Simulation Overview

Both residents and cargo items have an individual behavior in the game world.

Residents in Transport Fever 3 are simulated as agents. This means that every person in the game is simulated individually. Residents have a fixed routine with their individual home. Depending on the availability of transportation and their move preference they will also pick a shopping facility and work place and travel there and back home by foot, car, or public transport. Cargo is produced and consumed in an industry outside the town or in commercial or industrial buildings in a town.

Select a person in the game world or in a residential building's detail window to open the person window. It tells where that specific person lives, works and goes shopping as well as their happiness and a log of events that resulted in the current happiness level.

Whether the residents take their own car or the public transport lines depends on the time and cost of using public transportation compared to travel by car. The behavior of the cars on the road is influenced by the availability of lanes, speed of other vehicles as well as general traffic. The movement preference determines the maximum amount of time and money a person is willing to spend when using public transport. When the player offers more or better connections, people might also change from car to public transport.

The era has some influence too. In the early years, there are almost no private vehicles available that can compete with public transport. As time progresses, private cars will become faster, and it is likely that they will beat public transport connections in terms of average speed. The faster cars become, the greater the distances people consider acceptable when choosing where to work or shop.

Cargo items have no designated destination. The distribution and flow is a result of the lines and their configurations provided by the player. The last link in a cargo chain is a commercial or an industrial building in one of the towns most of the time. Find out more about the demand of these buildings on the towns page.

By default a day in the game lasts 4 seconds. At single speed, all objects in the game move at a realistic speed in relation to the game world. Changing the game speed will provide a time lapse function by shortening the length of a day and at the same time accelerating the movement of objects in the game.

The length of a day can be adjusted in the bottom right corner of the screen by clicking on the current in-game dateby opening the radial menu with and then selecting Calendar. Different calendar speeds only affect the availability of vehicles and infrastructure. The amount of produced and consumed cargo as well as the maintenance of vehicles is automatically adapted to stay consistent.