I am planning on writing a program to run in the background that installs and uninstalls POI on the fly based on the excel export. It won't be visible this population layer though, unfortunately.
But who knows what the future will bring.

this mod made me realize how much i wish the game had some kind of fluctuating population. with a completely static population, there isn't much reason to revisit a line or city once you've established a functional and profitable transportation system there. if the cities expanded or if populations moved as they become more accessible from a good light rail or tram, it'd add a lot to the gameplay.

sorry for the irrelevant ramble, great mod. the original population overlay sucks.

Thanks for uploading. I had trouble seeing the difference between the similar base game colors (especially in the evening after playing for a longer time). This mod solved it.

Thank you for confirming and appreciate the rationale!

And it's basically following the same gradient as my speed gradient.
I've actually been using this mod for 2 years now. Only this is the first time I can officially share it. (has been shared a number of times on the official Discord) I've never had any issue with it.

It goes from dark to bright colors: red -> orange -> yellow -> green -> cyan (-> dark blue). With the last colour being the exception, where it goes darker again. Basically following the rainbow. I do feel the colors that pop the most are the highest density ones.

Is green more populated than yellow and yellow more populated than red (and blue the most populated)? I noted most large cities have yellow-dominated center and red-dominated outskirts. Feels a bit un-intuitive as typically you would expect a more intense/darker color for more density of population.