Analysis of Cargo Train Stations and best way to use (exploit) them.

I see your city's roads are full of trucks while buildings are screaming "No materials!" With simple use of Traffic++, this can be solved.

1. Preface

I see, it's dead again.

You can sense by seeing the income of your city has dropped in drastic way. With too much industrial traffic, the flow of the goods is stopped, and both industry and commercial are generating less money with less goods.

Those struggling Cargo Train Stations! They are surrounded by heavy trucks, boxtrucks, and that silly hot-dog van. While you are wondering about why the hot-dog van is seemingly stuck between trucks, you are missing the fact that 'outside connection' is clogged with excess of cargo trains as well.

This guide aims to solve the issue by using dual single-direction cargo train stations with the help of Traffic++. Those who want to stuck with vanilla game (you really shouldn't, by the way,) please close the guide now.

2. Analysis of Traffic on the Cargo Train Stations.

The reason there are so many trucks is that sadly, the cargo train station does not work in optimal way.

There are FOUR traffic flows related to the station.

*The game does not differenciate between trucks, vans and other material transport vehicles. I will call all of them just 'trucks'.

(1) Factory 'owned' trucks, from industrial factories to the station. Those trucks are originated from each respective factories.
(2) Factory 'owned' trucks, from the station to the factories. After they unloaded the goods, they almost certainly head back to the factories.
(3) Cargo Train Station 'owned' trucks, from the station to the destinations(factories/commercials.) Those trucks are created by the station when a stopped train is from different stations or from outside connection. More trucks are being created and dispatched to the destinations as the number of the incoming trains grow bigger.
(4) Cargo Train Station 'owned' trucks, from the destinations to the station. After they unloaded the goods, they usually head back to the station.

Now, the good news is that in (4), trucks sometimes simply despawn when they completely unloaded all goods they carried. However, for (2), the trucks are far more persistent and they most likely appear from the station and head back to the factories.


As you see, with four major traffic flows happening at the same time, the cargo train stations do not have any chance to begin with. With use of Traffic++ and using an extra cargo station, it is possible to completely eliminate (2) tracks and greatly reduce (4) trucks from not despawning when a job is done.

3. Building dual single-direction cargo train stations, step by step.

Follow the instructions to build DSDCTS (dual single-direction cargo train stations.)


1. Set up Traffic++

After subscribe and activate the mod at the content manager, click the option button.

Check "Beta Test: Road Customizer Tool". It should be activated. click the save button, close the window, and load/start a city.


2.

Build two stations, connected by a narrow 'C' shape road as seen on the picture. The red arrow represents an entrance while green represents an exit. Except at the entrance and the exit, this C-shape road (or anything similar) should be completely isolated from any connections. For left-hand road users, flip the 'C' and you are good to go.


3.

As seen the picture above, fragmentize the C-shape road into three section: one with a upper train station, one with between, and other with a lower train station. I strongly recommend to use one-way type road only on all sections, otherwise it might glitch out and breaks traffic.


4.

Now click the Road Customizer button, next to the Policies button. If you set up Traffic++ correctly, the button should be there.

It will give you two tabs. One with a yellow car, other with a speed indicator. We are not dealing with speed so click the yellow car tap.



4.

Move your cursor closely to the middle section, you will see two or one blue sticks. click on it(them) and they will turn into bright green.



As you do this, you will notice the six cars shown at the bottom center of the tap will be available. Leftmost one is the passanger car, followed by bus, cargo truck, garbage, hearse and emergency vehicles. If you click on them, they will turn black, which means the road won't allow that specific type of the vehicle to use the road, blocking them.

We will block passanger car, bus and cargo truck. Sometimes passanger cars do use the route because it may be faster, which affect the flow of the traffic adversely. We will leave others since they are all needed to make the stations operational normally. The result should be same as the last picture.


5. Connect the entrance and the exit to the roads, and you are done!

4. How's it working?

The picture above is DSDCTS operating on one of my cities. As arrows indicate, it is shown upside-down compared to the ones shown in the build instructions.

If everything is done well, both stations should be operational. The first station, or say, 'export' station, will only accept vehicles and create outgoing trains, but it won't release vehicles back nor accepts incoming trains, since the outgoing path is blocked for the cargo trucks.

Meanwhile, second station, or say, 'import' station, will only create vehicles and accept incoming trains, but it won't accept vehicles nor create outgoing trains. Almost most of the time, any incoming trains that stop at the station will despawn, reducing train traffic.

This operation gives several advantages.

1.) It greatly reduces the cargo traffic by completely killing off (2) trucks which would be attempt to return to their originated buildings. Without the exit from the export station, they will simply despawn at the station. The factories can always re-spawn trucks when needed.

