Northstar, 18 October: a station in the west-centre, and a correction to the metro tally

Northstar ended 18 October with more residents than at the start of the day. New connections worked unevenly: around the new West-Mitte station and the southwest feeder bus, households rose much more than in the comparison areas. For the additional metro lines, an initially very positive result had to be withdrawn, because a counting error had hidden a large share of the waiting passengers.

More residents at day's end, large swings in between

Between the first stored city reading just after midnight, Berlin time, and the reading at 23:59 the population rose by about 114,000, to nearly 1.8 million. That is a difference in stock, not a fully explained balance of births, deaths and moves.

The course was uneven: the evening level stayed below the morning high. Larger waves of arrivals came later in the day. The samples do not prove the exact maximum or minimum of the day.

The move-in counter describes an upstream stock. It is not to be added to the population and does not prove that as many move-ins took place.

West-Mitte station and bus 19: occupancy rose faster than in the comparison areas

In the afternoon the passenger station West-Mitte was built on the diagonal line in the western inner city. Afterwards the existing passenger rail lines L4 and L5 were rerouted. L4 now links West-Mitte with the western outer connection near Salfurt, L5 with the southern connection. Before, these lines took travellers to the north; now they reach an area with considerable vacant housing.

The first re-measurement was subdued. Only the later survey, after the evening waves of arrivals, showed a clear increase in three 400-metre circles. For the comparison, buildings at the same position with the same building type were paired across both surveys.

The new bus 19, "Zubringer SW", links the southwest connection with housing on Meisenstraße and in the northern part of Schmidtstraße. Seven connected stops were built; a planned extra stop in the south of Schmidtstraße could not be placed and was dropped. At the first re-measurement the areas examined were occupied less than at the start. In the later survey, households in both target circles rose clearly, while the independently re-paired comparison circles fell.

The circles may overlap and must not be summed. The figures are households in a paired sample of buildings, not newly arrived people, and higher occupancy can also come from moves within the city.

The station areas grew more than both comparison areas. That is not an isolated proof of cause: waves of arrivals, other traffic measures and different starting positions in the districts coincided. For bus 19 the more favourable re-measurement also fell in a phase of larger move-in activity, so the observation proves neither a number of additional passengers nor that the bus alone caused the change.

U5 and U6: more service, weaker proof of effect

In the metro network, U5 was set up parallel to U2 and U6 parallel to U1. At shared stops the reading stores waiting passengers per line. The comparison tool had at first kept only the value of the last listed line, so after U5 and U6 were added, passengers still waiting for U2 or U1 dropped out of the sum. The apparent sharp decline was to a considerable extent an error of the local evaluation, not a demonstrated error of the game interface.

The calculation corrected in the evening sums all lines involved. The ratio of waiting passengers still fell, but much less than first claimed:

For the first comparison, ten of 13 after-samples were below the before-median. For the second there is only one before-sample, and the comparison lines were themselves changed. That remains a favourable signal, but clearly weaker than the near-complete relief first claimed. A secured success of U5 is not demonstrated.

Power, education and industry

During the night two new gas power plants were built on the western edge of the city. A following supply reading recorded generation well above consumption, a calculated reserve of just under 42 percent of generation in that snapshot. A reserve for the loss of a large generator is not thereby shown.

In the afternoon a radio telescope was added for 3.2 million, targeting education demand. Documented university occupancy did not rise in the first follow-up but was lower after several hours, so the measure remains an ongoing trial.

In industry, demolitions of empty factories had not triggered quick rebuilding the day before. Late on 18 October the building agent reported high industrial demand again and only two free industrial plots; by its rescan the previously freed areas had been built on. The shares of the demolitions, the new workers and other changes are not separately shown.

Bus 20 and an unresolved freight problem

Late in the evening bus 20, "Zubringer WM-Nord", was added with nine connected stops from West-Mitte station. The planned occupancy comparisons come only on the following day, so for 18 October the construction is documented, not its effect on housing.

The traffic problem in the inner grid around Weitenstraße, Frankenstraße and Moosbeerstraße stayed unresolved. In a smaller, fully captured section the graph evaluation marked 89 directed links as congested but, by the chosen criteria, found no clear queue head. Two freight terminals lie in this area, and their inflow is a plausible cause of extra load. Without origin-destination data it cannot be decided reliably which traffic uses a given street. A new metro link and a changed terminal access remained proposals.

Status and open points

The most favourable observations concern occupancy around West-Mitte and bus 19, while the metro correction limits earlier claims and calls for a fresh evaluation. For 18 October the performance file contains no qualified performance measurements and shows the whole report day as unknown, so no CPU efficiency gain is claimed. Occupancy comparisons for bus 20 and longer metro series are still pending. More on the project: CS2.