Yeah two lane roundabouts are useless as long as there is no "turning off left". That is indeed something that could/should be worked on.
[BUG.. or not?] Cities Skylines Traffic.. serious issues!!
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Yeah two lane roundabouts are useless as long as there is no "turning off left". That is indeed something that could/should be worked on.
And I can't say often enough that you can already control the directions of the lanes by using the right roads and intersections/junctions.
Yeah, with one way roads?
Every other configuration is very limited. Also I can't forbid turning on some points.
Every other configuration is very limited. Also I can't forbid turning on some points.
If you don't want them to turn left or right don't build a road that goes off left or right!
I see similar issues changing two-lanes to six-lanes in the same roundabouts.
There are things that definitely should be improved around traffic, I think.
I'll have to admit I haven't used roundabouts yet, so I have no real experience there. So they should probably work on that. But besides roundabouts the traffic works fine.
Imagine this situation. It's a very used road and a lot of vehicles want to turn right (red arrow).
To cut them up I build an additional road (green). To make this cut efficient you need to change some directions (blue arrow at the bottom) or forbid the turning at this point (blue arrows in the middle).
I am not a fan of roundabouts and I don't have space for fancy overpasses. What's your solution with acutal ingame tools?
What's wrong with the thought of additional features like the change of turning lanes?
Where I live it is fairly common to have "No Left Turn" signs at intersections where a minor street crosses a major thoroughfare, or "No Left Turn 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM" or "No Left Turn 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM." It would be nice to be able to make a district which includes the main thoroughfare and set a "No Left Turn" policy. I don't consider that a game breaker, but it would be nice. And there does seem to be a very high preference for one lane only when multiple lanes are available for use, even in six-lane roundabouts.
Imagine this situation. It's a very used road and a lot of vehicles want to turn right (red arrow).
To cut them up I build an additional road (green). To make this cut efficient you need to change some directions (blue arrow at the bottom) or forbid the turning at this point (blue arrows in the middle).
I am not a fan of roundabouts and I don't have space for fancy overpasses. What's your solution with acutal ingame tools?
What's wrong with the thought of additional features like the change of turning lanes?
Just from this picture I don't understand why you built the additional road. To help you I would have to see the whole area to understand where the traffic is coming from and where it wants to go to. And if looking at the picture what "turning lane" would you like to change?
So, what is wrong here?Vehicles choose the right lane for their purpose fairly early. In the first message all the vehicles are going the same way from the next intersection, so they queue on the lane that allows them to go that way. During development we tried having cars use all lanes and just switch to the one they really want very late, but that created a HUGE mess, the turning cars blocked two lanes and didn't let cars behind them proceed. The one lane queue looks funny, but actually works quite well. Even if the cars would be on all lanes, they could not all fit to the street they are going, so the traffic jam still tells you of something being wrong with your road system
ohttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/6_Lane_Interchange.jpg
They are going together at this point at the bottom left. Getting despawned at the end of the 2 lanes on the very left lanes. But 2. left lane before them is complete free. And there is also no reason, why every car lines up on one lane at the right street (see 3. screenshot)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/No_Reason.jpg
This just shows, that cars comming from the left road left lane are splitting at that point. Why can't they do that before?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/To_2x3_Lane_Highway.jpg
The next splitting. The one coming previously from the left road are using 2 lanes here. One that goes up and one to go right. Why do they not use the 2. lane for the up road? Just off-ramps comming (far) later. This road will even go to a outer connection, so there is use of the middle lane (far) later.
The cars previously comming from the right road are all using just one lane. The right outer lane. On the marked point (red line), they split to use outer left or still outer right. The cars using the outer right lane could use the inner lane, too. Until they go off-ramp ... it is far more road to go. And next after the screenshot, there is another heavily used on-ramp. So this cars get jammed there as the on-ramp seem to have priority. They should use the middle lane in that case.
So. It is good when they choose the right lane early. But only until they get jammed. Instead of lining up (or despawning), they should look out for an empty lane next to them that will go into same direction! That way, additional lanes can be used much more effective on crossings.
MFG PMV
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Ok, granted i didn't think about "no turning left". But you wouldn't have that problem if you use a "one way road" for every direction like the small peace when you start a city.
