Re: Traffic - Solutions please?
by BlackjackWidowOriginal Post
Wow - thank you for such a detailed response!!
I shall break down your response, with any follow-up questions I have...
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
Overall, remember that SimCity is utilizing an agent pathing program that is rather flawed in the simulation. A particular Sim does not choose a particular job or building to go to every day; workers will exit their building and follow the path of least resistance until they find an open job.
I was very disappointed to learn this some time ago. I was browsing through SimCity tutorials and found one explaining how the agent path works...a shame to say the least.
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
This can lead to weird things like Sims waiting at a bus stop that's set right outside their door, jumping on the bus and exiting at the next stop. If there's no employment at the next stop, they'll just wait at that stop for the bus to pick them up and carry them to the next one. If this is at the end of a road, for instance, they can spend all day going back and forth between two bus stops, never finding the industrial area that is on the other side of the city.
This is good to know. I have 10K of my population regularly riding buses, so if they're travelling from one stop to another within the same road perhaps that is why Commercial buildings are being abandoned, with no workers or shoppers actually attending them!
@BlackjackWidow wrote:In every case, try to build so that Sims have to walk rather than drive or use mass transportation. Aim for an RCI ratio of about 3:1:1. Build residential zones with the commercial mixed in; R on the ends with a section of C in the middle works very well.
Please could you explain this ratio to me further? Do you mean 3 residential buildings to 1 commercial? Is that low, medium or high density or reflected throughout?
I find that SimCity lacks certain detailed information. I have the Extended Data Mod so I know how many workers are required for Commercial and Industrial buildings, but what would be good to know is how much freight is provided per building and how many goods are sold.
I have deduced that a low density Industrial building is either 60, or 80 freight. Medium is 120 and High is 240 - although a high density industrial building is the same size as two medium so provides little value!
I also know that a low density commercial building provides shopping for 7. But I don't know about Medium or High density.
I don't know whether med-tech or high-tech industry provides more freight, or just cleaner production of it...
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
Build dorms for your university and lay paths to the main building so the students walk to school. As far as these paths go, you can use them all over the city and all sims will use them. They're free to lay and give your Sims walking options, so use them! (Also helpful - garbage trucks will use service roads and avoid mucking up traffic if you lay them around the city as well)
How far will Sims walk? Can you provide me an estimated distance and how to gauge it within the game?
Do the trucks use the service roads in favour of the other types? That is helpful to know because seeing cars queued behind a truck collecting garbage is a painful sight 
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
If you have a university, do not place any other school building types or school bus stops. There is no distinction between elementary school students and university students. All of the student agents are just "students". It's cheaper and better management in the long run to build multiple schools (whatever type you're using) placed around the city so that students will walk to school. University students will will either walk (good) or drive (horrible traffic) to school. They do not use public transportation. Use the dorms to fill your classes so you don't have regional "students" flooding in and mucking up your roads.
I do have a University - so that my Electronics buildings are more efficient - and I placed the building far from my main City spread with a singular road to and from. I was amazed, and a little concerned, with how much traffic that actually generates! Hundreds and hundreds of cars all queuing on that one road, waiting to spread amongst my Residential area.
I've now shut down most of the University, to minimise how many students can attend. The City is less educated, but there is less traffic on the road now, at least.
@BlackjackWidow wrote:Bus terminals, trains, planes and boats - all are "regional" traffic. They'll bring in tourists and possibly carry off some of your unemployed sims, who will never find their way back. If you are running anything besides a tourist or gambling city, I would recommend that you demolish the bus terminals (turn them off and wait at least a full sim-day to make sure the buses get back to the garage before you bulldoze it). If you need the tourists for an area, set the bus terminal or ferry by the casino or landmark and don't use any bus stops or buses. This will force your tourists to walk right to the landmark and leave by the transportation method. If you don't do this, when they leave they will generate hundreds of taxis to take them out of the city. Think of regional transport as bringing sims in - they do not help with city traffic flow or resident transport.
Thank you for this incredibly helpful piece of knowledge. I always thought of SimCity as replacing old and cheap with new and expensive. So always replace Shuttle Bus Depots with Municipal Bus Terminals. Plus, the descriptions themselves suggest that it'll help with commuting and traffic.
If I built a train station in the Residential area and a second in the Industrial, what will happen to the commuters then? Or do they just carry on and out of the City?
Similarly to a previous question - how far will tourists walk? I read or watched somewhere that having a Municipal Bus Terminal (MBT) placed at one side of the casinos and a second MBT placed at the other side will make the tourists get off from one and walk passed all the casinos (visiting them to spend money as required) and get on at the other to leave?
Also, if the MBT brings in Sims from the Region and you've advised not placing bus stops for residents...how many bus shelters at the MBT should be placed? None?
