RH Commute Testing...

[redlotus 16]

Hey!  I didn't see those screenshots earlier

 

Now that I have a good look at your city, I can pretty much guarantee that joining the two lanes of the avenue with a road at the cities edge will take care of the problem.  With the avenue used as a neighbor connection, sims cannot get from work to home (i.e. evening commute).  The jobs are still there, but they cannot complete a round trip, so they post a NJZ.

 

Like I said, give my idea a try.  It will produce the same results as you've seen with the avenues like they are in your screen shot.  If I'm wrong, may the ST bunny smite me.

[AlexPi 0]

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On 10/8/2003 1:28:51 PM redlotus wrote:

AlexPi, if you could give this a try and let me know how it works, I would appreciate it. So far it has worked for a few people (myself included), but I don't think I've seen it tried when the residential lots are at the edge of the city.

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Hmm, now that I look at the map, I think that some people could not find their way home from a job, thus causing the NJZ. Now that I have the U-turn at the edge they can make the trip back. This is a very interesting phenomena, and I'd imagine that it only manifests itself with SimNation connections. Had there been a neighbor there, there would have been a U-turn.

This probably causes a loop as such:

1. Sims find nearest avail. job.
2. Sim travels to job.
3. Sim tries to travel home but can't.
4. Sim abandons job. (Job position avail.)
5. Go back to 1

After 6 Mo. abandonment occurs.

A fix could be to make SimNation connections have an invisible U-turn off the map.

[Ombedor 23]

Yes, now that we have the screen shots, I concur.  The problem was not the residential zones near the map edge, but the commercial zones.  Sims couldn't get home from the commercial zones. It just so happens that the nearby residential zones were the ones trying to work at those jobs (because that's how the job finding engine works).

[AlexPi 0]

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On 10/8/2003 2:15:02 PM Ombedor wrote:

Yes, now that we have the screen shots, I concur. The problem was not the residential zones near the map edge, but the commercial zones. Sims couldn't get home from the commercial zones. It just so happens that the nearby residential zones were the ones trying to work at those jobs (because that's how the job finding engine works).

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Now, the question comes, is this a bug?

I would say yes, because this is contrary to expected bahavior.

Say that there is an arbitrary traffic system in this imaginary "SimNation", shouldn't the sim be able to make a U-turn at some point in SimNation and get back home? Instead the sim gets "lost" there.

[Ombedor 23]

I would say that yes, it is a bug.  In my opinion it violates the principle of least surprise.  Most SC4 players seem to be caught off guard by this unexpected behavior.  Everywhere else an avenue has a U-turn at the end, except at neighbor connections.  This one exceptional case surprises most people.

[redlotus 16]

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On 10/8/2003 3:11:51 PM AlexPi wrote:

Now, the question comes, is this a bug?

I would say yes, because this is contrary to expected bahavior.

Say that there is an arbitrary traffic system in this imaginary 'SimNation', shouldn't the sim be able to make a U-turn at some point in SimNation and get back home? Instead the sim gets 'lost' there.

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I would have to agree with you.  Think about it, if you make a neighbor connection with an avenue, save, and go into that neighbor, what will you see?  A U-turn.  The sims' behavior is pretty contrary to what you would expect.

[Mouse_Nightshirt 0]

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On 10/8/2003 1:28:51 PM redlotus wrote:

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On 10/8/2003 10:34:25 AM Ombedor wrote:

Could this have been a problem with sims not being able to turn left on avenues?  If the job finding engine identified the top SimNation connection as the 'workplace' for the neighborhood, and they couldn't turn left to get on the avenue, then they would get NJZ.  Just a theory.  the7trumpets has posted a modd to fix the left-turn bug, maybe that would fix the problem as well.

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Unfortunately, 7's fix doesn't change the inherent properties of avenues.  Sims cannot turn left onto an avenue because there is a median in the way.  You were, however, very close to the answer to AlexPi's issue.  Here is an example that shows the real problem in action:

 

As you can see, there is no route for the sims to get to work, because sims cannot do a U-turn at the neighbor connection.  When Alex bulldozed the neighbor connection, the avenue automatically formed a U-turn, and sims were able to get to work and back.  It could have also be fixed by placing a road that connects the two lanes of the avenue right at the edge of the city (where the red arrow is pointing).

AlexPi, if you could give this a try and let me know how it works, I would appreciate it.  So far it has worked for a few people (myself included), but I don't think I've seen it tried when the residential lots are at the edge of the city.

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This problem is very very easily solved. Simple have a street cross the median. It doesn't stick out either side, and allows the sims to U turn.

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned that before. I have it on all my avenue connections.

