[BUG.. or not?] Cities Skylines Traffic.. serious issues!!

[CreepyD666]

I want to confirm my testing.. Cars DON'T always take the fastest route.
They WILL use different route choices as long as they take a 'similar' amount of time (Not tested that threshold).

I did a couple of tests.

1.
Delete 3 sections of highway in a straight line and replace with 3 off ramps (left, straight and right), joining to a final single off ramp.
Do cars all use the middle one (being it's the faster shorter route)? No they don't..
They use ALL 3 lanes almost equally.

2.
So I have a busy highway, and create a new highway as an offshoot. It goes absolutely nowhere except joining back to the main highway about 1/4 of a map tile down the road.
Lots of cars were using this road.
I created another offshoot highway off that one, meaning an even longer distance.. You guessed it, cars were using that too.

They could drive dead straight to their destination, but CHOSE to drive a little further using my offshoot paths.


Traffic not using all lanes is different, but I'm in the 'no bug here' category.
You just need to design your roads better.

I'm currently playing my 18k population city using the No Despawn mod (doesn't despawn cars = MUCH more traffic) and I have no traffic problems still.
I did spend an hour or so yesterday fixing some where it was backing up in the middle lane, but that was down to my design! I improved the design and now it's fine and spreads out.

You just need to 'balance' your roads so equal numbers of cars want to go left / right / straight.
Building should be distributed equally left / right too.
Don't have offramps all on the Right, put a gap between highways so you can have some on the left!

 

[dodanek]

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!

I have to disagree with you. If you have a straight, long 6-lane one-way road (and it is common in real cities, isn't it) and a connection to 2-lane one-way road (or roads, left and right), the cars DON'T use the second left/right lane at all. They just completely ignore it - look at the arrow signs on the road. They don't even ALLOW the cars to use that lane for turning, which is the bug some of us are trying to point at. Also, what is the purpose of going to a side lane one exit before the one you actually want to take? I am completely missing it. The turning sides on the road are also freekishly inconsistent.

 

[Inge Jones]

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.

Citysim developers are always very loathe to give players lane control. I am not quite sure if it's very hard to program in, or whether they're worried too much micromanagement will just let us shoot ourselves in the foot. Even the guy writing Citybound who seemed very much in favor of the idea some months ago *seems* to me to be backing away from it a little more recently. I may have it wrong, but I got that feeling.

 

[Imsvale]

There is no use in using other lanes because there is no overtaking.

That's assuming they're all going to the same place. If cars were to spread out over multiple lanes and change lanes only when their exit/turn is approaching (rather than so very, very early), you would gradually weed out traffic that would otherwise largely be stuck in the same lane. You are effectively overtaking cars leaving the road that would otherwise be in front of you, forcing you to stop when there's a traffic jam at or after the turn (thus the illegitimate conga lines, as opposed to the more legit ones, where it's just that much traffic taking the same turn). Just because they're stopping due to traffic jams doesn't necessarily mean you have to stop if you're not taking the same turn. It's not so much the speed cars travel at as the space they occupy (or don't occupy).

 

[Agent cooper]

I have to disagree with you. If you have a straight, long 6-lane one-way road (and it is common in real cities, isn't it) and a connection to 2-lane one-way road (or roads, left and right), the cars DON'T use the second left/right lane at all. They just completely ignore it - look at the arrow signs on the road. They don't even ALLOW the cars to use that lane for turning, which is the bug some of us are trying to point at. Also, what is the purpose of going to a side lane one exit before the one you actually want to take? I am completely missing it. The turning sides on the road are also freekishly inconsistent.

First about the picture you linked: On the left is a one way only coming in, of course then there is no arrow to turn left. No inconsistency.
About the 6-lane road. It also matters what happens after the turn off. If the road that turns off to the left (for example) has only roads that turn off to one direction, then of course the cars use only one lane on the 6-lane road. At least for me it worked.
About the use of beeing early in the lane to turn off. Again, all cars have the same speed. What's the use of driving in another lane? If your road system is well you should not have a traffic jam. These jams mostly exist because one car tries to get into the lane or because there is a problem after the junction. Unlike real world the traffic in game should flow fine (because of the same speed of every car). If it doesn't its almost every time the "fault" of the player. (except cars not overtaking service cars, that should really be fixed)

 

[Agent cooper]

That's assuming they're all going to the same place. If cars were to spread out over multiple lanes and change lanes only when their exit/turn is approaching (rather than so very, very early), you would gradually weed out traffic that would otherwise largely be stuck in the same lane. You are effectively overtaking cars leaving the road that would otherwise be in front of you, forcing you to stop when there's a traffic jam at or after the turn (thus the illegitimate conga lines, as opposed to the more legit ones, where it's just that much traffic taking the same turn). Just because they're stopping due to traffic jams doesn't necessarily mean you have to stop if you're not taking the same turn. It's not so much the speed cars travel at as the space they occupy (or don't occupy).

Well, if you build your road system properly there shouldn't be a traffic jam. The turning off goes quite quickly. There shouldn't be any big delay.

 

[Morwynd]

Whenever I have a big traffic buildup like this, I inspect a bunch of vehicles to see where they're going, and try to provide a superior alternate route. This approach has worked very well.

Eg: I had a huge traffic jam entering a district, and noticed a bunch of vehicles were garbage trucks trying to get to a bank of incinerators on the other side of the district. So I created an offramp directly from the highway to the incinerators, and the traffic problem resolved pretty much immediately.

 

[saegoto]

come on! six-way and all choose one lane!

 

[kosh22]

come on! six-way and all choose one lane!

Are a lot of your vehicles doing a right hand turn after this junction? They are getting into lane two junctions ahead of time' so there must be a vital junction we cannot see around the corner.