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
In cases where you need transport for your city Sims, use shuttle buses, streetcars and park-n-rides. I usually have my Industrial set on the downwind side of the city, and the Residential and Commercial together on the other side. It works great to have shuttle bus stops and park-n-rides right in the center of each area, maybe a streetcar avenue down the center of the city. Only put stops right where you want the sims to go. So a line of Industrial buildings with a shuttle bus stop in the center, and park-n-rides on either side, that sort of thing. It seems counter intuitive, but the less stops scattered about, the better. Place them with intent and purpose, and they will work well.
I am slightly unsure about how and where to place bus stops...so I shall explain how I have placed mine and receive your feedback about whether this is correct. So, on one stretch of road where I have 8 high density Residential buildings I have placed 4 bus stops. One stop between two of the residential buildings.
On another stretch of road, away from this, I have 10 high density Commercial buildings and have placed one bus stop between two of these, totalling 5 stops.
On another stretch of road, away from both, I have placed 1 bus stop outside a high density Industrial building.
Which of these will work, and which won't? Which of these will cause passengers to jump between stops, one after another.
@BlackjackWidow wrote:Try to create "straight shots" for anything that has to either enter the city or exit the city. This means trade depots set very close to the city entrance in order to get your goods exported or imported as quickly as possible; try having an L-shaped road at your entrance with a straight shot to trade depot.
Finally something that I am well knowledgeable of. I learnt this from my first City build. Nothing more frustrating that seeing that goods required are sat in three hours of tailback traffic. What I have found is that using the UDoN mod, is that a delivery van will drive out of its garage and around the block before returning to the depot to pick up the goods. I think this is based on the design of the depot itself, where it isn't self-contained and actually requires the delivery van to move out on to the road before collecting goods.
@BlackjackWidow wrote:There are a couple of bugs that happen fairly reliably; student agents go missing (especially with universities) and the only way to get them back is to demolish the building and let it rebuild. Worker and shopper agents may also disappear, usually exiting to the region for something, never to return. Again, demolishing the building is sometimes your only resort.
How can you work out if Student agents or Worker / Shopper agents have gone missing?
I do appreciate all of the help you are offering and apologise that each answer produces more questions!
@alwe15 wrote:
@BlackjackWidow wrote:
In every case, try to build so that Sims have to walk rather than drive or use mass transportation. Aim for an RCI ratio of about 3:1:1. Build residential zones with the commercial mixed in; R on the ends with a section of C in the middle works very well.
Please could you explain this ratio to me further? Do you mean 3 residential buildings to 1 commercial? Is that low, medium or high density or reflected throughout?
I find that SimCity lacks certain detailed information. I have the Extended Data Mod so I know how many workers are required for Commercial and Industrial buildings, but what would be good to know is how much freight is provided per building and how many goods are sold.
I have deduced that a low density Industrial building is either 60, or 80 freight. Medium is 120 and High is 240 - although a high density industrial building is the same size as two medium so provides little value!
I also know that a low density commercial building provides shopping for 7. But I don't know about Medium or High density.
I don't know whether med-tech or high-tech industry provides more freight, or just cleaner production of it...
The ratio is a good starting point to use. Think of it as a way to zone space; you'll want to zone about 3x as much residential as your commercial, and about the same amount of industrial. For example, if I were starting out a new city I might have a couple of roads where the zoning looks like this: RRRRRRCCCCRRRRRR (upwind) and this: IIII (downwind - those are "i's" for Industrial). Think of each letter as a click of the zoning tool - or a couple of clicks, depending. I'm honestly so used to it now it's kind of second nature - don't get too Type A like I am or you'll drive yourself crazy lol.
I went in to see if I could find the max number of shoppers a commercial building can hold; most of my cities have high density buildings atm, so didn't get a full sampling. fwiw: Low Wealth High Density (LW HD) 582; MW HD 502; HW HD 465. Also, LW MD 47-57; LW LD 10; LD HW 7. Wealth class and density affect both capacity for shoppers/tourists and workers.
A couple of other things you may notice: there are 24 hour commercial buildings and 12 hour commercial buildings. The ones that are only open during the day employ less Sims and support less shoppers than the ones that are open 24 hours. When I get into my over-managing mode, I bulldoze anything that doesn't stay open overnight to help with my number crunching. 
Here are a couple of screenshots of one of my cities, to show the zoning. (Not my best-running city, was tweaking it a while ago and kind of forgot about it - but good for layout purposes) The commercial is difficult to see, but is in the center of the residential.
As far as freight goes - I rarely even worry about freight. In the extremely rare cases that I have a message about not enough freight being delivered, it's usually due to traffic/transportation issues, or I accidentally left a freight warehouse in one of the trade ports. Other than that, balance the jobs and shopping, and freight is not an issue.
@alwe15 wrote: How far will Sims walk? Can you provide me an estimated distance and how to gauge it within the game?