[AlexPi 0]

Thought Experiment:

Assuming this is a legit bug.

Why is the sim choosing to go to a job from which they can not get home?

The Com. zone in question should become abandoned. Random Res. buildings that happen to try and work there should not get NJZs. Let them choose another job from the many available out there.
I think in this lies the bug, if there is one

[redlotus 16]

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On 10/8/2003 3:25:34 PM Mouse_Nightshirt wrote:

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On 10/8/2003 1:28:51 PM redlotus wrote:

 

Unfortunately, 7's fix doesn't change the inherent properties of avenues.  Sims cannot turn left onto an avenue because there is a median in the way.  You were, however, very close to the answer to AlexPi's issue.  Here is an example that shows the real problem in action:

 

As you can see, there is no route for the sims to get to work, because sims cannot do a U-turn at the neighbor connection.  When Alex bulldozed the neighbor connection, the avenue automatically formed a U-turn, and sims were able to get to work and back.  It could have also be fixed by placing a road that connects the two lanes of the avenue right at the edge of the city (where the red arrow is pointing).

AlexPi, if you could give this a try and let me know how it works, I would appreciate it.  So far it has worked for a few people (myself included), but I don't think I've seen it tried when the residential lots are at the edge of the city.

----------------

This problem is very very easily solved. Simple have a street cross the median. It doesn't stick out either side, and allows the sims to U turn.

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned that before. I have it on all my avenue connections.

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Reread my response that you quoted.  I did suggest having a road that connected the two lanes.  The only problem is that it creates another intersection that will increase congestion.  Unfortunately, most people also don't realize that it is necessary on these neighbor-connecting avenues.  It took me about two weeks of experimenting just to figure this fact out.

AlexPi,

I think you're right.  Ralphaelninja found a similar problem that occurred when you have civic buildings (the ones with jobs) that are not connected to the road.  There should be some sort of logic built into the pathfinding AI that eliminates unreachable jobs from the job pool.

[toroca 160]

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On 10/8/2003 8:33:59 PM redlotus wrote:

Reread my response that you quoted. I did suggest having a road that connected the two lanes. The only problem is that it creates another intersection that will increase congestion. Unfortunately, most people also don't realize that it is

necessary on these neighbor-connecting avenues.

It took me about two weeks of experimenting just to figure this fact out.

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It's only necessary if your design makes it so. I have never had this problem, because my designs don't allow avenues to cause a problem like this.

[phungus420 0]

I've been doing some testing with the NRC zots. And I have concluded that the pathfinding engine and the zot are completley unconnected. The pathfinding engine aperantly looks for the "best" available path given the program and then gives the sim that route. The NRC looks to see if there is a network connection from jobs to res zones.

I modded parks to allow sims to walk through them. This modd makes the parks seem like walking stations and not part of the network. Now if I place a road, separate it by a park, and then place another road on the opposite side of the park the and have a job (in this case a fire station) on the opposite side of the road, the zone developes, makes a pedestrian path to the zone, develops an NRC (while the sim is working) and abandons. HOwever if I make a long curvy road that the sim will not drive along, connecting the two parralel roads, the NRC dissapears. And the Sim maintains his pedestrian path through the park.

Next I wanted to see if sims could hop from station to station. Usin the same method I set two parks side by side. I placed a non connected street on either side and then zoned a R zone on one side, and placed a fire station on the other. Interestingly enough with this set up the Rzone did not develope, and instead had an NRC from the jump. Anyway I connected a road along the edge. The NRC disapeared and a ped path developed through both parks. I don't want to entirly trust the route querry, so I looked at commute time. 18 min. Next I took out one of the park. This time the ped path showed the sim as walking through the park that was still there, and then zigging to the road, to get to the job. Commute increased to 22min. So in conclusion sims may hop from station to station directly, provided there does indeed exist a network path connecting the two, however they do not need to use the network. Also it would appear that NRCs are somehow related to this.

[mjbalunis 0]

the7trumpets,

 

I thought these pictures might be of interest to you and the rest of the Modd Sqadd.  I installed all 4 of the transit fixes the Modd Sqadd has release (the 5th having been recalled ) - however, that didn't resolve my issue.  I opened up one of my C & I cities and ran it for several months, maybe even a year.  I then decided to take a look at how some of my Sims were getting to work.

 

 

I use streets to connect the side of an avenue; this way it doesn't add a street light or a stop sign.  Nice.  Now, if my calculations are right (or at least close to) these Sims are adding about 15 minutes to their morning commute.  They seem to have a problem making a right turn where they should.  Their evening commute is fine, as they can make the left to go back home.

