City services and happiness

City services are buildings for a town’s people: police and fire stations, clinics, schools and parks, and the bigger hospitals, universities, stadiums and hawker centres. Each reaches the homes around it. The more of a town they reach, the happier it is and the faster it grows, and the town thinks better of the company that runs them. Town councils build them too.

Build a city service

1. On the main toolbar, click Towns (the houses icon; tooltip Open town directory or found town) and choose City services, or press Shift+C. The City Services toolbar opens.
2. Pick a service with its button, or with a number key while the toolbar is open (see the table below).
3. Move the pointer over the map. The main view tints the land that this kind of service already reaches, and a dotted square around the pointer shows what the new building would reach.
4. Click to build it. The building costs money, and its upkeep is charged every month.

The police station tool: blue shows where police already reach, the dotted square what a new station here would reach.

Key	Service	Size	Reaches	What it does	Cost to build (police station = 1)	Upkeep a year
1	Police station	1 tile	10 tiles	Police	1	A fifth of its cost
2	Fire station	1 tile	10 tiles	Fire protection	1	A fifth
3	Clinic	1 tile	10 tiles	Health care	1.2	A fifth
4	School	1 tile	10 tiles	Education	1	A fifth
5	Park	1 tile	5 tiles	Green space	1/6	A fifth
6	Hospital	2 by 2	22 tiles	Health care, like the clinics; visitors	8	15%
7	University	2 by 2	22 tiles	Education, like the schools; land around worth more; students and staff	About 7	14%
8	Stadium	2 by 2	16 tiles	A little happiness; crowds on match days	About 5	10%
9	Hawker centre	1 tile	8 tiles	A little happiness; land a little dearer; shoppers	0.8	A sixth

A service reaches the houses within that many tiles in every direction: a square around it. Prices follow the game’s construction costs and inflation. The upkeep is counted under Infrastructure in your company’s Finances window.

How it works

Coverage. Once a month every town works out what share of its people each kind of service reaches. A hospital’s reach counts as health care and a university’s as education, so one hospital and one university can bring a whole town’s health care and education to 100%.

Happiness. A town without services is 40% happy. Police, fire, health care, education and parks each add up to 12 points as they reach more of the town, so together they can take it to 100%. Hawker centres within reach add up to 4 points and a stadium up to 3. Other things move happiness too: how satisfied riders are with your lines, polluted air, taxes and ordinances, and the state of the council’s estates.

Growth. The better police, fire, health care, education and parks reach a town, the shorter the time between its new houses: up to a third shorter when all five reach everybody. Stadiums and hawker centres add happiness but don’t speed up growth.

Your rating. Every month, each kind of service your company runs for a town raises that town’s rating of your company by 12 points, up to Very good. More of the same kind adds nothing more: a row of parks counts as one kind. A service belongs to the town nearest to where you build it.

Bigger services draw people. Hospitals, universities, stadiums and hawker centres send passengers to stations within reach, as houses do: a hospital as much as a house of 70 people on each of its tiles, a university 110, a hawker centre 60. A stadium sends few, except on match days, one day a week, when crowds come. Stations near them accept passengers. All city services also have jobs that draw commuters (see commuting).

Land value. With air pollution and land value on, land reached by police, fire, health care and education is worth more, more again near a university and a little near a hawker centre; parks add the most and clean the air too. Towns build taller where land is dear.

Only the owner can remove a city service. Towns never do.

Funnford's bigger services: the hawker centre (red roof, left), the hospital (helipad), the university (clock tower, top right) and the stadium (front left).

Who builds them

You build them with the City Services toolbar; they fly your company’s colours. With the Town councils setting on (the default), councils also build the service their town lacks most, from the town’s own money: every council police and fire stations, clinics, schools, parks and hawker centres, a municipal council also hospitals and stadiums, a city council also universities. A council’s services fly dark blue flags, cost your company nothing, earn nobody a rating, and companies can’t remove them. You can pay towards a council’s next service from the town’s Budget window. See Town councils and the tutorial Council services.

What you see

The town window shows Happiness: with a percentage, then City services reach: and an icon and a percentage for each of the nine services, in the toolbar’s order. Where riders rate the lines in town, it adds (riders’ satisfaction …).

Funnford is 73% happy: its hospital and university reach everybody, but it has no police, fire stations or parks yet.

For land information, click Help on the main toolbar (the question mark; tooltip Open land information, screenshot menu, credits, or developer tools), choose Land area information and click a tile. On a service it shows Reaches: and its yearly upkeep. On any tile, City services here: lists the services that reach it.

Land information on Funnford's hospital.

Tips

• Build a few tiles out from the centre. Services reach 10 tiles, and the middle of town is where towns put their biggest buildings.
• One of each of the five small kinds does the most for happiness, growth and your rating. A second one of a kind only helps where the first doesn’t reach.
• In a big town, a hospital and a university each reach far more than a clinic or a school, for the price of several.
• Put a bus stop by a hospital, a university or a hawker centre: they send and take passengers all week. A stadium’s crowds come once a week.
• Upkeep runs every month, also for services that reach few people. Check the coverage in the town window before building more.

Switching it off

There is nothing to switch off: towns without city services work as in OpenTTD. If you don’t want councils to build services, switch off the Town councils setting (see Town councils).

See also

• Zoning
• Town budgets and ordinances: co-funding a council’s next service
• Town councils
• Passenger satisfaction
• Air pollution and land value