Number of staff in Commercial Zones on Space Stations

[Sageryne]

Hi all,

I have been working on a space station design and have come up with another quandary. How many people work in a Commercial Zone?



The rules detail tonnage and power requirements, but how many people work there.

The best I could come up with is a store being 20-dTons and 2 employees per store, for 1 person per 10 dTons of Commercial Zone.

Any thoughts, perhaps other references that could improve that?

- Kerry

 

[phavoc]

Labor is an expense, so for some things you'd expect automation and vending machines to be used where it made most sense. Small shops will run the gamut of 1-person operations, to multi-person operations. Your biggest driver is going to be how much credits the store might be able to make and what the shop is selling. A place selling clothing might have a single merchant in his stall. A location selling higher-priced items like jewelry may have 3-5.

Does the shop sell something that needs/benefits from having more people present (i.e. sales or some sort of customer service needs)? Or can a single person run the cash register equivalent and stock the store? Another example is a store front that sells weapons, missiles and components. You won't be taking a shopping cart in to pick up your 12 pack of missiles. You'll have a counter, and maybe small meeting areas where you can discuss your armament needs, close the deal and the equipment gets delivered to your ship at the docks.

Best way to address this is think about how you would like to be served in a shop of that sort. Use real-world examples of stores you've been to and how many people you saw in there, how many employees were about, and you'll have a start to your model. There are also many good books or tv shows out there showing the same thing.

As with your other question, don't rely upon straight formulas. You are building a setting, so make it a setting. Babylon 5 makes for a good example of station life - it's high tech, but no food converters or things like that. People (and aliens) shopped, played, gambled and worked there. You wouldn't be far off using fantasy (aka D&D) examples of shops or floorplans of things like that. Similar issues - cramped but workable conditions.

 

[Sageryne]

Hi phavoc,

You make several good points. At this point, I haven't reached the point of figuring out what will be for sale in the commercial zone. I am currently just "grossing up" the space station to get an idea of how many people live there so I can calculate how many residential units I will need.

I am using Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 as examples.

- Kerry

 

[hopsnbaer]

Do the stores and area run 24/7? Then you would need 2 to 3 shifts or more, for 7-day operation.

 

[hopsnbaer]

I can see a combination of vending, robot, and sophont.

 

[Arkathan]

I go with the four dton professional space. One person per four tons allocated.
Edit: yeah, per shift.

 

[Sageryne]

Hi hopsnbaer,

I was thinking they would be open 16 hours a day, with each person working an 8 hr shift. Like phavoc suggested, I think a lot of places would have vending machines and robots to provide 24 hour service.

I go with the four dton professional space. One person per four tons allocated.

That could work. If you assume a store of 20-dTons, that is 5 staff, if the store was open 24 hrs a day, that is three 8-hr shifts, plus leave, training, management, etc.

- Kerry

 

[hopsnbaer]

Hi hopsnbaer,

I was thinking they would be open 16 hours a day, with each person working an 8 hr shift. Like phavoc suggested, I think a lot of places would have vending machines and robots to provide 24 hour service.



That could work. If you assume a store of 20-dTons, that is 5 staff, if the store was open 24 hrs a day, that is three 8-hr shifts, plus leave, training, management, etc.

- Kerry

Yeah, I like the reduced service for at least part of the day. It works better for me. Maybe a busy Type A on a hub would be like Vegas that never closes.

 

[Condottiere]

Could be cultural, and business model.

Amazon ran an experiment where the customer walked in, and just took what they wanted, while monitored, in theory, by an artificial intelligence stock keeping programme, that charged them automatically on exit.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Rank according to density (staff per dTon):
Trinket Stall = Highest
Offices = Higher
Retail Shops = High
Restaurants = Nominal
Warehouse / Wholesale Shops = Low
Conference Centre = Lower
Plazas = Lowest

Also would be dependent on size of commodity being showcased/exchanged.
Commodity sizes:
Smallest
Very Small
Small
Smaller
Average
Larger
Large
Etc.

Then chose numbers to reflect these qualities.

 

[Endie]

Hi hopsnbaer,

I was thinking they would be open 16 hours a day, with each person working an 8 hr shift. Like phavoc suggested, I think a lot of places would have vending machines and robots to provide 24 hour service.



That could work. If you assume a store of 20-dTons, that is 5 staff, if the store was open 24 hrs a day, that is three 8-hr shifts, plus leave, training, management, etc.

- Kerry

If it’s a space station with people coming and going constantly (a ship jumping in from another system whose primary has a different day length and different reference time zone is unlikely to be working the same 9-5 as you!) then anyone not serving 24 hours a day is simply passing up trade.

Obviously, a mom and pop place might well work a shorter day, but are they really going to have space on an orbital?

 

[phavoc]

Hi hopsnbaer,

I was thinking they would be open 16 hours a day, with each person working an 8 hr shift. Like phavoc suggested, I think a lot of places would have vending machines and robots to provide 24 hour service.



That could work. If you assume a store of 20-dTons, that is 5 staff, if the store was open 24 hrs a day, that is three 8-hr shifts, plus leave, training, management, etc.

- Kerry

Stations, like starships, would work on a 24/7 model. I though Cherryh's DownBelow Station did a good job on the station side explaining things. They used a Mainday/Alterday cycle (12/hrs each), with the Mainday corresponding to normal 'day' and Alterday being 'night'. Operations were shift-based, but the station itself would have more business and such open during Mainday.

The book also had the station more or less physically designed so that the docks, or the outer hull of the station, were more likely to be opened for longer stretches, some as many as 18hrs/day (with some places open 24hrs) to accommodate ships and their crews who would be possibly docking and working much different times than the station itself. The areas that serviced station personnel primarily adapted to their schedules.

So that's something also to keep in mind. Busy transit hubs will have shops open 24/7 because traffic to/from station knows no closing times. Smaller stations with less ship transient traffic are more likely to adopt a set of regular hours. Just like regular stores you would have shifts of labor so long as it made economic sense to keep them staffed. Having off-hours for a station also allows for some downtime for maintenance and cleaning when having people around or systems online would interfere.

 

[mavikfelna]

If you want some really good descriptions and designs for stations I would highly recommend the Age of the Solar Clippers stories by Nathan Lowell, as they are all about trade and interacting with different stations. I don't recall if he ever discusses hard numbers, but you should at least get some good ideas from them.