[BUG.. or not?] Cities Skylines Traffic.. serious issues!!
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Developers have confirmed the traffic is bugged. So people who say it isn't, are flat out wrong. http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?844893-PSA-Official-Progress-Update whenever they want proof. Yes there is a work around and hell yes, I use it and don't mind much at all. If you don't want to use the work around, then wait for the fixes, what else can be said?
To say traffic isn't bugged because it's behaving how it's designed is like saying a mentally ill person isn't mentally ill at all, because that's how their brain was designed to work.
To say traffic isn't bugged because it's behaving how it's designed is like saying a mentally ill person isn't mentally ill at all, because that's how their brain was designed to work.
you mean the part where Moo mentions "Potential traffic AI issues/improvements"?
No-one ever said that the traffic AI couldn't be improved upon. A lot of us just don't think it's bugged
No-one ever said that the traffic AI couldn't be improved upon. A lot of us just don't think it's bugged
It's actually not. If something is working as intended then it's not bugged. Bugged is a word with a meaning. I don't believe that it is bugged, just massively flawed. What moo said is far from an admission that traffic is bugged. But it does prove that they consider that perhaps the result is not quite as they would like.
Hardly confirmed. The way I read it is they're keeping an eye on how many people are unhappy with current behavior. A brain isn't a piece of software, and a bug is something that does not work as intended. It's just not the right word for it, that's all.
I fervently advocate a change, but I'm not going to call it a bug.
Bugged is not the right word, like you said. Barely functional and poorly designed are more apt descriptions of what's going on, but it's not bugged- the traffic moves around and goods/people get from A to B. Just not in any way that reflects reality.
Colossal Order should've spent less time on their "WATER" and more time on "TRAFFIC AI" *sigh*...
Their "WATER" kind of reminds me of Maxis's "GLASS BOX" oooh, ahhh, MEH...
Their "WATER" kind of reminds me of Maxis's "GLASS BOX" oooh, ahhh, MEH...
They should implement a little bit of random 'noise' in their traffic pathing algorithms. Instead of finding the shortest possible route and sticking to it, a small percentage should choose less efficient pathways. This simulates, very basically, people attempting to take different routes to their destination because their previous experience tells them it might be faster.
As for lane selection, each vehicle should have a small amount of random 'noise' again in choosing their lane. If there is no waiting people should use the correct lane nearly 100% of the time. For every X moment of waiting (traffic building up) they increase their chances of selecting a different lane. Eventually after a certain threshold they decide, bugger it I'm choosing a different path and re-route their travel.
This means that poor traffic engineering will still mean bad traffic, as people start swapping in/out of lanes trying to get a better deal. As they do in real life. It would also allow for more efficient roads for those times where you have spare lanes leading to the same destination.
It fixes both problems.
As for lane selection, each vehicle should have a small amount of random 'noise' again in choosing their lane. If there is no waiting people should use the correct lane nearly 100% of the time. For every X moment of waiting (traffic building up) they increase their chances of selecting a different lane. Eventually after a certain threshold they decide, bugger it I'm choosing a different path and re-route their travel.
This means that poor traffic engineering will still mean bad traffic, as people start swapping in/out of lanes trying to get a better deal. As they do in real life. It would also allow for more efficient roads for those times where you have spare lanes leading to the same destination.
It fixes both problems.
Cars refusing to use the left lane on a three lane highway when the middle lane is completely blocked is something the devs need to find a way to fix. I watched one of my highways for a few minutes and basically nobody was using the left lane - everyone prefers the middle lane, so if it gets clogged the cars don't learn to switch to the left.
The thing is Cims are always avoiding central Lanes regardless of how much space they have. If they need to turn they try to get into the lane from Miles away (Just from the city entry points where you connect the road, ignoring the fact that the city buildings are miles miles away from it).
I also tried to put some of the additional entry points (from highway, with no traffic light) but the same scenario gets repeated everywhere.
It's often smart to not put your bus stops right on the main through-road of a district. If you get 2 or more buses queued up for the stop they block a lane.
Also, avoid putting bus stops right in front of intersections. The bus will try to merge right into the row of cars that's already waiting there, hindering flow.
