Reading the economy dashboard

The one-minute explanation

Five surfaces carry the economy’s instruments:

Finance panel

“Am I earning, and can I pay?” — the statement, the balance sheet, loans and history.

Demand panel

“Is the network serving its market?” — the funnel from wanted trips to carried trips, and where the losses are.

Settlement panel

“Why is this place doing well or badly?” — service facts, growth components and development fields for one settlement.

Achievements panel

“What national goals are in reach?” — live milestone progress.

Map overlays

“Where is the problem?” — congestion and service quality painted onto geography.

Most panel labels carry a small help icon with a contextual explanation—the in-game companion to this collection.

The Finance panel: money questions

Performance holds the two statements. Read the Balance Sheet as a snapshot—fund, asset book values, liabilities and equity—and the Income Statement as a period: revenue down through the expense rows to Net Income, with Principal Repayment shown separately below because it is not an expense (Part 7 explains why).

Three reading habits pay for themselves:

• Start at the earned-versus-subsidy bar. It answers the first strategic question—how much of the system pays for itself—before any line item.
• Expand the families. Government Grants hides three sub-rows (regular grant, policy contributions, milestone and development support); the tax and rail rows split similarly. One-time money hides inside totals unless you look.
• Compare the result with the fund. Net Income and cash move differently by design: depreciation is expense without cash, principal is cash without expense, revaluations are neither. When the two diverge, one of those three is the reason.

Loan is the borrowing desk: portfolio, current offer, limit and the full-cost projection before you confirm. Trends is memory—income, balance (assets, liabilities and cash together), population and GDP over time, switchable between national, provincial and settlement scope for the demographic charts. Every field is defined in Finance panel terms and definitions.

The Demand panel: service questions

The panel follows the funnel from Part 5: potential demand, minus time and price suppression, equals retained; retained minus unconnected and capacity-constrained equals carried.

Its two headline rates answer different questions. Demand satisfaction (carried ÷ potential) is the market’s verdict on everything, pricing included. Capacity service rate (carried ÷ retained) isolates the network itself, after time and price effects. A pair with a perfect capacity service rate and low satisfaction has a pricing or speed problem, not a connectivity one—the funnel tells you which lever to reach for.

The rest of the panel localizes the story: the mode chart shows actually carried movement per mode, direction tabs keep the two directions honest, key gaps rank the pairs losing the most, and the risk view marks where capacity pressure concentrates. “Network unmet” counts only unconnected plus capacity-constrained movement—suppression and the aggregated long tail are deliberately excluded.

The Settlement panel: local questions

For any one place, the panel stacks the diagnosis in order:

1. The three service facts — operational quality, passenger accessibility, cargo accessibility. Which of the three is low decides everything downstream (Settlements, transport service and metros).
2. The growth row expands. Each month’s population change is itemized: natural increase, transport service versus the nation, employment, prosperity, climate, passenger accessibility, policy, congestion and the safeguards. Migration questions stop being guesswork here.
3. The development radar shows all nine fields with the shortboard penalty and the development-to-GDP multiplier, so a lagging field—and what it costs—is visible directly.
4. Policies in place, each with its effect and a removal control.

The panel answers “why here”; the demand panel answers “why this pair”. Use them together: a settlement with good service facts but poor growth usually has a comparative problem—somewhere else is simply better.

The Achievements panel and the map

The Achievements panel lists all thirteen milestones as completed or in progress, with live progress lines—a to-do list of national goals and their rewards (Milestones and achievements).

On the map itself, two overlays place the economy in space: the congestion overlay paints links by pressure band (below 85%, 85–200%, above 200%), and the service overlay adds each settlement’s score as a coloured dot from red through yellow to green. The overlays are where panel numbers acquire an address.

A monthly reading, in order

1. Finance → Performance: earned-versus-subsidy first, then the result and the fund direction. Expand families before concluding anything about a good month.
2. Demand panel: the two headline rates, then the key gaps. Anything newly red gets a pair-level look.
3. Map overlays: congestion and service, to see whether the gaps have a geography.
4. Settlement panel for the worst performer: service facts, growth components, shortboard.
5. Achievements: anything close to triggering may deserve the next investment.
6. Trends monthly-versus-annual whenever a single month surprises you—one month is weather; the trend is climate.

Common misconceptions

“One panel can answer everything”

Each panel measures one layer. The finance panel cannot say why revenue fell; the demand panel cannot say whether you can afford the fix; the settlement panel cannot see the pair-level market. Diagnosis is the walk between them.

“Low demand satisfaction means missing infrastructure”

Satisfaction bundles pricing, speed, connectivity and capacity. Check the capacity service rate first: if it is high, the network is fine and the loss is time or price suppression—a different fix entirely.

“This month is the truth”

Milestone awards, overhaul windows, quarterly demand refreshes and mid-month cash postings all make individual months lumpy. The Trends tab exists because the trend, not the month, is the signal.

The collection ends here

From here, the reference pages carry the exact numbers: Finance panel terms, Transport mode parameters, National milestones and the Policy catalog.