Do the trucks use the service roads in favour of the other types? That is helpful to know because seeing cars queued behind a truck collecting garbage is a painful sight
If I built a train station in the Residential area and a second in the Industrial, what will happen to the commuters then? Or do they just carry on and out of the City?
Similarly to a previous question - how far will tourists walk? I read or watched somewhere that having a Municipal Bus Terminal (MBT) placed at one side of the casinos and a second MBT placed at the other side will make the tourists get off from one and walk passed all the casinos (visiting them to spend money as required) and get on at the other to leave?
Also, if the MBT brings in Sims from the Region and you've advised not placing bus stops for residents...how many bus shelters at the MBT should be placed? None?
I am slightly unsure about how and where to place bus stops...so I shall explain how I have placed mine and receive your feedback about whether this is correct. So, on one stretch of road where I have 8 high density Residential buildings I have placed 4 bus stops. One stop between two of the residential buildings.
On another stretch of road, away from this, I have 10 high density Commercial buildings and have placed one bus stop between two of these, totalling 5 stops.
On another stretch of road, away from both, I have placed 1 bus stop outside a high density Industrial building.
Which of these will work, and which won't? Which of these will cause passengers to jump between stops, one after another.
How can you work out if Student agents or Worker / Shopper agents have gone missing?
I do appreciate all of the help you are offering and apologise that each answer produces more questions!
Yes - the garbage trucks will favor the service roads. You can use oil rig service roads to go from the oil drills directly to the trade depots, too. I love that!
According to "sources" (online guides and stuff) Sims will walk 400 meters. I have no idea how far that is in the game lol. I think the included screenshots from my previous answer is the best I can do on showing you what I do. When I have roads set to about half-way across the map, putting a block of blue in the center with green on each side cuts the traffic down to manageable, and as far as I can tell, the Sims will walk from the far corners on either end to the center. If residents complain that there's not enough shopping, I'll plop another commercial building's worth to see if they find it.
Train running from one end to the other to get your workers there - probably will work. I don't use trains much, IIRC, they're a little bugged but I can't really tell you how. It's certainly worth exploring yourself to see how you like it. I would not put anything other than a station on either end. Another option would be to have a main thoroughfare with a streetcar avenue that runs to each of the major zoned areas.
The way your bus stops are set up now, I would guess that all of them will cause issues. Personally, I prefer shuttle bus stops; they directly take the workers from Point A to Point B, with no regional traffic. Try replacing your 4 Residential area mass transit stops with 1 or 2 shuttle buses with the max of 3 buses. Then replace the Industrial and Commercial mass transit stops with one each. Turn off the MBT and run a couple of Sim-days. If the traffic still needs help, try plopping Park-n-Rides in the same manner and watch your traffic for a couple more days. I think you'll be amazed by effect, especially if you move to a mixed R-C to encourage walking for the shoppers.
To check for missing students: pause the game at exactly 5:59 am. Go to your Education Data Map view and look at the bars (all of the students should be at home and "uneducated" at 5:59 am). A quick look at the bars should alert you to any that are not the same size as the surrounding residences; then you can use the Extended Data Mod to see how many students are in the home. For instance, LW MD should have 15 students. If it has any other number - 7/15, 0/15 - you have missing students. Since you have a university, you may have a greater chance of "losing" students to the region (they'll go to the university, and the agent pathing forgets that they originated in the city). Really, the quickest way to remedy it is to demolish the building and let it rebuild to reset the students. The official "day" starts at 6 am; if you suspect that a building has a problem ("no work" when there's work right next door, for instance), un-pause and watch the numbers. Not all of the workers or shoppers will leave right at 6 am; some could be night workers or shoppers, but they all should leave either at some time and come back at some time. If the number doesn't move for a full Sim-day, demolish the building to reset.
@alwe15 wrote:I do appreciate all of the help you are offering and apologise that each answer produces more questions!
I'm just happy that I haven't overloaded you with more than you wanted to know! More than happy to help - your questions sound a lot like the ones I had when I first started. I really hope this helps - but please, play around with stuff and enjoy Would love to hear updates on your city. Happy Building!
@BlackjackWidow wrote:The ratio is a good starting point to use. Think of it as a way to zone space; you'll want to zone about 3x as much residential as your commercial, and about the same amount of industrial. For example, if I were starting out a new city I might have a couple of roads where the zoning looks like this: RRRRRRCCCCRRRRRR (upwind) and this: IIII (downwind - those are "i's" for Industrial). Think of each letter as a click of the zoning tool - or a couple of clicks, depending. I'm honestly so used to it now it's kind of second nature - don't get too Type A like I am or you'll drive yourself crazy lol.
