Beta 022: Ease Of Commute

[Leutria]

This one's being significantly rejigged backstage to fix some of the unit weirdnesses, and to change the design philosophy. Will keep you posted.

Beta 022: Ease of Commute

Proposed Change: Blood pressures before and after the daily commute were measured to see how stressful it is to travel from one place to another.

[Leutria]

I am going to guess public transit will largely factor into this. I am going to guess maybe things like if cars are banned as well? I figure this is only really a valuable new stat if it allows for a good rating for really motorist friendly nations, as being pro public transit is already a stat.

[Trotterdam]

I guess this must incorporate private transport somehow, and maybe stuff like quality of road maintainance, if we're tracking that.

It hopefully does not exaggerate the effects of Automobile Manufacturing (except in autarkies), since in real life a pretty sizable percentage of cars are imported and they work just fine.

[Outer Sparta]

The measurement indicates blood pressure changes, but a higher number would mean a more stressful commute? Even though the category is ease of commute, does it rank the top nations based on most stressful commute? I don't get the whole measurement aspect.

[Merconitonitopia]

The higher the number, the less stressful the commute.
I wouldn't think too much about the real implications of the purported system of measuring the index. It's meant to be humorous.

[Outer Sparta]

The higher the number, the less stressful the commute.
I wouldn't think too much about the real implications of the purported system of measuring the index. It's meant to be humorous.

Ok, that makes more sense. I tested my nation and compared it with a puppet of mine (the polar opposite of my main nation) and found the number to be higher in my main nation and much lower in my puppet.

[Trotterdam]

The higher the number, the less stressful the commute.

The listed unit is definitely inappropiate if that's the case.

The unit is "mmHg differential". mmHg is a unit of pressure, and so a higher value would mean greater blood pressure changes. Unless it's in the sense of people who were previously stressed out relaxing by the end of the commute due to how soothing the trip was, a high value should be bad.

[Outer Sparta]

The higher the number, the less stressful the commute.

The listed unit is definitely inappropiate if that's the case.

The unit is "mmHg differential". mmHg is a unit of pressure, and so a higher value would mean greater blood pressure changes. Unless it's in the sense of people who were previously stressed out relaxing by the end of the commute due to how soothing the trip was, a high value should be bad.

That's what I'm confused about the high value. Is it the negative change? If so, it would marginally make more sense, but if it's a positive change, then it doesn't make sense at all.

[Leutria]

It is always possible this could be our first inverse census, where the closer to 0 the higher your ranking.

[Merconitonitopia]

I feel that that would be a cause for a great deal of confusion.

[Victorious Decepticons]

I think it would cause endless complaining if it looks like high blood pressure is some kind of a good thing.

[Marxist Germany]

The higher the number, the less stressful the commute.

The listed unit is definitely inappropiate if that's the case.

The unit is "mmHg differential". mmHg is a unit of pressure, and so a higher value would mean greater blood pressure changes. Unless it's in the sense of people who were previously stressed out relaxing by the end of the commute due to how soothing the trip was, a high value should be bad.

Could be like Corruption/ignorance

[Qawe]

Hi. I’m really excited about the new stats and really curious about how I will rank in them. Does anybody have any idea roughly when those betas that just shows came into public viewing will be implemented (the batch that introduces Generosity, Hunger, Food Quality, Patriotism and Ease of Commute)?

[Trotterdam]

Could be like Corruption/ignorance

We have some census scores for things that aren't usually considered a good thing (also one of the new beta scores, Hunger, which doesn't even have an opposite score), but then it should be called "Difficulty of Commute", not "Ease of Commute".

[Bears Armed]

i wonder how it will try to "calculate" the relative average distances involved in commuting for different nations?

[Lillorainen]

i wonder how it will try to "calculate" the relative average distances involved in commuting for different nations?

I could imagine, that it uses the same algorithm as always, since there isn't a possibility to determine your nation's geographical features (other than factbooks or RP, of course, but the game doesn't know about these). In other words, there is no way to make the game mechanics know, if your country is a gargantuan, continent-spanning empire of Russia's size, or a small city-state, or maybe even just a peasant republic at the size of medieval Dithmarschen. Just like the game/the issues assume, that your nation always has a coastline and multiple neighboring nations (landlocked and island nations will have to pretend they had when answering issues). So, the game might just presume a distance of several hundred, or even thousands of kilometers of distance from one corner of your nation to another.

