I had to put you on 0.75 playback speed and kept pausing the vid :-) The thing about the game, as in real life I s'pose, is that you build stuff but then you receive (earn) more features so you're constantly reconfiguring things, and meanwhile the original basic stuff (like keeping crime low, garbage sorted etc) is still coming at you and so fast.

your cities always look great (and full of "life") and realistic, my always look like a sh... you know what I mean. When I'm satisfied with the looks, it doesn't work, when I try to build efficient, it looks bad :(

I always struggled with anything else other than road placement in this game. Thanks from the bottom of my heart lol

Thanks sam you are the most helpful skyliner ❤

Welp, there goes my crosstown express line. Thanks for the vid, definitely gonna be applying these concepts.

You can definitely use trams in busy downtowns! Your overall capacity just needs to be big enough, maybe in combination with metro. That's what is done is many cities around the world. I recommend to make these areas an "old Town" zone to keep private vehicles out

There are train/road crossings? Damn I always had roads and train tracks go above/under each other......

I usually have the large train hub in my downtown with lines that go out into the suburbs. Each suburb has a bus line that circle around the suburb to drop people off at the train station. I never put buses through high density areas. Then I usually have a subway in the downtown/high density that may also connect to an airport, cruise ship harbor, stadium, etc. And then a decent road and highway network will handle the rest. The only issue I usually have are trucks that are lining up at the cargo terminals but they are far enough away from main arteries where it doesn't disturb the other traffic.

Bus loop sound so terrible wrong. We Demand more TERMINUS! Proper Bus Line Warior Squad here!

This was really good, thank you. I've been using buses wrong.

Well, I LOVE buses. They are the main way to get around in my city. Cuz they are really flexible, cheap (looking and doesn't coast much), no need for infrastructure, and I use double-deckers for long-haul-high-demend-lines.

I ususally place Taxi's next to hotels and entertainment areas, like the Panda Sanctuary. Tourists seems to like them, taxi's and Panda's both. 😊

I like how you said it took you an hour to make, that would take me weeks to make!

Like to see you make a town/city on a steep mountain 😏

love it, thanks

Questions I have: Metro vs monorail Ferries How to profit I also would like to learn a bit about cable cars, have you never used it?

In my big City Squares, I use nearly all public transport available with the hubs etc. Usually I put Bureaus and Commercial around the hubs since it's more realistic in a way. And also I do divide them up as you did. Besides a few main hubs there is good interchange but not to evrrything (i.g. Monorail around and through the most dense parts paired with Metro to reduce traffic on the street where Monorail really is for connecting the inner core to the outter parts of this structure and sometimes even a bit further (when trains or busses aren't worth) and in the outter parts where there is less traffic they have to change to either train (Main Station) for long distance, busses or trams for local cities where I even seperate busses and trams since I think both in one area are unnessrcessary. Aka: One area relies on busses the other on trams just the way I like it. Also I do use canals and therefore ferries if the map let's me do it. Ferries are like a mixture of monorail and train so to speak: Short to medium range. Never used zeppelins and cable cars though. Need to integrate them at one point, I guess. They seem kinda cool : D

Very helpful. Thankyou.

thanks for the tips

Nice video. Now I realise my mistake with busses. :D

I think 1. To maximize the transportation usage, the route need to connect: ResidentialWorking areacommercial, so that u can earn $ from your citizens. 2. Exclusive transport mode, so only that transport serves that area, such as only Ferry can go that area directly, other transport type need to interchange several times/travel long distance to go there. 3. Using "Improved Public Transport 2" for route's fleet control if u don't like using budget control. 4. Better cover percentage of your city, so your citizens can use city's transport more. Bus: 1. I usually do as main local transportation, such as Expressway express, local loop(Train/Metro Shuttle), local area connected with road Buses if goes on Expressway, I would make a bus interchange & place the Bus route stop there for passengers interchange bus. 2. I avoid to use built-in bus hub coz it is useless. Build a customized bus hub with NE2 one-way bus road for it and it is much more useful, at least buses will use as a "stopping bay" for their hub stop very smoothly. 3. Bus routes usually planned as line & looping for terminus. 4. Using the bus assets, such as Double-deck bus assets(Enviro500, so on) for larger capacity fleet. 5. Giving too much buses on one route and many bus routes with using same road and spoke out to suburb area will be look like the Hong Kong's Nathan Road. Train: I am not often to use Railway for my city passenger transportation, Mainly I plan for using railway, build it like the Tokyo Yamanote line, as a rail loop for the inter-downtown/early urban area connection. So, I usually reserve land if I planned the city to have railway. Metro: similar to railway / your Monorail idea, but I would do as an underground railway along the main road & downtown area, connect residential, workplaces and commercial area. Place a park nearby if need to reduce the noise of Metro station. Sometimes, I will close some bus routes which also use the same route service & giving an exclusive service to Metro. Tram: I usually planned the route service look as bus. Tram can have its independent track, so it can use as low-capacity railway transport and it can goes on road. Ferry: The best way of bay/harbour/water crossing which u don't want/hard to build road, giving an exclusive service to ferry can maximize the usage.

