Roundabouts and Junction Priorities

[CNightwing]

Having seen a few in action now, the obvious advantage to building a pre-made roundabout is that the ring itself seems to have priority when it comes to junctions - that is, if you want to go round and round you will never have to stop at a light, but if you want to enter the ring, you might have to stop.

Now, if this is possible in a pre-built component, is there any way the road building tool can enable this for other junctions? For instance, a simple tick box that means the roads you are placing have a lower priority to everything that already exists - that way you can create all sort of priority junctions that don't interrupt existing traffic flow.

 

[kosh22]

I agree. watching a few streams traffic priority at junctions appears to be equal and does not take account of road size.

 

[CNightwing]

Yes, a simple system would be that more lanes have priority over fewer lanes, and one-way has priority over two-way. Still, the ability to choose priority when placing a road would be incredibly useful.

 

[charlesnew]

One thing I noticed in some videos was that 2 way roads don't have traffic lights OR yield/stop signs, and they can be quite busy. There should also automatically be traffic lights where there are 2 lane 1 way roads. It makes sense like that.

 

[Inge Jones]

One thing I noticed in some videos was that 2 way roads don't have traffic lights OR yield/stop signs, and they can be quite busy. There should also automatically be traffic lights where there are 2 lane 1 way roads. It makes sense like that.

Not to me! For me it's one or the other, and only the player can know whether both roads need a phase of priority or whether one of the roads really needs permanent priority.

 

[charlesnew]

Not to me! For me it's one or the other, and only the player can know whether both roads need a phase of priority or whether one of the roads really needs permanent priority.

Well, this is why we should be able to change turning lanes and add/remove traffic lights.

 

[Jeruntje]

It seems to me that cars at an intersection without traffic lights the rule right before left applies. So if this is the case you could lay the roundabout the other way around so that the cars on the roundabout are always coming from the right. (the only disadvantage with this is that cars need to cross each other when turning off/on a roundabout. )

 

[NorthStars]

On a related note, have you noticed how cars pass through intersections sometimes at a very high rate of speed, passing within a hair's width of other cars going in other directions? At first, I thought that's not very realistic, then I realized they're simulating traffic in Russia.

 

[Inge Jones]

It seems to me that cars at an intersection without traffic lights the rule right before left applies.

That's too simple. I know it applies to France, or used to last time I was there... For instance, in England, when you get a T-junction, the road going across the top of the T always gets priority unless there are traffic lights. The road joining has to wait for a gap.

 

[Alfa55]

When no signals or traffic lights are placed in most countries there is the rule of priority to the right (even in the UK).

 

[Inge Jones]

When no signals or traffic lights are placed in most countries there is the rule of priority to the right (even in the UK).

I am afraid that is incorrect for the UK. Oh, sorry if you mean specifically roundabouts, then yes, because the traffic coming from the right will be traffic already on the roundabout. But not just any junction.

 

[Ne0Que]

At SimNation's stream I asked if he could build a roundabout using only the highway ramp road. And it worked. You can build nice, little 1 lane wide roundabouts for your small, low density residential area . Kinda 'hackish' but it works.

 

[CNightwing]

At SimNation's stream I asked if he could build a roundabout using only the highway ramp road. And it worked. You can build nice, little 1 lane wide roundabouts for your small, low density residential area . Kinda 'hackish' but it works.

That's really neat. I think you can do larger ones with highway (which is one-way of course). Still, it would be nice to be able to give priority to other kinds of road, for nice T-junctions or preferential crossroads.

 

[timorous]

From what I have seen of the game so far this is probably my biggest gripe. They obviously have the logic for it to work correctly as you can see with the way highway intersections work, they just need to allow that sort of junction to be an option for the non highway roads so you can have your priority roads and side streets without each side street causing an equal priority junction to form. A simple right click on junction mechanism to cycle through different options like priority on road a, priority on road b, equal priority, traffic lights etc would probably work well enough as it only really matters in the high traffic zones and you can leave it to the default junctions for your lower traffic areas.

 

[McWrisk]

These testers need to build a proper intersection into their cities and no just attach any ole road to their highway! It would be interesting to see how THAT would help road systems. But something that won't likely be shown or done till Tuesday when people with more road sense get their hands on the game.

The systems that the current testers have built are nothing short of well, crap. No offense, but it took Quill18 till Part 5 to realize he could build a "diamond" interchange, and a VERY crude one at that.

 

[charlesnew]

I though of this once.
What if you use the highway ramps to enter roundabouts? Like the road splits into them before it gets to the roundabout. Maybe this will work?

 

[timorous]

I though of this once.
What if you use the highway ramps to enter roundabouts? Like the road splits into them before it gets to the roundabout. Maybe this will work?

Using highway ramps for the circle works as can be seen in this video. You can also see that the on ramp gets top priority so the roads coming onto it have to give way to traffic already on the roundabout which is exactly as it should be. This shows the logic for priority roads is already in the game as the Highway and the On Ramp are obviously set to be high priority with other roads set to a lower priority to make this functionality work. Provided these values are open for modders to change I can see a bunch of new roads with varying priority so you can make your junctions as you want them but from a UX perspective I am not sure that having multiple versions of each road for the different priority levels is the best solution, especially if there are more than two levels. Perhaps they can add another painting tool like the districts but for roads so you can a) name them and b) set priority levels for each section of road.

Other than the junctions though what I do see of the game is fantastic and I am really looking forward to Tuesday so I can get my hands on it and I reckon that the time it takes me to get a city large and complex enough for this kind of micromanagement of junctions to really make a difference there will be some sort of work around or change made.

 

[CNightwing]

On a similar theme, another nice feature would be the ability to have roads and rails snap to nearby roads and rails, especially when they aren't straight, so we can make tight highways and multi-lane rail junctions that look tidy.

 

[Person012345]

Having seen a few in action now, the obvious advantage to building a pre-made roundabout is that the ring itself seems to have priority when it comes to junctions - that is, if you want to go round and round you will never have to stop at a light, but if you want to enter the ring, you might have to stop.

Now, if this is possible in a pre-built component, is there any way the road building tool can enable this for other junctions? For instance, a simple tick box that means the roads you are placing have a lower priority to everything that already exists - that way you can create all sort of priority junctions that don't interrupt existing traffic flow.

Pre-made roundabout use highways I think, streamers try to do it with one way roads.

 

[charlesnew]

Using highway ramps for the circle works as can be seen in this video. You can also see that the on ramp gets top priority so the roads coming onto it have to give way to traffic already on the roundabout which is exactly as it should be. This shows the logic for priority roads is already in the game as the Highway and the On Ramp are obviously set to be high priority with other roads set to a lower priority to make this functionality work. Provided these values are open for modders to change I can see a bunch of new roads with varying priority so you can make your junctions as you want them but from a UX perspective I am not sure that having multiple versions of each road for the different priority levels is the best solution, especially if there are more than two levels. Perhaps they can add another painting tool like the districts but for roads so you can a) name them and b) set priority levels for each section of road.

Other than the junctions though what I do see of the game is fantastic and I am really looking forward to Tuesday so I can get my hands on it and I reckon that the time it takes me to get a city large and complex enough for this kind of micromanagement of junctions to really make a difference there will be some sort of work around or change made.

Oh, great. If the cars on the roundabout have priority, then it works. I didn't exactly mean it in that way, but it works, and that's what matters.