5.7 Transportation

The **transportation** function allows companies to gain company value by moving goods that have been sold on the market from the seller's city to the buyer's city. This is not necessary to complete the market transaction, which happens immediately; it is a separate opportunity for companies to grow.

Any company's transports may move any goods; the transporter does not need to be the buyer or the seller. Indeed, goods are assigned to transports in a city on a first-in, first-out basis.

## Intro

The first thing to understand about transports is that they are not required. You could play Tycoon Online and run your company without ever purchasing a transport. But if you do purchase vehicles, they have the potential to add a lot to your Company Value (CV).

Every time a company purchases goods on the market, an assignment is created to transport those goods from the seller's city to the purchaser's city. The exception to this is when the seller and purchaser are in the same city – in this case no assignment is created.

Once the assignment has been created, any player may carry out the assignment. If your vehicle is next in line in the seller's city, the goods will be loaded into your vehicle. Once your vehicle is loaded with enough goods, your driver will start heading for the destination city. Depending on how fast your driver is and the distance between the two cities, it could take many hours to complete the trip.

To be honest, you don't get paid a lot of money for transport assignments. You get 1 iKr in savings per unit of good transported. So a full airplane, for example, will only get 160 iKr in savings for the complete trip. The big benefit to transports, however, is the company value you earn. You can earn up to 500 CV or more per trip, depending on the number of goods you transport and the distance you take them. Company Value is how your C-Rank is determined, so this ability to earn CV can make a big difference in your company's ranking.

You need to keep an eye on a few things when managing transports. First, each additional vehicle of the same type doubles in price, so it gets very expensive to buy a lot of vehicles. Also, your vehicles need to be driven by an employee – a Driver is best, but any employee with a drivers license can do the job. And finally, you need gas to power your vehicles. Your company has a separate account for gas money, and you may need to top off that account once in a while. As long as you have sufficient money in your fuel account, your vehicles will refuel automatically when needed.

One, and one last thing. Some cities generate more assignments than others, depending on the size of the city and the types of companies in that city. It is worthwhile to keep an eye on where your vehicles are queued up, and move them to a city with a shorter queue when appropriate. A vehicle that is just waiting in line doesn't earn anything!

## Purchasing vehicles

On the transportation page, you may buy new vehicles. There are five vehicles to choose from and they all have different transportation capacity, max speed, price and fuel efficiency.

When you purchase a vehicle, it will appear in the city that you are based in. There is no limit to the number of vehicles you can own, but the price of each new vehicle of the same type will keep increasing.

The price for each new vehicle of the same type is multiplied by 2.5. For instance: if you buy three trucks and a trailer; the first truck will cost i$950, the second truck costs 950 \* 2.5 = i$2375, and the third truck costs 2375 \* 2.5 = i$5938, while the 1st trailer is only i$1350.
The starting prices for each vehicle type are:
* Truck - i$950
* Trailer - i$1350
* Train - i$2650
* Airplane - i$8000
The price for each new vehicle of the same type is multiplied by 1.5. For instance: if you buy four trucks and a trailer; the first truck will cost 2400 iKr, the second truck costs 2400 \* 1.5 = 3600 iKr, the third truck costs 3600 \* 1.5 = 5400 iKr, and the forth truck costs 5400 \* 1.5 = 8100 iKr while the 1st trailer is only 5400 iKr.
The starting prices for each vehicle type are:
* Truck - 2400 iKr
* Trailer - 5400 iKr
* Ship - 10,600 iKr
* Airplane - 32,000 iKr

When buying a vehicle, you gain an increase to your company value equal to 1/15 of the purchase price. However, you will also lose 1/20 of the price due to the reduction in your savings, so your net CV gain will be 1/15 - 1/20 = 1/60 of the purchase price.

## Selling vehicles

When you sell a vehicle, the amount of CV loss and cash gain you will receive depends on how many vehicles you currently have.

Easy example:

You have one airplane and decide to sell it. The airplane costs 16 000 iKr to replace since it is your only vehicle.

You will receive 1/5 cash of the value and lose 1/40 CV. You gain 3 200 iKr and lose 400 CV. The net CV loss is 240 since the gain of 3 200 iKr offsets the loss. A 3 200 iKr gain raises your CV by 160.

Now for a more complicated calculation:

You have 2 trucks and want to sell one of them. The replacement cost on the truck is 3600 iKr since you have 2 trucks.

You will gain 1/5 iKr of 3600 and lose 1/40 CV of 3600. That is a 720 iKr gain and 90 CV loss. The net loss will be about 46 CV due to the gain of 608 iKr. I say about 46 because the numbers are rounded.

