How to Make Money in Transport Fever 3
Every passenger and cargo item pays when it reaches its final destination, and it pays more the faster it got there and the farther it travelled in a straight line from where it started. You pay running costs for vehicles and upkeep for every station, road and track you own. Profit is the gap between those two, so the routes that pay are fast, direct, and never empty.
Distance is measured as the crow flies
The distance used for revenue is the straight line between the start and the final destination, not the length of the route you built. A line that loops around a mountain in an S or a U is paid on the same straight-line distance as a direct one, takes longer to run, and costs upkeep on every kilometre of the detour. Put your own numbers into the calculator below; the line planner then tells you how many vehicles the route needs.
29%
of this line (4.0 km) adds no fare distance: revenue counts the 10 km straight line, while upkeep counts every kilometre you built, and the detour also slows the trip. Worth straightening if the terrain allows.
Never run empty
An empty vehicle earns nothing and still costs its running costs. The classic fix is a two-way cargo line: haul raw material to a factory and carry its product back on the return leg. Trucks, freight wagons and cargo ships refit themselves at each station, so one fleet can do both jobs. The chain finder shows which pairs work, such as logs to a saw mill and planks back towards town.
Early game
- Bus lines between neighbouring towns
- Raw cargo that towns take directly: vegetables, fish, meat
- One loan, repaid quickly; interest is charged monthly
- Subsidies you can already reach for an upfront payment
Once you are established
- Complex goods: towns want them in smaller amounts, and the developers have said cargo complexity weighs far more than distance
- Express trains with line priority on shared track
- Specialized warehouses to keep long chains on time
- Subsidies whose reward is a limited-time double-income effect on your lines
Loans
Four offers sit in the Loans tab at any time, drawn at random but usually mixing smaller, cheaper loans with bigger, dearer ones. You can hold four at once. Each card shows the principal, the term in months, the interest rate and the yearly repayment, which is taken in fifteen-day steps. New offers arrive regularly, but not straight after you take one. The interest rate depends on difficulty. There is even an achievement, Bank's Best Friend, for paying over 10 million in interest in one free game.
Expect a loss before a big line pays
A complex network needs money up front and often loses money for its first months. That is normal. Check the finance window by year rather than by month: if the blue revenue column is taller than the red expenses column for the year, the company is profitable.
Money buys growth, and growth buys rank
Your company rank rises with the population of the map, not with your balance. Landmarks, prospecting and headquarters upgrades unlock by rank, so the point of a profitable network is to fund the lines that make towns grow. For which lines to build first, start with the beginner guide.