Managing you bus routes effectively is a puzzle in it self
Or you can always go for something like this:
** snipped image**
Thanks for the tips, might have to have another go with buses sometime.. - another one of the reasons was the lines were always losing money as well...
I really like the idea in that picture, but can't help wondering about other traffic using those small roads, wouldn't that cause congestion as well?
And it does so quite efficiently I'm sure, if you design the road network around these rules. But they are not good rules to use in a game that at least to an extent is supposed to simulate reality. I hope and do think enough people will be complaining about this behavior to give CO a really good reason to try hard to change it into something better. Judging by tales of previous games – once and for all.
As it stands it comes across as a major obstacle in a lot of people's continued enjoyment of the game. A few nerds aside, I don't think people are that interested if the logic isn't more intuitive to human thinking about traffic. If they're going to be releasing a number of DLCs a long time into the future, they need people to keep playing the game.
Just to have an official voice in here too, traffic is not bugged as it stands. There's definitely ways to improve it but it's still working as intended.
@TotalyMoo
maybe you can give us/me a little answer?
- On which way is the "showing" traffic currently calculation the route exactly?
=> It looks like cars will always go the fastest route, calculated by a CLEAR road statistic?
=> In real, if there is to much traffic on the exit, at one point you would use the next exit because it is faster, but it looks like, this is not happening to the traffic.
- Are there differences between "calculated background traffic (the traffic not showing because of system limitation (65k events only) against the showing traffic?
=> does the calculated traffic have an impact to the showing traffic, or is it only porting in background without any road connection
Please not again the discussion if the traffic is bugged! It is really not. I said it before: The big difference to real life traffic is that all cars in game have the same speed! There is no use in using other lanes because there is no overtaking. Every Cim that moves to another lane has to get back in the proper lane and this will cause even more problems. All people that complain about the AI not using more lanes stop to think at this point and don't think about what happens when all the cars are trying to get back in their "real" lane. Again: All cars have the same speed! There are no growing gaps because of one car driving faster than the other, there is no "I accelerate a bit to get in this gap in front of me" or " I break a bit so the other car can get in in front of me" All cars drive at the same speed and if you keep that in mind you would realize that you don't really need more lanes.
If your cars all stuck in one lane they either have all the same destination or you used the wrong roads/junctions.
If your cars all stuck in one lane they either have all the same destination or you used the wrong roads/junctions.
I think the main problem here was that someone thought the word "bugged" meant "not working as I would like it to". Talking about whether it's "bugged" should not distract from the discussion on what it's doing wrong and how it can be improved.
Isn't lane management a standard part of planning a city? I mean, I read in my local newspaper about politicians planning an additional right turning lane on a busy junction. Surely this is the tool that is missing.
In the picture you quoted are some things wrong/missing/unnecessary. On the left: All cars that only want to go straight forward will only use the two middle lanes. The straight black lines you see, want to go left or right outside the picture, so they are in the right lane. If there would be another way tu turn after the first turn they would use more lanes. The cars that want to go left and then left again use the far left lane. The cars that want to go left and then right would use the second left lane. As it is shown in the picture he just used the wrong road and/or misses some other ways for the cars. It is completly useless to use a 6 lane road if you don't have a "straight on" option for your cars at the end.
On the right: the 2 lane pieces are completely unneccessary if you have a "straight on" option at the end and junctions in two directions after your cars have turned left or right from the 6-lane road. If you don't have 3 different directions going off your road don't use 6-lane or 3-lane roads!
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I know this goes against what most people are saying on this thread, but I have to say I'm not losing any sleep over the way traffic is working. I recognize all the points people are saying, and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing some improvement over time from the devs, but the adjective I would use is "quirky". When I hear someone use the word "broken", I think of something like a tool that cannot be used anymore. If the traffic were truly broken, I would stop playing the game. It has quirks, I hope they improve those aspects, but it's not causing me to stop playing. Speaking of that, I need to get back to my little cims...
I for one am glad that the developers put the game ahead of the simulation with regards to traffic. The current model is easy to understand which makes traffic problems an interesting puzzle to fix.
The people who want more realistic simulation of traffic sound like they would be happy with nothing short of PTV Vissim which would make for a tedious game.
The people who want more realistic simulation of traffic sound like they would be happy with nothing short of PTV Vissim which would make for a tedious game.