Transportation-Understanding Tours Part II: Jeeps, Article by Anyajoy Options

[Anyajoy]

ZT2 ES Transportation - Understanding Tours Part II: Jeep Tours
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Jeep tours present some challenges not encountered with sky trams. These tours are more easily constructed if thought is given to the layout before building exhibits in the zoo. Understanding Jeep tours encompasses:

1. Basic construction guidelines
2. Laying road in such a way to avoid difficulties
3. Knowing the different types of vehicles, their cost and their upkeep
4. Knowing what makes a good tour, gauged by the tour rating

Basic construction is covered in the tutorial. A station must be built, road placed, and vehicles added. The placement of the station should be in area free of exhibits and food stalls. Avoid path problems (sinkholes) by first covering with pathway an area large enough for the station and its entrances/exits. Make sure there are paths leading to both entrances/exits from the other paths in the zoo. A good choice for placement is near the entrance to the zoo. It may be advisable to place another station in the rear of large zoos, if funding permits, to allow guests to quickly get to this area. There is a small, monthly upkeep charge per station of $25, charged at the end of each month.
 jeep_map.PNG ( 211.64K ) Number of downloads: 107


Once the station is built, road must be placed. Click on the station and click on the road piece, then place it next to the station. Continue to work around the zoo, building the road for the tour through or alongside exhibits. If building a tour in an established zoo, obstructions may have to be moved or recycled. Use the game map to plan the path of the tour, being sure to have the road enter as many different exhibits as possible. Decorated tour gates (if won by the player) need to be chosen from the tour menu and placed. If using two (or more) stations, connect them as you build the road, returning at the end to the original station's opposite side.

Certain difficulties can arise because Jeep tours are on the ground, near animals and around guests on foot. Crossing gates keep guests from walking across the tour road when a vehicle approaches, however they can only be used on straight sections of road. What about curved sections? Build an island under curved sections with terrain and no path.
 island.PNG ( 430.42K ) Number of downloads: 82

If guests walk over this island anyway (and they may in congested areas), build decorative fencing along the sides.

If adding a Jeep tour to an established zoo, sometimes it's difficult to build road in areas that are small or congested. In these cases, a good alternative is to build the road on an elevated pathway that goes over the tight or congested area. Do not build the ramps in the exhibits though because animals will use them to cross into other exhibits. Build the needed ramps outside the exhibits, though the route can cross over exhibits.
 elevated_tour.PNG ( 487.77K ) Number of downloads: 100


Finally, when placing the tour road, it must be remembered that if the road is placed too near food and water in the exhibits, the animals will inhibit the progression of the tour. When possible, place the road in view of the animals' food and water but not too close.


What kind of vehicles can or should be used and how many? There are two types of vehicles available for Jeep tours though some are plain and some are decorated: 3-passenger Jeeps and 6-passenger Jeeps. The costs for each are:

3-passenger, $300 to purchase, $50 upkeep cost each month, charged at the end of each month
6-passenger, $500 to purchase, $75 upkeep cost each month, charged at the end of each month

Which should be used? That depends on the zoo and the layout of the tour. If the layout includes a high number of crossing gates, fewer vehicles will make your guests on foot happier. As vehicles progress through the zoo, it is inevitable that something will block the lead vehicle, causing many of the vehicles to bunch up together in one long line. On a tour with a capacity of 66, will walking guests prefer waiting while a line of up to 22 vehicles pass by? The same accommodation of 66 can be accomplished with only eleven 6-passenger Jeeps.

If the tour has been constructed with few crossing gates, consider beginning with 6-passenger Jeeps and switching to 3-passenger Jeeps after the initial crush of guests has passed. Any combination of both types may also be used. In a test zoo, guests waited two to three game days before giving up and leaving the queue while waiting to board a Jeep tour.

How many vehicles are possible? Even when funding isn't a factor, this question cannot be answered definitively. The number of vehicles allowable varies from tour to tour. How many vehicles can be placed on a tour is dependent upon the length of the tour, with fewer vehicles available for shorter tours of course. How many should be purchased? One way to add Jeep vehicles is to stake out the station and add a new vehicle when a couple of guests are waiting to board. If funding is not a factor, continue to add vehicles until the first jeep approaches the station.

