I seem to be having a problem with cargo traffic at my harbors, I have a city of around 125,000, everything is working fine, but it has unbelievable cargo demands, everything should be running smoothly, I have 3 cargo harbors, but only one is being used, and the trucks coming into it build up fast because of how slowly they enter the harbor itself, i'm not sure how to fix it, as I dont think there is anything I can do to split the traffic between harbors, any suggestions?
Cargo
- Thread starter Flaca
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No pictures so we can only offer you advice based on speculation. Considering this is your first post I'm going to go with newbie mistakes.
Cargo using zones send their trucks to the nearest cargo service. You likely have set your cargo using zones in a clump and put your cargo harbors in different places in the hopes of spreading them around. Nope, they'll just use the nearest. I bet you have two more cargo harbors than you can use.
The long queue happens all the time. One thing you can do is make sure there is enough road for them to line up on. I always make my cargo services on a one way loop with no zoning on it. Do it right and those entering/leaving don't get in each other's way.
Cargo using zones send their trucks to the nearest cargo service. You likely have set your cargo using zones in a clump and put your cargo harbors in different places in the hopes of spreading them around. Nope, they'll just use the nearest. I bet you have two more cargo harbors than you can use.
The long queue happens all the time. One thing you can do is make sure there is enough road for them to line up on. I always make my cargo services on a one way loop with no zoning on it. Do it right and those entering/leaving don't get in each other's way.
Of course, the main issue with cargo is to keep imports and exports generally low, which reduces outside traffic. As for harbors, they all need a purpose or they won't get used. Here's my current city (assets and simulation are vanilla) with three cargo harbors and a cargo hub on the vanilla Sandy Beach map:
I edited the ship routes somewhat in order to improve ship flow. You can see that the lower two freight harbors (one of them the hub) are on loops, the upper two directly on the city grid. I usually wouldn't recommend the latter, but it's a corner without traffic (only offices on the streets):
The asymmetric roads here work out, and if they wouldn't, I would switch to one-way roads.
The hub is on a classic loop and serves mostly for intracity modal change (the huge empty space had been used for a helicopter depot before by the way):
The other harbor mostly deals with agricultural and local goods traffic and is also on some kind of loop:
I was positively surprised how much the game uses harbors for shuffling goods within the city, but that may be specific to this map.
I hope this serves at least as some kind of inspiration.
I edited the ship routes somewhat in order to improve ship flow. You can see that the lower two freight harbors (one of them the hub) are on loops, the upper two directly on the city grid. I usually wouldn't recommend the latter, but it's a corner without traffic (only offices on the streets):
The asymmetric roads here work out, and if they wouldn't, I would switch to one-way roads.
The hub is on a classic loop and serves mostly for intracity modal change (the huge empty space had been used for a helicopter depot before by the way):
The other harbor mostly deals with agricultural and local goods traffic and is also on some kind of loop:
I was positively surprised how much the game uses harbors for shuffling goods within the city, but that may be specific to this map.
I hope this serves at least as some kind of inspiration.
One-way roads, loops, proper spacing of cargo-demanding zones, internal links between industry and commerce THAT HAVE NO CONNECTION TO OUTSIDE TRAFFIC ZOMGWTFBBQ THAT IS A NIGHTMARE, and also one-way rails help me to manage my cargo issues.
I take full advantage of how trains will despawn if there is no way out for them. I have one-way transit from my city industry to my city commercial or from raw material zones to industry and I don't need that rolling stock to come back to the station.
I take full advantage of how trains will despawn if there is no way out for them. I have one-way transit from my city industry to my city commercial or from raw material zones to industry and I don't need that rolling stock to come back to the station.
I had a map with a fairly large river running through it... I think it was one I made myself in the map editor (this was quite some time ago). I had cargo ships spawn at one side of the river and go along the river about one square away to a harbour on the other side of the river. There were roads, but this was the shortest route. So I think it is just normal behavior.
yeah it happens all the time. just be mindful that like too many train stations eventually leads to jammed tracks having a few cargo harbors will lead to jammed shipping routes