## Vehicle staff

An employee with a driver’s license must operate a vehicle. No matter what vehicle it is (whether it is a truck or an airplane), a driver's license is all the employee needs to operate the vehicle. The salary of an employee operating a vehicle is calculated with a market price of 25 iKr (check the staff section for how to calculate salaries).

Drivers are professional chauffeurs. They use their production points when operating a vehicle. Other staff can use their attribute points. The skill of the chauffeur determines the average speed of a vehicle, up to a max speed set for each type of vehicle.

When you view a vehicle's status page, the driver will be displayed along with his driving skill. A driver's skill is calculated with this formula: Number of production points (if driver) or number of attribute points (if other profession) / 2

How high driving skill does your driver have?
85 / 2 ~ 43. Your driver has a skill of 43%.

## Gasoline expenditure

Once a vehicle has been bought, it will need to tank up. It does so within the next ten minutes. When a vehicle tanks for gasoline, the gasoline is paid for from the gasoline account you can find on the "Transportation" page. If there is not enough money on the gasoline account for the vehicle to tank up, the vehicle will not function until money is deposited to the account, and it is able to purchase gasoline. The price per unit of gasoline is the same as the market price of gasoline.

Gasoline tanked by a vehicle is lost if the vehicle is sold.

Some vehicles have more gasoline capacity (the airplane, for instance), allowing them to travel further than other vehicles without tanking. Vehicles will tank only when they are running out of gasoline, and this will often be in the middle of an assignment. This means no vehicle types have limits to their reach. All vehicles may travel between all the possible routes in Tycoon Online.

Fuel efficiency is dependent on vehicle type:
Tank size x Fuel efficiency = Distance per full tank
* Truck = 10 fuel x 250 mpg = 2500 miles
* Trailer = 20 fuel x 150 mpg = 3000 miles
* Train = 20 fuel x 500 mpg = 10,000 miles
* Airplane = 20 fuel x 200 mpg = 4000 miles
All vehicles consume one unit of gasoline per 200 kilometers traveled.
Tank size x Fuel efficiency = Distance per full tank
* Truck = 10 fuel x 200 kmpg = 2000 km
* Trailer = 10 fuel x 200 kmpg = 2000 km
* Ship = 20 fuel x 200 kmpg = 4,000 km
* Airplane = 20 fuel x 200 kmpg = 4000 km

## Transporting goods

After having tanked, your vehicle will start receiving transportation assignments. These tasks are given to the vehicle automatically.

Every city has a transportation route to all other cities on the map. Each of these may be handled by several vehicles at once if there are enough goods for them to transport. If a vehicle is waiting for goods to a specific city, no other vehicles will be awarded that route until the vehicle has finished loading and has been sent toward its destination. When a company in the destination city buys goods from the market sold by a company in the vehicle's current city, the goods sold will be made available for transportation to its buyer. If a vehicle is in process of loading goods to the buyer's city, the goods will be loaded onto this vehicle. If no vehicles have been awarded the route yet, the vehicle queued first will receive it, and load the goods. When a vehicle is fully loaded, or the capacity used meets your chosen minimum capacity used, the vehicle starts its journey to its destination. Routes that have no goods to transport are not given to any vehicles.

Goods that have been traded and made available for transportation are made unavailable for transportation if 48 hours pass without the goods being loaded by a vehicle.

When the bank purchases goods, no transportation assignments are created. However when the bank sell goods on the market, there will be transportation assignment created, from the city in which the company that sold the goods to the bank are located, to the buying company's city.

For instance: You have a truck in Malmö. It has a driver, has tanked up, and is ready for assignments. It is given the Malmö - Ystad route (the assignment appears under "Current assignments"). When a company in Ystad buys goods from the market sold by a company from Malmö, your vehicle will be loaded with these goods and sent to Ystad.

A vehicle will only head for its destination city once it has been fully loaded with goods or the amount of goods loaded has reached your chosen minimum capacity used. Thus, if a company in Ystad buys 10 goods from a company in Malmö, your truck will be loaded with 10 units of goods. Your truck can carry a total of 80 units of goods maximum, so it will remain in Malmö until more market transactions are made, or if you have set the truck's minimum carrying capacity to 10 units.

Trucks have a special ability, they can haul same-city cargo loads (those goods bought and sold in the same city). You do not need to do anything special to access this ability, however you can restrict individual trucks to only haul same-city goods, or to only haul goods to a different city.

When more vehicles are in need of transportation assignments than there is goods available for transportation, vehicles are queued in the cities they are currently in. Depending on the amount of market transactions, the queue will move forward as vehicles are loaded and sent to their destination cities.