And yes, the roundabouts need some work. But besides them if your cars only use one lane, you made something "wrong". As I said before, since all cars have the same speed it would make no sense to switch the lanes if not necessary because switching back would cause even more traffic problems.
One thing that's really missing from traffic management are the bus lanes, loved them in CiM2
Personally I'm using the "No Despawn" mod that doesn't despawn traffic in jams and at 12k ppl I have no traffic jams at all.
This makes traffic MUCH more difficult to handle (As I proved to myself loading up and old city, which was fine before, then gridlocked itself in <1 minute on high speed)
I think none of this is a bug at all - it's how people behave in real life!
If there's a two lane one way street with a T junction at the bottom, left and right, and everyone wants to go left, are people going to use the right lane? No of course not.
That's exactly what we're seeing in almost all examples.
Even say I want to turn right at the 2nd round about down (straight over the first one) - In real life I actually get in the right lane about 1 mile previous to the first round about! (As do most people) since there isn't always an opportunity to change lanes after the first round about..
Imo the traffic is realistic and knowing how it works is easily kept control of.
You just have to make sure you have a balance of people who will need to go left/right/straight.
What do we have in most UK cities to help control traffic properly? Massive one way systems.
Use them, they work!
Junctions and traffic lights are your enemy, avoid at all costs.
This makes traffic MUCH more difficult to handle (As I proved to myself loading up and old city, which was fine before, then gridlocked itself in <1 minute on high speed)
I think none of this is a bug at all - it's how people behave in real life!
If there's a two lane one way street with a T junction at the bottom, left and right, and everyone wants to go left, are people going to use the right lane? No of course not.
That's exactly what we're seeing in almost all examples.
Even say I want to turn right at the 2nd round about down (straight over the first one) - In real life I actually get in the right lane about 1 mile previous to the first round about! (As do most people) since there isn't always an opportunity to change lanes after the first round about..
Imo the traffic is realistic and knowing how it works is easily kept control of.
You just have to make sure you have a balance of people who will need to go left/right/straight.
What do we have in most UK cities to help control traffic properly? Massive one way systems.
Use them, they work!
Junctions and traffic lights are your enemy, avoid at all costs.
So, what is wrong here?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/6_Lane_Interchange.jpg
They are going together at this point at the bottom left. Getting despawned at the end of the 2 lanes on the very left lanes. But 2. left lane before them is complete free. And there is also no reason, why every car lines up on one lane at the right street (see 3. screenshot)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/No_Reason.jpg
This just shows, that cars comming from the left road left lane are splitting at that point. Why can't they do that before?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5498515/Cities Skylines/To_2x3_Lane_Highway.jpg
The next splitting. The one coming previously from the left road are using 2 lanes here. One that goes up and one to go right. Why do they not use the 2. lane for the up road? Just off-ramps comming (far) later. This road will even go to a outer connection, so there is use of the middle lane (far) later.
The cars previously comming from the right road are all using just one lane. The right outer lane. On the marked point (red line), they split to use outer left or still outer right. The cars using the outer right lane could use the inner lane, too. Until they go off-ramp ... it is far more road to go. And next after the screenshot, there is another heavily used on-ramp. So this cars get jammed there as the on-ramp seem to have priority. They should use the middle lane in that case.
So. It is good when they choose the right lane early. But only until they get jammed. Instead of lining up (or despawning), they should look out for an empty lane next to them that will go into same direction! That way, additional lanes can be used much more effective on crossings.
MFG PMV
Ok, it's hard on some of these pictures to see what actually goes on.
On the first picture: The cars coming from the bottom road want to go to the left lane because they want to turn left at the next junction (and then probably left again right after that) You shouldn't let them enter this road from the right side. This would cause traffic problems even in the real world. Unless you have traffic lights of course.
In the second picture: Well they have to switch lanes somewhere. Doesn't really matter where. It seems that you use way too many lanes at the road that comes in, though. At this point 3 lanes would be enough.
Third picture: the left road that goes straight on would only need 3 lanes if your off going road is a 3-lane road that has roads going off in three different directions (left, straight, right). Otherwise the middle lane is completely useless. On the road that goes to the left: Are you sure this car wasn't coming from the little one-lane ramp? Because then it couldn't change earlier.