In the test/research zoo, 3-passenger Jeeps yielded a larger average donation than 6-passenger Jeeps. The difference was not great though, $104 per person for the 3-passenger Jeeps and $101 per person for the 6-passenger vehicles.

Once the tour is established, check the station frequently. If guests are waiting in line a long time, monitor the next vehicle in line to re-enter the station and keep the path clear if necessary. If a number of guests leave without riding the tour, consider reworking the tour to keep it moving smoothly.

A check of how well the tour is doing financially should be made from time to time to make sure that upkeep costs do not exceed donations. Should this occur, consider selling of some vehicles and/or improving the tour.
 financial.PNG ( 72.41K ) Number of downloads: 31


Finally, what makes a good Jeep tour? During a test/research zoo, donations and guest satisfaction (as measured by the tour rating) remained high even with no tour objects IF the tour included most, if not all, of the ten biomes with happy, healthy animals and appropriate terrain/foliage/rocks/enrichment items. Guests became bored with the tour when it was delayed due to animal/zookeeper/guest obstructions. Even with a five-star rated tour, guests who end the tour with the yellow so-so icon over their heads often do not donate. Virtually all of the green happy-face guests donated something at the end of the tour. The average donation on a five-star tour is around $120 per guest.


See also:
Part I: Sky Trams
Part III: Tour Objects
Part IV: Comparison and Strategy, Sky Trams vs. Jeep Tours

This post has been edited by Anyajoy: May 21 2006, 06:39 PM

[Anyajoy]

Nobody use cars in his [my son's] Zoo . We even made exhibit (with crocs) that you can only see from the car. Anybody has any suggestions?

[Anyajoy]

As for the Jeep tours, does the tour have a good rank? If there aren't enough special items on the tour the rating will be low and no one will be interested. Something I've noticed with mine are that the interest level dips dramatically after a while. Near the beginning I run 4 or 5 jeeps to keep lines moving and after a few months I curb it back to 2. When you add more items or exhibits the interest peeks for a bit, but then goes back down again. That's my experience anyway, but I'm much more of a novice than others on here.

[Anyajoy]

I've never had trouble with the Jeeps, they always make profit. (and that's all I care about )

[Anyajoy]

The only time I had trouble with the Jeep tour was when the station was in a bad location - not stuck in a far-off corner as you might expect, but near the center of several crossroads. People rode it like crazy at first, but then NO ONE rode it at all, even when I changed the direction, altered the Jeep path slightly, etc.

I eventually came to the conclusion that the best way to build either of the tours is to begin by placing quite a bit of pathway in the area where you are going to put the station and plan ahead for the placement of guest paths so there isn't a lot of cross traffic near the station.

[Anyajoy]

I never have trouble with the jeep tours either, and their rating once up seems to stay up. Sometimes only few people ride them, but I find that when new guests enter the zoo they will ride the jeeps. I some times have a problem with the sky trams though. They suddenly don't stop and let their passengers get off, so passengers keep riding until they are red in all departments. To get them out I have to close down the sky tram which of course means that the guests will drop to ground - I am glad this isn't in real life

[aar0nd1]

Heres a few ideas for making an efficient and money makin jeep tour.

1) Use the minimal amount of vehicles possible. I space mine about 30 or 40 seconds apart, maybe more if the zoo is smaller. You don't want people waiting for very long, but they'll wait a few minutes without becoming upset. I find that 3 seaters work just fine.

2) Two things will help keep critters out of your jeep path. First, Make your jeep paths run through the very back or very front of your exhibit, along the fenceline. Never take it down the middle. Second, cage it in with low chain link fence. Guests don't seem to care, the critters still get close and they still flip out. But with a fence up, you never have to worry about critters gettin in the way. Place food dishes or critter happifiers close to your fenced in path to ensure that guests get a glimpse of them.

3) Remember, tours will attract guests to any part of your zoo. Use their magnetism to your advantage to get traffic to needed areas.