 

 

 

And, my personal favorite:

 

Whew-hew!!  Doin' donutes in the intersection!

 

Although - from this picture, it appears that there are some Sims that can make the right.

[phungus420 0]

lol, great pics. The donought is the best, I have yet to see one of those, but definatly it shows some sort of error in the path generator.

On an unrelated note, I've thought about the NRC and pathfinding some more. It seems to me that we should be able to modd the NRC program to be always true, and allow all zones to assume they are connected to the network. If we do this the whole directional orientation of zones will become unessasary. It will also allow the direct transfer of verying station types w/o an arbitrary network connection. One unfortunate barrier to alot of the work we could do is the fact the sim must enter a network tile, and leave a netork tile when as the first and last things it does.

I would like to explore this further, but SimCity_1.dat is huge, and I have no idea where to begin. Any ideas?

[crt4 0]

LOL I love the pic of the donut.. That's great.. These Sims don't seem to be the brightest crayons in the box..

[norwoodman 0]

ROFL!!! Some smart drivers in that city there!

Can someone explain to me: Why is it that some buildings in my commercial city show the paths of commuters, yet another heap in the same area say that there are no commuters, yet shown to have workers? A few of these buildings recently abandoned after I started creating some residential areas on the other side of the city (it is large sized BTW). It might be related to this, though it could also be low demand (it occurs sometimes).

On the edge of the commercial parts of my city, it shows that all transportation methods in and out of the city are congested, and then about 10-20 tiles into the city, the roads suddenly go straight into the green. The only exception is near where one ferry is placed.

[qbert2 9]

I'm not sure if this has been discovered before or not but it appears that all a sim has to do is make it to a inter-city connection that has an available job to be counted as employed. The commute time is the time to get to that edge not the total time spent transverse. Also, the commute time in the city commuted to is the time from the edge to the tile that has the job. Here

[the7trumpets 10]

As usual qbert2, you have been thorough and specific in your description.  I always enjoy your posts.

 

I have known this for some time, and I believe that maxis is aware of it.  Previous to Rush Hour, the residential city showed the commute time in that city plus the commute times for the rest of the commute, including the travel time from whatever neighboring cities it was commuting through.  Therefore, I think it's a bug since I doubt they intended to change that huge aspect of gameplay.

 

Hopefully it will be fixed

 

 

I'm postulating that the reason the sims don't go unemployed is that the inter-city commute data is not being transferred correctly.  Essentially, the sims are being employed at the city border, instead of being forced to get a job in the nieghboring city or beyond.  Because no commute time data is ever returned, the simulator must assume that the sim has a job.

[the7trumpets 10]

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On 10/7/2003 9:29:57 PM MaxisKevin wrote:

As far as that 10x bug goes, I'm not sure I understand it.  We have a multiplier that we use to convert our debug data into minutes used for the graph.  This is actually set to 25 and has not changed since the core product.  If you want to play with it the property ID is ca76013b.  Set it to 1 to remove the effect.  I'm not sure what this will get you though.  Again, my understanding is that this only effects the graph.  Am I misunderstanding the bug?

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I tested this particular property a long time ago, and I have gone back again to test it, but it does not change the graph display at all.  Are you sure you have quoted the right property?

[MikeC 0]

I would just like to say a word of thanks to 7trumpets and Darkmatter for their work on the pathfinding fixes (and the bug stomping).

I dropped SC4 from my playlist 2 weeks after it came out simply because of this problem. I just got Rush Hour recently when I dropped by Simcitycentral and I saw the fixes on their main page.

I wish I had stuck with the game long enough to play it with your original pathfinding fix.

Thanks for the hard work.

[WhisperPntr 3]

Simtropolis' please let your no ads banner open in a new page or display it's full hot spot area. I've had many posts (including this one) eaten by accidentally clicking on it.  Thanks.

 

Purpose: Modded vs. Regular (along with non-mod anomalies)

I saw a recent post about people saying modding was not needed and that all one needed to do was to get rid of all the mods and play RH the way it is.

While it has already been established that RH handles the pathfinding in the same manner as prepatch, I just wanted to nail the door shut with these tests.

Also I am aiming to conduct a few tests about how RH handles pathfinding compared to modded RH as well as performance.  I may also combine a few others to see how it works.

Setup:

Nothing fancy.  Here is a residence (1x2 plot) connected to a road, that is connected to an avenue then a highway.

 

On the other side is the industrial zone.

 

 

Test One: Pre- Dark MOD Pathfinding Patch

First I check out the commute.  As you can see, no highway is being used.

 

I brought out the commute time graph but then eek! Abandonment! 