You have to design your on- and off-going in a way that the cars have to switch lanes as less as possible. That means, if you have a lot of cars entering from the right bunt want to gol left you should build it in a way that they enter from the left.
I think a combination of being able to control which lanes are turning lanes would go a long way and to some extent AI work. As the example I always bring up is that my citizens are on a road with 1 straight lane, 1 combination straight/right and 1 right. Many of them want to turn right and then soon after go left OR after they turn right go straight on.....but all of them use the right turn only lane and nobody uses the center lane which can also turn right and put you in the lane you need for the next left. Congestion gets out of hand because of this when IRL the people taking the next left would not use the right-most right turn lane.
With all of that said I'm getting good at working with the poor behavior and now have a fair-size industrial city with piles of freight trucks and 0 traffic issues.
With all of that said I'm getting good at working with the poor behavior and now have a fair-size industrial city with piles of freight trucks and 0 traffic issues.
Whilst do-able at the moment, it can get pretty fugly due to the large gaps in lane counts between road types and having to mix and match road types to force a turn arrow.
I think choosing which lanes are turn lanes may be a bit too intense (I would love it though, if it happened) but at least more lane options for the various road styles.
i.e A wide avenue which keeps its width but allows 2,3,4,5 or 6 lanes which would make something like this more aesthetically pleasing.
More lane options would allow greater control, IMO.
After all, it's not only about making something which functions well, but also making something which looks awesome too, at least for me.
IVIaarten's example whilst perfectly functional just doesn't do it for me.
Use a 4-lane road up to the point where the 2-lane road goes off. After that point continue with a 2-lane road. This way both right lanes will be properly used.
Whilst do-able at the moment, it can get pretty fugly due to the large gaps in lane counts between road types and having to mix and match road types to force a turn arrow.
I think choosing which lanes are turn lanes may be a bit too intense (I would love it though, if it happened) but at least more lane options for the various road styles.
i.e A wide avenue which keeps its width but allows 2,3,4,5 or 6 lanes which would make something like this more aesthetically pleasing.
More lane options would allow greater control, IMO.
After all, it's not only about making something which functions well, but also making something which looks awesome too, at least for me.
IVIaarten's example whilst perfectly functional just doesn't do it for me.
In the first picture on the left is one thing missing that makes it look stupid. And that is another road that goes off after the turning. This way the cars wouldn't use only the outer left and right lane. instead they would use all 6 lanes. As it is in the picture he should have used a 3-lane road instead.
Although loving this game, traffic handling or ai is disappointing. I am very surprised that so many individuals seems happy that the current method that cars line up in one lane on a two or three lane road is okay. I have read the argument that its a game and we should know the rules on how to play. I will counter that since its a city simulation the rules are already know since they are based somewhat in reality and real life expectation. The planning of roads to fully distribute cars is apparently a work around to get the expected effect when one lays down a multi lane road. If a person has to constantly think about turning traffic instead of thru-put of traffic, then what is the use of having multiple lanes of cars congregate in one lane to turn even if they are turning on a two lane on direction road from a multi lane bi-directional road. I for one just don't get the advocacy argument of this being fine.
If you're having that kind of pileup on one lane, then the solution is rarely "move the cars into the other lanes for nice even congestion." I mean even saying that sentence sounds stupid.
Nobody loves this design decision or thinks it's perfect. A lot of people though are saying that if this design choice is a problem, it's usually because it's highlighting a bigger issue for your town's traffic flow.
It's really easy to design a town that doesn't have the one lane stacking bug as a prominent feature. If you haven't managed it, the solution is not to whine on the forums, it's to work harder at systems analysis and fix whatever's broken in your own traffic system.
Nobody loves this design decision or thinks it's perfect. A lot of people though are saying that if this design choice is a problem, it's usually because it's highlighting a bigger issue for your town's traffic flow.
It's really easy to design a town that doesn't have the one lane stacking bug as a prominent feature. If you haven't managed it, the solution is not to whine on the forums, it's to work harder at systems analysis and fix whatever's broken in your own traffic system.