Traffic is an important thing in any city. Traffic and winter is a whole different challenge! For Snowfall, we wanted to make sure there’s something new affecting traffic. We settled on to two major things: snow on the roads and road maintenance. While the snow plows will be discussed later, this text will shed some light on what else is new in the game.

The road maintenance service, unlike the snow plows, is available on all maps. What the maintenance service does is that it gives some extra care to roads, allowing vehicles to travel on them faster. Normal roads in normal condition are fine and good, but with a road maintenance service covering the city streets, the traffic can get an extra boost from higher maximum speeds on the roads. The boost a maintenance truck gives fades away with time, but if the service covers the city well, the trucks travel to boost the roads that have the least boost left on them. Road maintenance can be used with the snow plow services, so that boosted roads don’t suffer from snow as fast as non-boosted roads.


Then the thing many people have been waiting for: trams! They are something we have been planning for a long time and finally get to share with you. Trams operate on tracks and reside in a tram depot when they are not on lines. The basic principle is much the same as with buses: the budget defines how many trams are available in the depot or depots, and the vehicles are divided between lines depending on line length. Longer lines get more vehicles than shorter lines. To get more vehicles, increase the city budget for the service. Trams need to be able to reach the line from the depot, so you may need to lay some extra tracks to allow trams to get to lines further away from the depot.

To build tracks, you can upgrade/downgrade existing roads to versions with tracks, or build new roads with tracks. There are both regular two-way roads and one way roads with tracks. As a finishing touch, tram tracks have overhead wires.


To give the trams some advantages over buses, tram tracks can also be built as standalone versions with no road beneath them. The standalone tracks are very handy for getting your trams to avoid busy intersections or streets known to be crowded. Stops can only be placed on roads and pedestrian pathways, but the standalone tracks allow for nice little detours to keep your trams free from traffic jams.

Trams have a higher passenger capacity than buses (20 for buses, 30 for trams), but also have a little higher upkeep costs per distance traveled, about 15% more than for buses. For best results, trams should be used as short inner city lines, and buses and metros can handle longer distances. Trams do not benefit from road maintenance boost, but also are not hindered by snow.

To get the winter theme really going, we have done lots of variations of existing buildings. This means your city does not need to have palm trees waving in the snow storm, or citizens hanging out on piers in the freezing cold. Things like flower pots are modified to fit the winter to keep the city looking consistent. Some buildings are only available to players who also own After Dark, but many are variations to the base game ones. My favourites are the agricultural buildings on fertile land, which are greenhouses on winter maps. You will also see many new parks that fit winter time better than the default parks.


These new additions to the game are available in the paid expansion. We feel they give a lot of new possibilities to handling roads, traffic and public transportation. I can’t wait to see all the cool tram systems you will be building!

 

[Tvarog]

What about terminuses? Do we need a loop or is it a two-way-tram? CAN we build loops with one-way-tracks, a block bypass?

What about terminus is really good question.
In CIM2 it was always big problem for me, also for bus lines. I love that in CSL bus lanes can turnaround on dead end, but what about trams? Is there a way to create smooth loop?

 

[punishEA]

Will there be also combined road types? Like road with tram tracks and also with bike lines?

There are so many possible combinations for streets - in real life you can have buslanes, bikelanes, trams on road or besides road (or in the middle) and regular lanes, combined with or without trees and/or parking, oneway or twoway, with one single lane or with multiple lanes. In all imaginable variations.
Unfortuanetly we dont have some kind of modular system where we can choose what we want on which type of road/lane. We must choose from a very (!) limited preselected pool, even with AD. This system is really basic (you even can not connect a random road to one single direction of an avenue (even if it has a median), you always create a crossing for both directions - i hate that).
There are some mods which add a lot of variation, but even that is not enough to cover many needs. Maybe some additional variants will be added to the game, but i doubt that even if they come everyones needs will we satisfied. There will be much left for the modders

Is there a chance to build underground stations like the subway station, when the tram is subterranean?

Example:
In Karlsruhe they changed many tram lanes from overground to underground to have a better flow of pedestians and traffic. So I would use overground trams from outside to the city and at areas with many traffic I would change to subterranean with underground stations.

So trams wouldn't be stack in traffic within city center.

In Frankfurt its different, we have both - tram is always overground but many subway lines go overground when exiting the central city (costs for subway-tunnel was/is much higher). So i wish we would get overground subway, too
At least some kind of combination between both systems (underground tram or overground subway, underground tram stations) would have been nice; but we also have no risen or underground train-stations in the vanilla game including AD - so i guess we wont get underground tram stations and risen tram stations as well. So we can only hope for the modders again to come up with a solution.

...there is so much stuff missing, it would fill another DLC.

 

[raul8265]

Hello i'm so exited to see this new expantion game, is amazing your work i wish that the maps will be more big, for example 350km2 that will be amazing! Or just create a country, maps bigger could be optional for more hardware than the minimum requirements i think that will be an amazing idea! The next expantion create a country or bigge maps with the thingd that have a country i wish you think about this idea is amazing! Thank you for all your works! Amazing team!

