Transport vehicles stuck on boarding

Article verified: July 2019

Symptom

Users describe this issue as "forever boarding", and it mostly affects busses and trains:

Vehicle arrives at a stop and passengers begin to board, however the boarding phase never ends and the vehicle appears 'stuck' at the stop, often causing huge traffic jams.

Cause

As far as we can tell, this bug is not caused by TM:PE.

A known cause occurs when public transport vehicles are set to unusually large capacities, which seems to confuse the transport vehicle AIs (and likely other mods that use those AIs).

It is possible that mods such as Improved Public Transport 2 and Real Time exacerbate the issue, but there are also reports of the issue occurring in the vanilla game (no mods, just some workshop vehicle assets).

Some users also reported that mods such as Realistic Walking Speeds might cause the problem, particularly if used in conjunction with Real Time mod.

Solution

Check vehicle capacities:

Subscribe and enable Advanced Vehicle Options (AVO) mod or the new Customize It Extended mod
Load your save and then inspect vehicle capacity of your transport vehicles
Make sure vehicle capacities are similar to the Vanilla capacities
You'll need to clear vehicles of that type to ensure changes take effect
- If using AVO mod, click the button to remove existing vehicles
- If you have TM:PE installed, use Clear Traffic
- Otherwise, save then exit to desktop, then reload

Other things to try:

The Stops & Stations mod reduces number of people waiting at stations and might help fix 'stuck boarding' issues
Disabling any mods which affect walking speed, game speed or public transport:
- Remember to exit to desktop first before reloading your game
- If you find a specific mod causes the problem, please let us know!
Try different vehicles - it's possible the vehicle you are using is broken
- We have a list of Broken Vehicle Assets
- If you find other broken vehicles, please let us know!
Try different stations to see if that helps?