How to Public Transit, Please?

[Maina]

Okay, so... I think my first citybuilder ever was SimCity 2000, on a friend's computer.. The first I owned was probably Caesar 2, then Caesar 3. Children of the Nile. SimCity 4. More recently Cities XL, Tropico 3 and 4, and a handfull of assorted lesser-known citybuilders.

Most of these do not bother simulating a whole lot of traffic. Generally only the modern ones do, like our beloved Cities: Skylines, which I am now starting to play. I am terrible at traffic management in these games.

I've played OpenTTD. I can be pretty successful with a bit of trial-and-error. I've just started the Cities in Motion series, and I'm terrible at it. It seems like neither of these don't force you to consider things like noise polution and its impact on your city. Since, you know, it isn't really your city in either. You just build busses or whatever.

So I've hit roughly 16k population. I'm making 25k-30k per week. I have like 200 grand in the bank. I am having fairly major traffic problems around the incoming highway connection. I've started outsourcing my industry to far-away tiles to try and keep freight traffic out of my town. I have maybe an eighth of a tile of industry over on some oil fields, connected to my main city by metro, and the residential area is connected to the metro (and offices, and commercial districts) by busses. I have another metro to the offices, just to be doubly safe, but no busses to the oil fields. I can't imagine anyone would take to take a bus to work that far away.

And still, I only have about 200-400 people taking the bus, and only about 50-100 taking the metro. Most people seem to still prefer driving on the highway.

Can anyone offer me some basic tips and tricks as to how the heck public transit works? Is it that I'm positioning my districts wrong for ideal traffic flow? In general is fine, even, but specific to Cities:Skylines is probably best, given the forum.

I have a generally accurate picture of my city in two screenshots on my profile if they need posted, even if they're about 30m or so out of date.

Sorry to be needy, but it always gets to the point in these games where traffic problems I can't fix make it unplayable to my newbie self.

[Kerb]

I'm not a public transit guru, but here's some common sense. Lower income less educated houses in lower property value neighborhoods will be more likely to take the bus. It's also important where the bus goes, how long it takes to get there and back, etc.

You also have to consider making bi-directional lines.....if a bus takes someone somewhere, it also needs to take them back home.

Routing bus lines to parks would also probably raise the amount of riders.

[Maina]

That's helpful. I should also note that I've lived in small-to-medium sized cities my entire life. I've probably only even experienced public transit first-hand on maybe two or three bus rides around town and maybe two metro line trips when I was visiting family in a larger city. So that kind of "common sense" stuff is pretty useful, since I don't even have a basic frame of reference to how big cities function.

[BlackAlpha]

Public transport will not safe you from a broken road layout. Public transport is like a bonus, it can help reduce traffic. But the main thing that will avoid traffic problems is a good road system.

Here are some things I learned that help reduce traffic:


1. Only use 2 lane roads for the majority of your city, they seem to be a lot more efficient. Traffic will be moving through intersections at higher speeds. The reason the bigger roads don't really work is because of traffic lights, but mostly because the cars don't make full use of the entire road in most cases. So, the bigger road acts in most cases like a 2 lane road, except it has traffic lights which slow down traffic a lot.


2. Keep industry and commercial close to each other, preferably nearby highways, so that the trucks don't have to travel as far.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/suKUju3.jpg


3. Create multiple ways, at different locations, for the traffic to exit your city. In the beginning, try to make them leave at a different spot from where they enter to help spread out the traffic flow. Later on, you can also create places where traffic can enter at different locations to further spread out the traffic.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/laUH2fx.jpg


4. Keep the road grid even and tidy to reduce intersections. Intersections slow down your traffic, so you want to create as few intersections as possible, while still allowing the traffic to have enough freedom to move about quickly and for the services to provide good coverage.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/mhJLoso.jpg

Keep in mind that a road layout which might be perfect for traffic, might be horrid for your services. Services use roads to cover your city. How much areas they can cover depends on your road layout. Using too many 1 way roads, limits the coverage of your services, forcing you to use more service buildings, which is expensive.


5. Keep cargo train terminals away from heavy traffic areas or they will cripple your entire city. The reason for that is when a cargo train arrives, it spawns a billion trucks who leave the terminal and then afterwards must come back to the terminal. Some industries and commercial buildings also send trucks to drop off goods at the terminal. So, place the terminals in areas where there is hardly any traffic. Place them in such a way that the trucks leaving and entering the terminal can avoid the heavy traffic areas to help spread out the traffic flow.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/agSu1oA.jpg

In the example, the terminal can be seen on the left. It has been placed in an area where there is not much traffic to begin with. So it's not a big deal when the army of trucks leaving the terminal cause a small traffic jam. The majority of the truck destinations will be to the east. From this angle, they won't have to cross too many heavy traffic areas.


6. In the beginning of the game, once traffic gets heavy, use 1 way roads for your city entrance. Use these roads to spread out the traffic into different directions of the city (forward, left, right). I also use a funnel to catch the majority of the traffic, so that they don't form a very long waiting line, blocking other roads in the process.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/Ro97cX6.jpg

I wish to stress again the importance of having exits at different locations than when they enter. This greatly evens out of the traffic flow, as the trucks who are on their way out of the city (hopefully) won't run into the trucks who are entering it.


7. Avoid traffic lights! Seriously, the traffic is much better at managing itself than traffic lights. Traffic lights needlessly slow down your traffic a LOT! Keep in mind that 2 lane roads don't use traffic lights.
Here's how to have a big road meet a 2 lane road without using traffic lights: http://i.imgur.com/R6mbHbd.jpg


8. If you don't have a good road system, the buses will simply make your traffic problems worse!

[Maina]

Thank you. That was amazingly helpful for my roads. My traffic is a lot cleaner, now, though it needs some work. Still, I eventually want to poke around with public transit. It seems to help certain things upgrade, at least. Some more specific questions:

Should bus stops be placed closely or further apart?