 

[Metrarailfan]

Looks great and will be a must buy for me!!! Two questions, will there be more visible snow on the road if it hasn't been plowed? Also, with the snow plows, will those be like busses where you plan their routes, or do you just place the depot like taxis and they go where they want?

 

[jmr00]

Looks great and will be a must buy for me!!! Two questions, will there be more visible snow on the road if it hasn't been plowed? Also, with the snow plows, will those be like busses where you plan their routes, or do you just place the depot like taxis and they go where they want?

Judging by the video, yes the roads will be visible clearer after a snowplough has gone through. I don't know for sure, but I would think they would function more like taxis than buses.

 

[Metrarailfan]

Thanks!

 

[Metrarailfan]

Just one question. Are there any plans in this DLC to offer an alternative to those "double bridges"? This is still one thing, that makes the game look a bit unrealistic. I really would appreciate an highway that works with "one road".

Scene highways are just 2 three lane one ways, just make the highway a six lane avenue.

 

[CSLPOLISH]

In Polish
http://citiesskylines.pl/temat-CS-Snowfall-Dev-Diary-2-Nowości-na-drogach-Tłumaczenie

 

[Reisi007]

Should not be Dev Diary 3 be available now?

 

[co_martsu]

Should not be Dev Diary 3 be available now?

It will be available when Karoliina has the time to post it. Will happen by the end of the day

 

[Reisi007]

@co_martsu : Thanks! squishing some bugs so that everything looks perfectly fine on DevDiary3

 

[co_martsu]

@co_martsu : Thanks! squishing some bugs so that everything looks perfectly fine on DevDiary3

Haha, no. Just a pet related incident delaying work

 

[Rostan]

Wait, will buses now have a lower carrying capacity? It said in the dev diary that they will only carry 20 passengers, but IIRC the in-game capacity (I play vanilla) is 30 right now...

 

[Ethanol]

For best results, trams should be used as short inner city lines, and buses and metros can handle longer distances. Trams do not benefit from road maintenance boost, but also are not hindered by snow.

Not hindered by snow ? You've never seen the state of the tram network in Brussels when it snows have you ? (and we're used to rain and snow, well except for the transport authorities who always pretend to be "surprised" by 2 inches of snow...).

This being said I support the fact that trams are for shorter distances. Since they require more infrastructure it is logical that they should be more effective for small distances whiles buses who only need a road can handle greater distances.

 

[Sotrax]

Not hindered by snow ? You've never seen the state of the tram network in Brussels when it snows have you ? (and we're used to rain and snow, well except for the transport authorities who always pretend to be "surprised" by 2 inches of snow...).
This being said I support the fact that trams are for shorter distances. Since they require more infrastructure it is logical that they should be more effective for small distances whiles buses who only need a road can handle greater distances.

Well, speaking for Berlin the Tram is the most reliable transport vehicle in bad weather conditions.
Busses are often slowed till standstill, the S-Bahn doesn't use switch heating anymore so they often got switch problems, the small profile Subway often runs overground and since they wander the conductor rail from above (and don't run in the night!) they often got problems with ice and power transmission. Only the tram is "immune" since they run day and night on almost all road sections, so they keep their rails snow free and the switches got heating. They only got some minutes delay, but thats a minor loss of quality under these circumstances.

Since your logic about using tram or bus for long distances seems right on the first sight, on the second it isn't. Well it differs from case to case since the number of passengers is playing a big role, but the thumb rule for inner city transport is:
Overground rail > subway > tram > bus
The boundaries are blurred. But exept for BRT services busses often 'only' play the feeder for the rail lines. Short buslines that run through the residential areas to take the people to the long distance rail services. But even here: exceptions prove the rule - Metro lines, express lines etc.
But generally saying a tram is for short and the bus is for long lines is, well, just wrong.

 

[Ethanol]

Well, speaking for Berlin the Tram is the most reliable transport vehicle in bad weather conditions.
Busses are often slowed till standstill, the S-Bahn doesn't use switch heating anymore so they often got switch problems, the small profile Subway often runs overground and since they wander the conductor rail from above (and don't run in the night!) they often got problems with ice and power transmission. Only the tram is "immune" since they run day and night on almost all road sections, so they keep their rails snow free and the switches got heating. They only got some minutes delay, but thats a minor loss of quality under these circumstances.

Since your logic about using tram or bus for long distances seems right on the first sight, on the second it isn't. Well it differs from case to case since the number of passengers is playing a big role, but the thumb rule for inner city transport is:
Overground rail > subway > tram > bus
The boundaries are blurred. But exept for BRT services busses often 'only' play the feeder for the rail lines. Short buslines that run through the residential areas to take the people to the long distance rail services. But even here: exceptions prove the rule - Metro lines, express lines etc.
But generally saying a tram is for short and the bus is for long lines is, well, just wrong.

