Highway traffic using only center lane?

[hammer256]

So I have a weird highway situation: the majority of traffic likes to use the center lane. That's fine and ok by itself, if it wasn't for the issue that cars that enters the highway also want to merge into the center lane pretty quick. That would be almost ok, except that cars will come to a dead stop to wait to merge into the center lane, while there is perfectly good road right ahead of them. That really makes the traffic back up. None of my off-ramps are overloaded, so it's not that everyone is waiting to exit at the same place. Using the detailed traffic report mod, I see cars that enters on the left/right side of the highway merge into the center lane even if their destination ramp is on the same side. So for example, a car entering on the right side of the highway will merge into the center lane for a duration, before switching back to the right lane to exit.

So that creates a rather unfortunate situation. My 3 lane highway is now a 1 lane highway, with a nasty 2 way merge whenever there is an entrance. The cars would enter the highway, then comes to a dead stop, and wait to merge to the center lane. The center lane(highway) gets backed up, the entrance gets backed up, and everyone has a bad time. Which makes me wonder how the AI is programmed. Maybe the AI likes to use the center lane if the destination ramp is a long distance away?

 

[perafilozof]

The whole problem actually comes from HOW they change lanes. I might not be a driver myself but I am pretty sure that stopping to 0 km/h on a highway lane, turning into the next lane and trying to get into it would get you killed.

Cars need to overtake or slide behind cars in the lanes they want to join. Not put on the brakes in the middle of a highway and turn on a tail light. The whole concept of a highway is to keep moving. Cims in this game don't use a highway like that.

IF that problem would be fixed all other problems would go away.

 

[hammer256]

The simulation is nice in terms of using individual agents that have proper destinations. But the paradox with realistic(ish) simulations is that it'll highlight anything that's deviating from the real world, and likely result in unrealistic behavior. So unfortunately the simulation shows that the driving behavior seems slightly insane at the moment. Some of this behavior is observed in the real world at exit ramps (I've driven quite a bit in Houston, pretty painful), but seriously, the center lane, when other lanes are wide open?

 

[BlackViper.com]

So for example, a car entering on the right side of the highway will merge into the center lane for a duration, before switching back to the right lane to exit.

So that creates a rather unfortunate situation. My 3 lane highway is now a 1 lane highway, with a nasty 2 way merge whenever there is an entrance. The cars would enter the highway, then comes to a dead stop, and wait to merge to the center lane. The center lane(highway) gets backed up, the entrance gets backed up, and everyone has a bad time. Which makes me wonder how the AI is programmed. Maybe the AI likes to use the center lane if the destination ramp is a long distance away?

I also posted about this in another thread. The merging cars go about 5 or 6 car lengths and then get into the center lane. After awhile in the center lane, they go to the right lane about 5 or 6 car lengths from exit to the right.
It is frustrating but I have not used a mod to figure out why that is happening in my city.
I also experimented with 3 lane merges (using freeway road as offramp) and one lane merges.
My thread is here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ne-has-priority-how-to-work-around-it.847425/