Move the merchant ships to somewhere more obvious and accessible to the crew.

[Nnystyxx]

I was thinking possibly near arrivals. Could work, since there's quite a bit of extra space there for the solar area and there's a pod docking area.

As it stands, the exact people who can access the catering dock are not the people making any money or typically going off-station to make it so they can spend it. As for the research one, eh. Chemnerds.

It's really counterintuitive, especially when the merchant shuttles on Cog1 used to dock in the Public Market, which was a super high-traffic area and right next to EVA.