Passengers & growth
Where passengers come from and what makes a town grow.
Every building inside the catchment of a station you serve makes passengers and mail: each month, about one passenger for every 7 people in it and one bag of mail for every 26.
From 1980 it also makes a tonne of waste for every 12 people, for a recycling plant.
Big buildings make the most, so cover the centre of town.
Towns leave 2 tiles of open ground round every industry, with no houses or new streets, so there is always room for a station beside one.
Growth
Towns grow in spurts. The better the service, the shorter the wait between two spurts:
| The town has | Days between spurts |
|---|---|
| No passenger service | ██████████████████████ 80 days |
| Passenger service | ██████████████████████ 28 days |
| ...and more than 20 a month of goods, food, electronics, cars, newspapers | ██████████████████████ 14 days |
| You are funding new buildings | ██████████████████████ 8 days |
- Passenger service means a station within 10 tiles of the centre picked up passengers in the last 30 days.
- Each new era shortens the wait by about 9% more, and big towns build more in each spurt.
- The town's window says how it is doing.
Supplying a town
Towns accept goods and food at stations that cover at least 60 people, and newspapers, electronics and cars as Catchment says. Every load of goods, food, electronics, cars, newspapers helps the nearest town grow and makes it want more shops.
A wind farm within 24 tiles makes a town wait only 80% as long between growth spurts.