2.) It also prevents (4) trucks from returning to the import station, forcing them to de-spawn when their jobs are done.

3.) Almost all the time, the trains stopping at the import station to unload will simply despawn at the station because it cannot usually go back and try pick up new goods to carry to the outside connection.

4.) C-shape road can be in many different shape and length if needed as long as it can successfully block the cargo trucks and cars from passing. This will give you more flexibility for shaping traffic flows.

5.) It completely kills any glitches and bugs caused by vehicles' movements when they try to enter the station. Sometimes incoming and outcoming vehicles can crash each other, causing massive lag and gridlock in traffic flow. It happens far more often for those who uses left-hand traffic. This method will completely eliminate the problem. The vehicles still slow down to turn at the station entrance... So use vertical road connection method if speed is not fast enough.

6.) With all of the advantages mentioned above, it allows much bigger high-density industrial zones. My city is less than 100K in total population, but I pulled off 16,000+ export value at one time, averaging 14,000 (import value is usually less than 600)


...and some disvantages.

1.) It costs you double (since two stations are needed for full operation.) But you don't have build the import station if the industrial zone area is purely specialized industry areas such as oil, ore, forestry and argi (none of them should be needed for incoming goods if they are properly well-suited area.)

2.) With extra connecting roads, they will take a bit more space.

3.) Need to use a Traffic++ mod or a mod with a special type of the road which disallows normal traffic.


I think the advantages vastly outnumber and out-merit disadvantages.

Just by killing off return trucks from the station to the factories, you will see the traffic around the station will be greatly reduced. When I first tried this, I thought something had gone wrong with too few trucks moving around.

5. Additional tips.

1. When a factory wants to send something to somewhere, it is pretty much randomized unless it is forced. Don't be surprised by trucks going into highway despite factories are next to the cargo stations.

2. Surprisingly a lot of trucks from the cargo station will use the road to export stuffs to outside. It's really funny, but it happens a lot. The best way is to put an 'import' station right next to the road which is connected to the outside connection road in closest. This will get rid of a lot of trucks from the station trying to use the internal highway at the city to move outside.

3. I highly recommend to build a separate truck-only highway system (just using 1-way highway intersection road is enough in many cases) to connect between natural resources industrial zones and genetic industrial zones, as well as directly to the cargo train stations.


And, that's it. Thank for the read.

6. Updates / Edits.

There is no updates nor edits made for this guide as of now. (6/15/2015)

[CesarKiller]

You can avoid this using a 2 o more lines cargo stations, I put one near the border

[Gibuswagen]

Thx i had some problems with Traffic++ and cargo tains but now its fixed thx to you

[donshontz]

well i unsubbed and redid everything and its working now taking my time as i resub ty for responding

[Will pick sniper]

That's a lot of mods. Just remind you a lot of mods are not have been fully compatible with recent 1.1.1 release (sadly, a lot of them probably won't get fixed), it's best time to check compatiblity of the mods you've installed.

[donshontz]

yeah traffic ++ well atm i just unsubscribed to every mod and asset and uninstalled reinstalled steam and the game going to subscribe to only traffic ++ for the moment and see what happens with just that mod before i add anything else,i had originally like 47 mods and about 1200 assets

[Will pick sniper]

I see. This should not happen. It seems the mod is broken in your game.
You installed Traffic++, right? Do you have any other mods installed?

[donshontz]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3ruwkhnge44ekb/Screenshot%201.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7l6jwy4qt48wbfz/Screenshot%202.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zybi6eehekcbisl/Screenshot%203.png?dl=0

[Will pick sniper]

I can't see your screenshot because those files from dropbox are not in 'public' folder.

Put image files on 'Public' folder in your dropbox folder, and right click on each of them, you will see "copy public link" post them so we can see the screenshots.

[donshontz]

@Road to 125 MMR here ya go the first shows the bus looking thing the second shows that i dont have the vehicle isons added a 3rd because i find i dont have bus lanes either and i believe with traffic ++ they were added,ive unsubscribed and resubbed to traffic a couple times now

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Screenshot+1.png
https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Screenshot+2.png
https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Screenshot+3.png

[Will pick sniper]

"I think what H means is that two stations with one way roads infront of them would do the same job. What's the puropse of connecting them more then having emegency veichles go through?"

If you just connect the station with one-way road without proper exit, the station soon stops working because garbage piles up and the truck cannot pick up the garbage (Garbage-related service building refuses to take care of it if the truck cannot have proper moving route.)

And of course, as soon as you put a proper exit, then everything goes back to business as usual since the exit road will allow cargo trucks to pass. The point is that there needs a road that only allows garbage trucks and emergency vehicles to pass, not the passanger cars nor cargo trucks. Current vanilla game does not have such road option.

@donshontz : if possible can you post a screenshot?