How long should lines be in general for each type? I assume bus is pretty small distance and metro is super long, for example?

Is there a pick-up range for public transit? i.e. how far people will go for a stop or whatever. CiM seemed to have these ranges visible while you placed them, but I can't find it in C:S.

Can you connect loops? This seemed to work in CiM, and sometimes I can use one stop for multiple lines in C:S, but it doesn't always work (opposite sides of a road usually don't let me link up).

If you can't connect a loop for whatever reason, will people walk their way between stops on foot?

[firesofhades1]

check out my guide, be warned though some feedback was that it ruined the game... traffic management is practicly non-existing if you follow the guide, even if you don't want to limit yourself to the exact aproach i describe, you can still implement a lot of what i explain. i.e: use cargo trains for import and export, use metro to get poeple into the industrie area, and remove all roads connecting your industrie area with other parts of the city. now the workers are FORCED to take the metro because they don't have roads to travel over.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408288143

[BlackAlpha]

Origineel geplaatst door Maina:

Thank you. That was amazingly helpful for my roads. My traffic is a lot cleaner, now, though it needs some work. Still, I eventually want to poke around with public transit. It seems to help certain things upgrade, at least. Some more specific questions:

Should bus stops be placed closely or further apart?

How long should lines be in general for each type? I assume bus is pretty small distance and metro is super long, for example?

Is there a pick-up range for public transit? i.e. how far people will go for a stop or whatever. CiM seemed to have these ranges visible while you placed them, but I can't find it in C:S.

Can you connect loops? This seemed to work in CiM, and sometimes I can use one stop for multiple lines in C:S, but it doesn't always work (opposite sides of a road usually don't let me link up).

If you can't connect a loop for whatever reason, will people walk their way between stops on foot?

I'm not 100% sure but I think the radius each bus stop and metro station covers is the area of smiley faces that you see when you place one down.

Something I noticed is that the sims will wait quite a long time for a bus or a metro, even if it's faster to walk. It doesn't really seem to matter how long the bus/metro ride takes.

You should try to link up different bus/metro lines by placing the stations on top of each other. The sims will then leave one bus/metro and hop onto the next. They will walk to the next stop/station if need be. I'm not sure what the limit is there. I always have my bus stops and metro stations pretty close to each other.

I'm not sure what the most efficient way is to create bus lines and metros. I simply make sure they cover the entire city, allowing people to get anywhere using public transport.

But many people don't seem to take public transport. I'm not sure why. I did notice that there isn't enough place in the buses/metros for everyone and there are long waiting lines at many stations. So, maybe that's why not everyone takes public transport.

Also, about the metro. I noticed it's super expensive to cover your entire city in metro stations like you would do with bus stations. It's probably better to use metros for long distance travel, and then have different bus lines start at the metro stations and take the sims to different areas.

Origineel geplaatst door firesofhades1:

check out my guide, be warned though some feedback was that it ruined the game... traffic management is practicly non-existing if you follow the guide, even if you don't want to limit yourself to the exact aproach i describe, you can still implement a lot of what i explain. i.e: use cargo trains for import and export, use metro to get poeple into the industrie area, and remove all roads connecting your industrie area with other parts of the city. now the workers are FORCED to take the metro because they don't have roads to travel over.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408288143

Well, you are exploiting bugs and design workarounds/flaws in the game. You're cheating. Where's the fun in that?

[firesofhades1]

please read my comments on that guide, and my previous post in this thread. i didn't tell you to do exactly as i do. i already said it doesn't make the game more fun. i suggested taking the elements you do want to use and implement them. i'm playing a single player game, by myself, i create the rules. where is the cheating in that?

thank you for your utterly useless and redundant comment.
your loss for passing up other good info on account of 1 bug exploit though

[firesofhades1]

also, its not like i'm just filling my map with only offices and residential... ditching even commercial. the intention of that guide and me making the map was not to have a game so easy its no longer fun, it just happend that everything combined is just that powerfull.

[BlackAlpha]

I don't think my comment was useless or redundant. It's not just 1 bug exploit you mention. Your tricks only work if you exploit and make it so there's no or reduced traffic. If you enjoy cheating, more power to you.

[firesofhades1]

could you tell me what other exploits? and why you consider them to be exploits?
otherwise your comment is as useless as the prefious...

[Glothrenite]

It wasn't a useless and redundant comment. You have found a flaw in how traffic functions and utilised it in a non simulation appreciating manner that has to an extent ruined the fun in that system. I hope the despawning is remedied by the devs in future. I would suggest not getting upset by the comments people make about your method of reducing there entertainment.

[firesofhades1]

what flaw in how the traffic functions? that people take public transit if there is no other route? if you're going to visit an island that has no bridges, surely you will go by passenger boat?

[Glothrenite]

Don't be obnoxious, I was clearly referring to the despawning. Last time I checked my car doesn't disappear after I arrive at work.

[firesofhades1]

ok, so you ARE reffering to the one exploit? the "insta-exit trick"?

i thought

Origineel geplaatst door BlackAlpha:

It's not just 1 bug exploit you mention. Your tricks only work if you exploit and make it so there's no or reduced traffic. If you enjoy cheating, more power to you.

what are the other exploits? tell me something i don't know yet. this has all been utterly useless. if you want a response to your next comment, you better strt talking sense.

wait,you mean the rest of the guide only works if you use the exploit? you still didn't read the comments on the guide if thats the case.

[Dr.Dino]

I posted a guide to help with train traffic. When your city get's big you can't be without trains. IT'S ALL ABOUT TRAINS!!!!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408643569