following on the heels on the comments that say "this thrown-together-in-an-hour" city is better than anything I've done", it would be nice if we could get a video of you doing the basic build for this kind of city (or set of cities). It looks like you've got infinite money turned on, which no doubt helps a lot. Also, a master plan is also nice. If we started (like you probably did) by buying several areas, and putting in the various downtowns and their road & rail connections, it would (theoretically) be easier to get this kind of result. Thanks for the video. Very informative.

Custom public transport vehicles are available in steam workshop. Most of those vehicles have higher capacities (eg a JR East train has a capacity of 720 people) because they use real life capacities. There are also custom transit stations available on the workshop, and most of those (elevated/underground/multiple tracks) require steam workshop modifications. The realistic population and consumption mod results in overcrowding of the public transit system. I have used buses with a capacity of 60 people to solve this problem, as well as custom metro trains with a capacity of around 400 people. When I start building up a city, I use buses until I reach a population of 50,000 to 100,000 people, when I convert certain high congestion bus routes to metro or monorail.

Hey Sam, I just came across this video and at the start you mentioned you're an actual city planner. I'm a pretty big fan of this game and so I thought it would be awesome if I could learn more about the theory and practice behind city planning in connection with this game. So my question is if you have any book recommendations on infrastructure and city planning which provides some rules of thumb to take into account, as well as provide design suggestions for certain types of infrastructure such as intersections, transportation layouts, or even entire city layouts?

It feels weird that hardly anyone is commenting 😵

I've picked up some pretty good tips from your videos but I feel you're dead wrong about buses. They do not increase traffic - they decrease traffic because people aren't driving their cars. You mention how buses increase traffic three times in the video I think... but if there are 30 people on a bus, that's 29 less vehicles on the road. Furthermore - you say not to use buses in downtown areas, and I'm not sure about this, but it seems like people will only be able to walk a certain distance from the train/tram station and get to work.

Please keep in mind that custom public transport vehicles found on the Steam Workshop have increased capacity, and therefore work the best using the Realistic Population and Consumption mod. In addition, there is specific consideration with regards to elevated and underground train stations, which are available on the workshop but require the Extra Train Station Tracks mod. Constructing a rail line underground costs higher than constructing a metro line or a monorail line. There are some metro/monorail/train stations available on the workshop that have two or more sets of platforms, thus reducing congestion; Advanced Stop Selection is required in order to make them function correctly.

Great video! Good information! You should make a city with only Uber taxis. A place whithout no other transportation then taxis. Those cab drivers would make a hell lot of money!

Thank you for this guide! Now I need to go fix my city.

Check out the city of Dubai for public transportation layout as it has everything in a small space. There is a monorail that runs out to the end of Palm Island, a tram that runs from the tourist area to old Dubai, a rail that runs between all the commercial areas, and tourist areas, and buses that run between the commercial and tourist areas. Taxis dominate throughout the greater area. I was just there in September and will mention that the local do not like the Tram at all. They stated that it wasn't planned very well. It was a little confusing to figure out its "zone" system, so I kind of agree.

Funny how you comment on how to go easy on the layout of your city and how you did that in an hour... id be overly happy if i built anything close to this at all tbh... thanks for the vid!

Just found your channel, great videos. Do you have a tutorial on how *not* to make cities look like grids?

Thanks Sam for the good tutorial. From what you've said about buses: I'm an abuser. LOL. Thanks for keeping it real.

i actually dig the layout of this city. im in the us, so the lanes bother me, easy to get over. Very informative. I absolutely am a noob, so this helped a lot. my sities are awful, haha

Thanks! I always make loop for monorail, in the same city (edge to middle to another edge)...

I think you're underestimating the power of subways a bit. They're great for moving people around densely populated residential, commercial, and office zones. I think they have more flexibility than monorails because they're underground you can do large loops that connect numerous stations, but you can also do crosstown lines and express lines.