I went in to see if I could find the max number of shoppers a commercial building can hold; most of my cities have high density buildings atm, so didn't get a full sampling. fwiw: Low Wealth High Density (LW HD) 582; MW HD 502; HW HD 465. Also, LW MD 47-57; LW LD 10; LD HW 7. Wealth class and density affect both capacity for shoppers/tourists and workers.
A couple of other things you may notice: there are 24 hour commercial buildings and 12 hour commercial buildings. The ones that are only open during the day employ less Sims and support less shoppers than the ones that are open 24 hours. When I get into my over-managing mode, I bulldoze anything that doesn't stay open overnight to help with my number crunching.
Here are a couple of screenshots of one of my cities, to show the zoning. (Not my best-running city, was tweaking it a while ago and kind of forgot about it - but good for layout purposes) The commercial is difficult to see, but is in the center of the residential.
As far as freight goes - I rarely even worry about freight. In the extremely rare cases that I have a message about not enough freight being delivered, it's usually due to traffic/transportation issues, or I accidentally left a freight warehouse in one of the trade ports. Other than that, balance the jobs and shopping, and freight is not an issue.
Hey! Thanks again for such a detailed response. It's really really helpful!
So, I had enough of the traffic in my City and decided to almost start over...I closed all services and allowed the service vehicles to return and then completely demolished both Residential and Commercial areas, removing a few service buildings as well.
I have now re-zoned using your method described and I am absolutely amazed at the difference it has made. I assume because I am playing an already aged City, the Sims immediately started constructing high density buildings and three low income HD residential buildings next to two low income HD commercial buildings provides enough jobs and shopping and ALL the Sims walk!!
I already have 56 thousand Sims living there (a third of my previous City) but almost nobody drives!
I just wanted to add a couple of things, perhaps I can help you slightly by return. I went through all of my Cities and demolished everything in each City except one building. I have learned that a low income HD commercial building sells 355 products, so will please 355 Sims. Low income MD sells 38 and low income LD sells 7.
The Mod you use correctly determines who lives at each type of Residential building, whether that be low income, med income or high income but the amount of work for Sims at Commercial and Industrial buildings aren't measured correctly, from the look of it. I noticed low income HD commercial buildings with anything from 425 - 725 Sim jobs, but actually the game offers a much more rounded and reliable figure of 600 low wealth jobs, 100 med wealth and 10 high wealth.
I plan on completing my research and publishing my findings on the forum for all to see. It might help those of us with a tendency to desire the perfect City
@alwe15 wrote:So, I had enough of the traffic in my City and decided to almost start over...I closed all services and allowed the service vehicles to return and then completely demolished both Residential and Commercial areas, removing a few service buildings as well.
I have now re-zoned using your method described and I am absolutely amazed at the difference it has made. I assume because I am playing an already aged City, the Sims immediately started constructing high density buildings and three low income HD residential buildings next to two low income HD commercial buildings provides enough jobs and shopping and ALL the Sims walk!!
I already have 56 thousand Sims living there (a third of my previous City) but almost nobody drives!
I just wanted to add a couple of things, perhaps I can help you slightly by return. I went through all of my Cities and demolished everything in each City except one building. I have learned that a low income HD commercial building sells 355 products, so will please 355 Sims. Low income MD sells 38 and low income LD sells 7.
The Mod you use correctly determines who lives at each type of Residential building, whether that be low income, med income or high income but the amount of work for Sims at Commercial and Industrial buildings aren't measured correctly, from the look of it. I noticed low income HD commercial buildings with anything from 425 - 725 Sim jobs, but actually the game offers a much more rounded and reliable figure of 600 low wealth jobs, 100 med wealth and 10 high wealth.
I plan on completing my research and publishing my findings on the forum for all to see. It might help those of us with a tendency to desire the perfect City
Very interesting about your findings on the number of shoppers supported; I am always on the lookout for more info. I find this game fascinating, although I can slide down the rabbit hole pretty quickly so I have to be careful not to spend all my time with Sims. :D
I am so glad the zoning tip worked for you. I don't know about you, but the first time I tried it I had little to no faith it would work. It was amazing to see all those Sims walking around and see traffic flow by without backups! Here's to your continued mayorial success - Happy Building!
Yes, it was quite interesting. I kept a few different buildings remained as well, just to test my theory. Also, I currently have about 6 HD, 4 MD and 1 LD commercial building and I added all those numbers mentioned together and the population panel had the correct shopping available.
Each time a new HD commercial building is completed, I check the population panel and confirm that another 600 jobs are available for LD residential workers.
I can tell that you like to keep your eye on population numbers as well, so just for your benefit, sometimes the population panel numbers change as soon as the foundation of a new building is laid. Sometimes, it waits until the building is 100%. Freight calculations for example, are added immediately, even though the Industrial building is but a foundation.
The zoning tip definitely worked, and really well too! So many pedestrians.
