Traffic Lights for Road Intersections?

[Deranged 101]

I've been watching some recent LP's of Transport Fever and am really interested in potentially getting this game at or after release.

That said, one thing I noticed was that I haven't seen any intersection controls, like traffic lights or street/avenue priorities - cars just go whenever the intersection clears. Is it possible to install traffic lights at intersections?

[El Presidente]

If you want traffic lights then check the workshop for a mod. I'd rather urban games put most of their efforts into improving transport assets. Tracks, trains,ect...

[Voice From Beyond]

Nice idea, but is is worth it in terms of CPU/GPU?

[Nicky]

Theoretically, traffic lights can even save cpu if properly implemented. Right now the game has to check if the intersection is clear for any car that wants to go trough it.

Thing is.... most people think that adding traffic lights would decrease the city traffic. It won't. I'm gonna guess that the current system is in place in order to reduce the city traffic.

[Randox]

Originally posted by Voice From Beyond:

Nice idea, but is is worth it in terms of CPU/GPU?

Shouldn't place any load on the GPU.

As for the CPU, the game wont break if the lights are updated slightly off time (early or late), so there is no need to run the code as part of the primary logic thread. The task can be assigned to whichever processor has enough spare capacity to make use of otherwise wasted resources, with no performance impact (this would be the expected scenario on computers with 3 core processors or better at least, depending on how expensive the calculations actually are).

Nicky is also right. At least some vehicles wouldn't need to check if an intersection is clear (strait and right turns, presumably), which could more than make up for the resources used for lights.

[Robbedem]

Traffic lights are used for safety. They don't improve the traffic flow, on the contrary, they make it worse!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFOo3e0nxSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_wjo378h4

[Randox]

Nominally, yes, but I'm a bit worried about pedestrian traffic. In the tutorial I saw, it seemed like traffic was near totally paralyzed because of a constant stream of foot traffic that was blocking more or all of the routes through several intersections on a near continuous basis, slowing things down far more than traffic lights.

Of course, I might have missed something in the road design.

My personal hope would be to have an option to add lights if needed, and to be able to customize the timing (or have multiple lighted intersections work together to self optimize). Even having just lights for pedestrians would work (to bunch them up).

[EG0611]

I am sure, if possible, a modder will mod it and upload it to workshop.

[Gwinda]

It's not possible to add traffic lights by modding. There is simply no support for it in teh game engine.

[Dan]

Indeed, more than traffic lights, it seems we could do with pedestrian crossing lights, replaceable with pedestrian footbridges on the busiest roads.

Actually, it'd be nice if there was just an advanced road-type, maybe limited to 6-lane and up, that switched out crossings for bridges or subways.

[ګćĦۼŕžعҖїᾐﻭ]

I just see only so many good mods these days.. like the one in Cities Skylines, wheere you are in complete control of the traffic: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=583429740&searchtext=

[Lyylikki]

I would like to have traffic lights in the game, because in the later stages of the game, when cities are large traffic can easily get gridlocked easily. When that happens buses and trams won't move. The problem is that, some of the cars get gridlocked in the middle of the intersection, and eventually blocking all traffic.

[Robbedem]

Originally posted by pekka_la:

I would like to have traffic lights in the game, because in the later stages of the game, when cities are large traffic can easily get gridlocked easily. When that happens buses and trams won't move. The problem is that, some of the cars get gridlocked in the middle of the intersection, and eventually blocking all traffic.

That's not caused by the lack of traffic lights, but by the lack of lane switching options for vehicles.
(f.e. if they take a right turn, they enter the rightmost lane, but if they have to go left afterwards, they will block other traffic...)