Well tram can have long lines, just that tram lines are exclusively used in dense areas and compared to bus lines are limited to the urban areas. The train serves as an inter city means of travel (using train to move inside a city is not really efficient, even larger ones), the subway is of course the most efficient but costs a ridiculous amount of money and poses a lot of problems regarding maintenance so it's logical it is only used as the primary network for the city's transit.
The trams are here to suplement the network by providing a cheaper and easier to install alternative to metro while conserving a high capacity of transit (and the trams can also be integrated into the subway infrastructure with pre-subway part of lines).
The buses offer the cheapest but least efficient means of transit but can easily be redirected or changed at will, also they have longer autonomy and do not require installation which makes them the perfect choice to connect with the hinterland of the city at a reasonable cost (light rail or trains can do that more effectively but it takes a lot of money and time, in Brussels the train network to connect the hinterland has been under construction for nearly 15 years and they're talking about cancelling part of it).

The game doesn't model the time factor required since digging a metro and a few tunnels takes the same time as creating a bus line, but there is a reason these choices are way more complicated for real city planners. A bus line can be set up in less than three months while a subway extension would require 5 years.

 

[Sotrax]

Yeah I agree with you, I just wanted to prove the blunt assertion "trams - short / bus - long" as wrong.
Big factor is the history, especially in the european citys. Overground rails are way older than subways, trams got a big boom in the time around the turn of the millennium. After the first Diesel busses come to life the tram got more and more repressed, in favor of bus and subway. A lot of citys even disestablished the whole tram, only to reintroduce them 40years later because they realized that they have the best costs/benefits factor for heavy inner city lines. But this historical development leaves a lot of single-solutions and a lot of exceptions which gives every city their soul.
Speaking for Berlin, since I live here and I know every tree by name, there are a lot of curiosities which wouldn't make sense in modern times. S-Bahn service with own conductor rail, unable to leave their special network. Two different subway networks with different dimensions of tunnel hights and carbodies. (Kleinprofil / Großprofil) No tram service in West-Berlin, leaving Buslines that burst from all seams. Tram lines that run through forests. [1] [2]
Public transportation is incredibly interesting, it's a so important but so underrated topic. It's not just my job, it's the biggest part of my life.

 

[Omnius1Prime]

Looks like another public transport disaster with the same poor programming we've come to expect from buses and the metro. Too many vehicles too close together and most of the line not serviced by any vehicles. Will we be stuck losing 6 lane two-way roads to them becoming 2 lane roads each way with two lanes wasted on tram tracks? Considering how poorly buses, the metro and taxis work I don't expect trams to work worth a darn and they won't be worth the cost.

What would be really cool is seeing the programming for public transport become much smarter. All I see is a copy of the poor public transport programming from Sim City, too many vehicles all bunched up instead of properly spread out along the whole route. I see that CO is good at making pretty things, so far they haven't shown that they can make them work smartly. The public transport mod that does allow us to spread buses or metro trains along the route better isn't worth it because it reduces ridership and becomes too much micromanagement. A pity the core program doesn't do this as it should.

I have an excellent traffic system using 6-lane two-way roads as well as 2-way streets. I have an elevated highway/rail system that runs together that keeps my traffic flowing nicely. I no longer need a Traffic Manager mod, just the Improved AI mod by jfarias that spreads traffic out along multilane roads and highways, something the core program should be doing but fails to. I won't waste my time or money with this new expansion because I don't see any improvement to core programming.

I live in sunny California, what do I want with snow and the headaches that come with it? I got my fill while in Austria and Germany in January in my last two days there, made a few snowballs and threw them so I checked that off my bucket list. Why would I want to trust CO to screw up road conditions with weather like snow and expect them to program snowplows with any credibility after they've proven over and over again that they don't do a good job of programming public transport? This looks like double trouble with snow and trams that will do nothing but screw up traffic even further and then we'll have to hope a good mod comes out that fixes the problems CO creates with new stuff.

Will CO fix the problem with the Space Elevator and Tourism that's screwed up after about 350,000 Cims? I just saw that in my new city with AD that my tourists went from 320-something to 33 when population went from 339K to 391K. Somewhere in between tourism broke. Makes a real joke of the new After Dark tourism district and buildings. What new problems will we be plagued with with Snowfall?

 

[Sohryu_l]

So what about the terminus? I'm pretty certain a lot of people will mod in real-life trams, most of which are unidirectional, thus causing problems (trams driving rear end-first...).

Could you at least make bi-/unidirectional trams optional, much like with left-/right-hand driving?

 

[SkullKrixzz]

Trams are mechanically closer to buses, but have the added benefit of being able to avoid roads with the standalone tracks. They are best for short inner city lines, as the average speed of a tram is very low compared to a metro. Metros are meant for longer distances and building tiny little metro lines would cost an insane amount, so trams are the thing you want to use when you need a public transport type that can be free of roads but work for small areas.

is there any plan to have metro come above ground then? i dont even bother with the metro because i never actually see it.