What you did should almost always be possible, and inefficient planning is likely the issue in a majority of cases of traffic problems.
But, your screenshots also show, what I think is, the underlying annoyance that is being categorized as a bug here as well. Your cross-street (going N/S in your first shot, and E/W in the second one) shows a long line of cars waiting to presumably turn left at that same intersection, as their lane ends there. Next to them, on their right, is a lane that travels through that intersection before also turning left to go under the highway. We know the assets pick their travel plan before they leave the house, so I think the big question is, "Why do more of those stacked up cars not choose to use the second option for turning left at that intersection?"
Certainly they can tell how many lanes turn left there when they set their plan. So why not have some plan to take the second lane and then change lanes later? There's no way every asset could have real-time decision making. But surely some sort of calculation could be performed during the planning stage to see how many cars are using that route and which lane they chose. Then they could pick the least busy lane. There's always going to be points of heavier traffic and no sim will ever be perfect. I'm not disagreeing that planning is vital. But surely there is some sort of problem (either unknown or unsolvable) if the AI is unwilling or unable to take an alternate, perhaps only marginally less efficient route, to head the same direction.
.png){kind=avatar}
.png){kind=avatar}