 

[dodanek]

come on! six-way and all choose one lane!

yeah… i feel like i'm gonna give up trying. there will always be somebody blind enough to tell you that this is your bad road management. yeah, the road layouts can be designed in a way that these situations do not happen. but real road layouts look exactly like THIS, not like your "proper road management". this is broken and I honestly cannot play the game until it's fixed, because I'm not using ugly unrealistic "road tweeks" just to make traffic work.

 

[Fredgard]

Dude!... Roundabout!

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...eglomanic-roundabouts&p=19072385#post19072385

 

[Agent cooper]

come on! six-way and all choose one lane!

I really don't want to insult you but looking at this picture for two seconds shows me so many mistakes made by yourself that I really don't understand how you can present this as a "proof" of mistake made by the game.
Come on, a two way 6-lane road coming in/going off a 6-lane one way road? And you are wondering why you have traffic problems?
90% of your traffic wants to go left on this junction and you are stopping it with traffic lights and traffic that wants to cross it? Are you seriously blaming the game?

 

[Agent cooper]

yeah… i feel like i'm gonna give up trying. there will always be somebody blind enough to tell you that this is your bad road management. yeah, the road layouts can be designed in a way that these situations do not happen. but real road layouts look exactly like THIS, not like your "proper road management". this is broken and I honestly cannot play the game until it's fixed, because I'm not using ugly unrealistic "road tweeks" just to make traffic work.

Sorry but this is very poor road management. And I have never seen a real life city with this kind of roads. This is simply no "proper road management". And why are you talking about "tweeks"? Using the right road for the right traffic situation is no "tweek"! Or would you call it a "tweek" if I tell you to use a shot gun on short distances and a sniper rifle on long distances in a shooter? Using the right tool for the right situation is not a "tweek" it's playing as it is intended!
And what "unrealistic road tweeks" are you talking about?

 

[Cubez88]

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:

That's beautiful, can you share more shots?

 

[lucky14]

Specifically referring back to the OP, because I did not see any great explanative rebuttal on WHY the road system is wrong:

I spent much a-time in CIM2 playing with the road system. Changing cars to 500% and trying to solve traffic problems by tweaking roads. How Cims behave on highways is probably the most annoying for me. But there's always solutions (namely, proper lane management, since CIM2's road system was much more advanced than Cities Skylines.

Anyway, the picture above is self-explanatory, and happens in real life:

During Rush Hour, Ashland Terrace's (two left turn lanes, one right turn) middle lane gets 90% of the left turning traffic, because 99% of those vehicles are turning right on Morrison Springs Rd. Some drivers do try to use the inner left turn lanes (Morrison Spring's Road has the same setup) to get in the typical shorter green lights, but most cars stay in the proper lane because they know it'll suck to try and merge in that short space, unless if your a very aggressive driver.

Having said that, Cities: Skylines can go to the extreme, but I'd be disappointed if it didn't. Also, in the OP's example, perhaps one truck could fit, while in the real life example, several could fit. So that's also to think about (if there was even a slightly larger space between the two intersections, traffic flow would be better (but not as great as a straight connection)).

T-Intersections are terribly inefficient, especially if you have a pair, side-by-side, attempting to act as a straight through.

Also, in another note, trucking traffic requires space. Quite a bit of it, especially in real life. Don't try to build something maybe big enough for a car traffic and hope very heavy truck traffic won't congest it. My area also has a prime example of that with our Interstates (serious steep uphill coupled with sharp corners with no extra lanes).

Anyway, figured some explanation of why it is happening would help

 

[ali.usman]

90% of your traffic wants to go left on this junction and you are stopping it with traffic lights and traffic that wants to cross it? Are you seriously blaming the game?

Sorry but this does not justify "not using all 3 lanes" before the turn (as no other traffic route is connected or going-in except this single 3 LANES route)

 

[Person012345]

Look at my screenshot from earlier (because I know what was actually going on here, relatively). This is what WAS happening:

This is what SHOULD have been happening:

In real life this would be fine, but the merging behaviour in-game is pretty terrible and I think that's pretty much the culprit here. If cars were able to merge more intelligently then not only would this be resolved but many other issues, such as roundabout behaviour, would also be fixed. Plus it would be nice if traffic light timing were fixed a bit.

 

[nickn5]

Traffic lights in game shouldn't be timed at all, but rather they should use the virtual equivalent of sensors, with obviously a time limit, as used in so many real life junctions these days. Seems to be used very effectively throughout the Netherlands and reduces or removes the need to wait at a red when there's nothing on the other roads.

 

[Person012345]

Traffic lights in game shouldn't be timed at all, but rather they should use the virtual equivalent of sensors, with obviously a time limit, as used in so many real life junctions these days. Seems to be used very effectively throughout the Netherlands and reduces or removes the need to wait at a red when there's nothing on the other roads.

I feel like they do already, They seem to change quicker if there's a queue one way and not the other. But what I mean is, 1. I would like a short delay between lights to allow pedestrians to cross (it would really be like a second at most) rather than the current system of acting like cars and therefore blocking all the traffic that wants to turn (and thus wasting precious green light seconds for cars, this would also allow more time for traffic to merge after passing through the lights before more traffic floods in) and 2. for there to be more intelligent timing between nearby intersections because right now a hell of a lot of green light time is wasted on empty sections of road due to red lights further up.

 

[Imsvale]

Well, if you build your road system properly there shouldn't be a traffic jam. The turning off goes quite quickly. There shouldn't be any big delay.

Yeah, if you build your road system properly, there will never be any problems ever, so all these discussions are irrelevant.

One does not always build one's road system properly, otherwise there would be no game in it. With that in mind, there will be traffic jams, but that doesn't mean traffic needs to get caught up in a jam that is irrelevant to where it is going.