Transport Fever 3 Vehicle Calculator
Estimate line costs and compare all 285 vehicles on the stats that decide profit — free, no account, works on any device.
Line cost estimator
How many vehicles does a line need, what does it cost per year, and what revenue per passenger or ton breaks even?
Cargo payment rates and ticket income are not public game data, so the revenue side is always your own figure. Locomotives and wagons are not in the picker: locomotives carry nothing themselves, and wagon consists vary too much to model as single vehicles.
Vehicle comparison
Every vehicle ranked by economy. Cost per seat/ton is the purchase price divided by capacity; running per seat/ton is the annual running cost divided by capacity. A dash means the figure is not published yet.
| Vehicle | Class ▼ | Years | Top speed | Capacity | Cost | Cost per seat/ton | Running cost/yr | Running per seat/ton | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agustawestland AW 101 Merlin | helicopter | 1990- | 278 | 60 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Airbus H225 Super Puma | helicopter | 2013- | 288 | 48 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Bell 206 Long Ranger | helicopter | 1965- | 241 | 32 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Bell 47 | helicopter | 1950- | 150 | 8 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Boeing Vertol 234 Chinook | helicopter | 1980- | 269 | 80 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Eurocopter 120B Colibri | helicopter | 1998- | 610 | 56 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Kaman K-Max | helicopter | 2005- | 190 | 60 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| MIL MI-26TC | helicopter | 1993- | 295 | 120 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Nextgen VTOL | helicopter | 2030- | 610 | 56 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Piasecki H-21 workhorse | helicopter | 1952- | 610 | 40 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane | helicopter | 1962- | 213 | 40 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
| Sikorsky S-76 Spirit | helicopter | 1977- | 287 | 40 | — | — | — | — | Estimate |
Why vehicle economics decide Transport Fever 3
Every profitable Transport Fever 3 network answers the same question: does a line earn more than it costs to run? The answer depends on three vehicle stats that are easy to overlook in the buy menu — the purchase price, the annual running cost, and the capacity. A cheap vehicle with tiny capacity can cost more per passenger than an expensive one with room to spare, and a fast vehicle can do the work of two slow ones on the same route. The comparison table above divides both costs by capacity so you can rank vehicles on what actually matters: dollars per seat or per ton, per purchase and per year.
The line cost estimator turns those stats into a plan. Given the route length and how often you want departures, it works out the round-trip time from the vehicle's top speed, the number of vehicles needed to hold that frequency, and the line's annual running cost. Enter the average price you expect per passenger or ton — the game's payment rates are not public, so that side is your own figure — and you get the break-even load factor: how full the line must run before it pays for itself. All 285 vehicles from the release version of the game are covered, and every assumption is stated next to the results.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Transport Fever 3 Calculator?
A free fan-made companion tool for the video game Transport Fever 3. It compares every vehicle in the game on the stats that matter for your wallet — purchase cost, annual running cost, and cost per seat or ton of capacity — and estimates how many vehicles a line needs, what it costs to run each year, and the revenue per passenger or ton required to break even.
How does the line cost estimator work?
Pick a vehicle, enter the one-way line length in kilometres and how often you want a departure (the service frequency in minutes). The estimator assumes vehicles average 60% of their top speed in service and need 10 minutes of turnaround at each end, then works out the round-trip time, the number of vehicles required to hold the frequency, the line's capacity per hour, and the annual running cost. All assumptions are stated next to the results.
Does the calculator know cargo payment rates or ticket prices?
No. Transport Fever 3's payment rates are not public, so the revenue side is always your own input: enter the average price you expect per passenger or per ton and the estimator shows the break-even load factor and throughput for that price.
Where does the vehicle data come from?
From the day-one community vehicle list on Steam, cross-checked by hand, reflecting Transport Fever 3 release version 1.0. The guide is a work in progress, so figures it has not published yet are shown as unknown. See the data sources page for the full citation and how to report a correction.
Why do some vehicles show unknown costs?
The community vehicle list this site compiles is still being filled in after launch. Where a purchase price or running cost has not been published, the table shows a dash and the estimator reports the parts it can compute — vehicles needed and line capacity — without inventing numbers.
Is this site made by Urban Games or Nacon?
No. This is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Urban Games or Nacon, and Transport Fever is a trademark of its respective owners.