Traffic Does Not Take the Direct Route

[timstim_x]

In this game, vehicles are supposed to take the quickest route between two points. The game does factor in speed limits in addition to distance.

I am having an issue where a faster road--that is, a large, six-lane vanilla road, we'll call this A, is being bypassed by motorists trying to pass from one side of an island to another. To try and further explain the setup, I have A running parallel to a highway, we'll call H, in a ditch. H has two exits on the island. Both of these exits are onto roads (B and D) that intersect with the A at roundabouts, so close that ramps for one side of H go directly to the roundabout.

Additionally, I have a third roundabout on A in between the the other two, with a road, C, that goes into a forestry district (non-DLC). This district also connects to one of the two roundabouts via backstreets, and both roundabouts are intended to be used as entrances/exits.

I have had issues before with traffic opting to use the highway (H) rather than the six-lane road (A), and I presumed the game just calculated it to be faster since it wasn't factoring in congestion. However, I managed to solve this problem using the Adjust Pathfinding mod. At least, for awhile.

Also note that the roundabouts were not in the original design, as I had to respond to a general increase in traffic. I was already in the process of reworking the area at this point.

Now, I am aware that traffic can and will use a backstreets of the industrial area as a shortcut if it is that much closer or whatever. I was already having issues with this before in my previous road layout for the industrial district, which is why I ended up cutting it off entirely from one of the roads (B) that intersects the six-lane road and has the highway exits since traffic was essentially using the backstreets as a way to cut corners and avoid parts of roads A and B. I didn't want to deal with that again.

However, I have stumbled upon a similar but egregious issue regarding pathfinding and the backstreets of the new industrial area. This one is absolutely absurd, because in no way is the traffic saving ANY time using their "detour." Instead, they go to the A-B roundabout, as expected, and get onto A, only to get off of A at the A-C roundabout when they are actually headed to the A-D roundabout. Then, they proceed to drive through the industrial area, going all the way to the far side where the road that both C and D end on, so that they can get to D to go to A-D. (They also do vice versa.) This is particularly vexing, because I have no idea what is causing this problem or what I can do to stop it.

I am currently using the Adjust Pathfinding mod, along with TMPE STABLE. I have other mods as well but I don't know what could be affecting what. I also have tried TMPE LABS.

I had another discussion post on this, but I think I touched mostly on other problems rather than focusing on this one in particular. Namely, I was having issues with TMPE saving configurations like arrows and lane-connections, but that problem seems to be fixed now. And I guess I just didn't really have the time to deal with then because I'm in college.

Thank you for your help and time.

[me22ca]

I suggest uploading a screenshot of the traffic routes view showing the weird path that things are taking, and uploading a savegame for people to be able to investigate.

(Also, does this still happen if you unsubscribe all the TMPE + pathfinding mods?)

[timstim_x]

Here is the save game, mods and stuff in description. Also, the thumbnail is of the area of interest.

Additional note: this is a scenario, but no disasters have occurred for at least a decade.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?edit=true&id=2328237546

[timstim_x]

Originally posted by me22.ca:

I suggest uploading a screenshot of the traffic routes view showing the weird path that things are taking, and uploading a savegame for people to be able to investigate.

(Also, does this still happen if you unsubscribe all the TMPE + pathfinding mods?)

I disabled the pathfinding mods and TMPE. The trucks (who are the problem) went back to using the highway. This was expected, since I was using the Adjust Pathfinding mod as a solution for this.

However, vehicles coming out of the A-C (middle) roundabout were going left, to go to the highway, to go all the way around to avoid the patch of six-lane road between the 2nd and 3rd roundabouts, which to me seems evident that the problem is still there. Trucks avoid this patch of road, but service vehicles and emergency vehicles didn't avoid it.

[AKscene]

huuuuhhhh? Stall, spin, crash, burn...!

[timstim_x]

To reiterate:

TL,DR: Certain vehicles (trucks) are strangely avoiding a section of vanilla road as if they are restricted from driving on it.

[Stealthy]

There might be a broken node there due to mods and vehicles can't pass it. There is a broken node checked mod in the workshop, load it and see what it says. Maybe worth checking phantom lanes too. Another mod for that in workshop.

[timstim_x]

After turning the mods back on after turning them off to test, the problem seems to have disappeared, I think. When I redid the setup, including using the adjust pathfinding to increase the factored distance on the two entrances/exits to the district again, this time traffic proceeded to use the road as normal. It's difficult to tell, I don't think the bug is occurring anymore, so I guess turning the mods on and off might have solved it. It didn't solve it a couple months ago when this started, so IDK what happened.

It couldn't have been a broken node because some vehicles did use it, namely emergency vehicles and city service vehicles. Only trucks seemed to avoid it (I can't confirm anything for private vehicles, though).