EDIT/addendum: Take the Public Transport stat - being ranked high would mean having a good metro/suburban railroad system in countries of the size of Singapore, but might have to include widespread fast trains like the German ICE, the French TGV, the Japanese Shinkansen, and so on, in larger nations (which won't be much of a thing in city-states, save for cross-border lines). It's a question of the type and extent of a transport system relative to the size of the country. In RL, the U.S. might be ranked a bit lower due to the lack of a sufficient transport system in most areas, even though cities like NYC in themselves might provide an excellent transport system.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

This one has come out wrong. It's meant to run downwards, not upwards, with lowest ease of commute representing the top end of BP changes.

I'll run this by Violet, see if that can be done. But right now, it's not working.

I think what I'd want is this stat to be something like (70 - (current number/3)) so it runs from +70mmHg at the worse end, down -20 mmHg at the best end (where commutes are so nice, they actively chill you out).

FTAO Violet or other technical folk, can you make this change? Thanks

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Cheers Violet for the discussion on this.

To y'all players, consider this one suspended for now while we work out how to get the numbers to dance dance dance.

[Forsher]

I am going to guess public transit will largely factor into this. I am going to guess maybe things like if cars are banned as well? I figure this is only really a valuable new stat if it allows for a good rating for really motorist friendly nations, as being pro public transit is already a stat.

The more cars on the road, the more stressful a commute should be.

The longer a commute, the more stressful a commute should.

A country with fast commutes with a high % PT should do well on this; a country with slow commutes and a high % private vehicles should do terribly; a country with a lot of cars and short commutes might be less stressful than a country with few cars and long commutes.

Countries with a low predictability of commutes should score worse regardless.

I have no idea how this would work with how NS calculates things or, indeed, the issues noted above.

[Trotterdam]

I wonder, if people don't need to commute because they can work from home (for example, over the internet), would that improve their "Ease of Commute" because their nonexistent commuting needs aren't stressing them out at all, or just be neutral since people who aren't commuting are irrelevant to how stressful it is to do so for the people who do need to do it? (Though as the previous poster points out, even in the latter case, fewer people on the streets would mean less stress for the ones who are on the streets.)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I wonder, if people don't need to commute because they can work from home (for example, over the internet), would that improve their "Ease of Commute" because their nonexistent commuting needs aren't stressing them out at all, or just be neutral since people who aren't commuting are irrelevant to how stressful it is to do so for the people who do need to do it? (Though as the previous poster points out, even in the latter case, fewer people on the streets would mean less stress for the ones who are on the streets.)

My thinking is that the more people there are avoiding commuting, the nicer the commute is. So if more people work from home, and more people telecommute, then the commute itself becomes easier.

[Bears Armed]

My thinking is that the more people there are avoiding commuting, the nicer the commute is. So if more people work from home, and more people telecommute, then the commute itself becomes easier.

So, higher unemployment rates would also help?

[Trotterdam]

People do commute to things other than work, such as school.

[Merconitonitopia]

People do commute to things other than work, such as school.

'Daily commute' doesn't mean just commute to work. It would include students also.

[Lillorainen]

My thinking is that the more people there are avoiding commuting, the nicer the commute is. So if more people work from home, and more people telecommute, then the commute itself becomes easier.

So, higher unemployment rates would also help?

Could, maybe - it always depends. Generally spoken, I personally imagine three types of nations to have some advantage when it comes to ease of commute by having fewer commuters:

1. Nations with high technological advancement, allowing more people to do their business from home. (Allowing people to work at the beach could help as well, there was some issue about it.)
2. Nations with low employment, as these might have fewer people who actually need to commute - logically. What workplace would they go to, after all?
3. Nations with very low development - peasant, maybe even tribal societies, where people rarely leave their home town/village/hamlet to work, as they will work as e.g. farmers and fishermen in the very place they live in.

However, as other people already mentioned - commute isn't necessarily limited to work. Students will have to get to school or university (especially the latter can be awful to go to by train/metro/tram at certain times ...). People with hobbies that require certain environments will have to commute as well (e.g. surfers who live a bit farther away from the next beach etc.). Everyday life things like shopping can quite become a longer travel for someone who lives in a very remote place, too. There are many factors playing into that, so I do think, that, unless a nation is an extreme case of one of the above criteria, ease of commute will be severely dependent on the advancement of the infrastructure.