You can order your vehicles to other cities yourself. To do this, enter the vehicle's profile, click the name of the city, and choose a city to go to. When choosing the city, you will be given information on goods currently in need of transportation in that city. When you give a vehicle such an order, it will not be transporting goods while moving to your chosen location. If the vehicle has already been assigned to another task, your order will be queued behind it. When looking at the 'Recent wait times' for a city, remember they are a lagging indicator, it shows the average waiting time of vehicles that recently departed and are still on route to the destination.

It is possible to delete tasks given to vehicles as long as the vehicle has not yet begun undertaking the assignment. Once it has arrived its destination city and has been awarded a transportation destination, it will remain there until it has been loaded and traveled to the given city. When deleting assignments, the latest given assignment must be deleted first.

If you click a task listed under "Current assignments", details about the amount of goods caried and company value increase gained from the task are displayed.

## FTL vs LTL

In the US version you can choose whether your vehicles will accept shipments that are smaller than the minimum you set for each vehicle. For example, if your vehicle is set to a minimum of 40 goods, and is in FTL (Full Truck Load) mode, you won't get stuck with a 5 unit load. Those 5 units may go to another player's LTL (Less-Than-Load) mode vehicle later in the queue. You will need to decide the best strategy for your transports. If you have a Gold Membership, you can set LTL/FTL mode individually for each vehicle, or set all vehicles to the same mode with one click. Players without GM can only choose one mode for their entire fleet.
All vehicles are LTL. They will start to fill up with the 1st available load of any size.

## Vehicle capacity

When entering a vehicle's profile, you may set the minimum capacity it may carry to its destination. By setting the minimum capacity used lower than a vehicle's maximum capacity, the vehicle is allowed to leave its city before it is fully loaded. This is especially helpful if the vehicle is "stuck" on a route between two cities where little goods need transportation. To escape such a situation, you may set your vehicle's minimum load below the load it has currently loaded to force it to move from the city it is stuck in.

These are the current maximum capacities of the various vehicles:

* Truck: 80 units
* Trailer: 120 units
* Airplane: 160 units
* Ship: 320 units

## Vehicle speed

Each vehicle has a max speed. This is the speed that a perfect driver may manoeuvre his or her vehicle: An employee with the driver profession, 100 in all attributes, and 100 profession points.

The speed that your vehicle moves with depends on your chauffeur's driving skill and is calculated with this formula: (max speed /2) + ((max speed / 2) \* skill). This means that the lowest speed a vehicle can move with is half its max speed.

How fast will your driver be able to drive?
(80 / 2 + ((80 / 2) \* 0.43) = 40 + 17 = 57 km/h. Your driver will manoeuvre your truck at a speed of 57 km/h.

Vehicles will travel the calculated distance every 10 minutes.
Vehicles will travel the calculated distance every hour.

## Transportation rewards

When transporting goods, you earn 1 iKr/i$ per unit of goods transported. The type of goods and the distance traveled has no influence on transportation payment.

More important is the increase in company value transportation produces.

The company value gain is calculated with this formula:
Units transported x distance traveled / 1000

How much does your company value increase from the transportation assignment?
320 \* 3000 / 1000 = 960 points of company value.
For transporting 320 units 1000 miles, you gain 960 points of company value.

The company value gain is calculated with this formula:
Units transported x distance traveled / 300

How much does your company value increase from the transportation assignment?
320 \* 100 / 300 = 106 points of company value.
For transporting 320 units 100 km, you gain 106 points of company value.

*Hint:* Transportation is a feature that serves wealthy companies the most. The income gained from transportation is low and does not cover your vehicles' gasoline and staff expenditures. Companies that have reached their maximum amount of buildings require new ways of increasing the company value growth, and it is the company value addition that is attractive when transporting goods. Therefore, the main purpose of vehicles' is to generate CV at a cash expense to the company. Which can sometimes bring greater returns than investing the cash.

*Hint:* Although vehicles function without supervision, you can greatly increase the company value you gain from them by keeping an eye on what cities have more goods available for transportation and directing your vehicles to these cities. If no cities have goods available for transportation, you can browse the current length of the queues for assignments in each city by changing the city viewed on the "Map" page.

## Transportation Map Tool

The transportation map tool shows an overview of all cities in the game and their current transport status.
Information shown (when hovering over a city name) includes:

* Total cargo waiting
* Recent waiting times
* Vehicles waiting in, moving to or moving from the city

Each city name on the map will appear in different colours. Blue, Yellow or Red. The colour of the city name is determined by several factors including:

* Total goods waiting for transport
* Number of vehicles in the city
* Recent waiting times

Different points get assigned to each different criteria. City names in blue mean that they received more points and therefore meet the most criteria, names in red mean they meet the least. The criteria values can be modified by players with Gold Membership.

## See also

* Intercity Distance Chart

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