So I brought back bob...note how he goes back home... ???

Now I continue with the experiment...wiping out the road.

 

Test Two: Post Dark MOD Pathfinding (TBC at a later date)

First I disconnected the highway.

Then I noted that the times for road commute prepatch is still the same


Then I hook the highway back up and after a few days the commute switches back over.

 

Now I note the figures once again.

 

If people are interested in seeing further tests please tell me.  I may conduct a subway and highway test later on.

 

Also I realize people know these facts but in picture it catches more attention...    (That and it was fun to see bob drive on the highway back home but then decide to take the road on his way back to work...)

 

Try it by telling your sim to go to that location!

[+Guest]

Interesting.

[Sharp Dressed Man 0]

Ok... I have two questions. First of all, do the new pathfinding mods still kill mass tranit? And if I want a mod, where do I save it?

[A Killer Ewok 2]

It looks like the mod only promotes higher-class transportation usage. The speeds don't work!?

[pitch 0]

just one question: was it possible to build avenues with on ramps over diagonal ground level Highways befor the Transit mod? I just tried to build one yesterday (with the mod installed), but it wasn't possible.

[Schaapje_BlaaT 0]

hi, I was just looking for a mod for RH, and found the temporary RH fix
Only problem is that it comes with no TXT file. The first question I had was how to install the mod, but downloading the original pathfinding fix and reading the TXT solved that problem. However it would be better to include a TXT with the temporary RH fix that at least explains how to install it.

The second question I have is does the temporary fix need the original pathfinding fix? I am just gonna try it out but it would be nice if that would be added to the TXT file too.

edit: I tried it out and came to the conclusion that the temporary fix works by itself. I also found out it works miracles. My largest city's profit went from 6k to 30k!.

[the7trumpets 10]

I'd like to appologize for not being here more lately.

 

It has taken an exorbitant ammount of time to fix the traffic bugs, and I simply haven't stopped by here in a while.

 

 

A few updates:

 

1. Through my editing of path files, I have an extremely good understanding of how the pathfinding engine probably works.  I hope to eventually publish a report, but for now, there is simply too much going on.
   
2. By editing path files and observing the route querry tool, I think it is safe to say that the route querry tool is at least designed to be 100% accurate.  I have never seen an instance where it is inaccurate, except for the occasional 'commuters leaving from commercial zones' issue I have heard of.  Therefore, I think it's safe to use this as a tool for our testing.
   
3. I will still be fixing path and RUL bugs for as long as they keep being discovered.  Please don't let that make this thread die though.  We have established at least one major bug, which maxis is aware of.  That was the regional commute time issue where a sims' commute time was only the time to get to the border, and did not include the rest of the commute.  The other bug that was found was the 'sims transferring from bus to car at a neighbor connection' issue.  Let's not stop here, but continue to test so that more can be fixed in the first patch, instead of put off until later.

 

I will poke my head in here and answer questions, I just won't be able to be a lead tester for a while because of my work on the path and RUL bugs.  Hopefully someone or a few people can take over

 

 

 

About the original pathfinding modd, look at the old thread entitled "Pathfinding modd released!!!"

 

And all modds are installed by placing the dat file into your SC4 plugins directory.

 

Avenue onramps over diagonal ground level highways can be built.  Press the Tab key after selecting the onramp tool to cycle through them.  One of the two orientations is not functional because of a huge number of path bugs, but I haven't even attempted to dig into that bohemoth yet .

[qbert2 9]

Some fun new information I'm collecting while trying to build a better exemplar.

 Using algebra (look math is useful!) and what I know about roads, that being the max distance is 193 tiles or 3.088km

 Max Time = (Max commute time property) * 24 [EDIT to 24 from 12]

 (Max Tiles)/(Exemplar data) * K = (Max Time)

I get K = 23.12953368.

 I can rework the equation to compute max tiles given an exemplar data.

 Max Tiles = ( (Exemplar data) * (Max Time) ) / K

 And using excel to calculate this for me instead of doing it by hand I get a nice table.

 

		Max Distance in Tiles	Max Distance in km
street	21	130.7419355	2.091870968
road	31	193	3.088
ave	40	249.0322581	3.984516129
highway	82	510.516129	8.168258065
passenger rail	110	684.8387097	10.95741935
frieght rail	150	933.8709677	14.94193548
elevated rail /sub	150	933.8709677	14.94193548
monorail	200	1245.16129	19.92258065

 

Which works out nicely to what we know about streets, max tiles for streets are 132, so these numbers are close.

 So now I can play with the numbers and see just how far the sims can travel without congestion. 

 From my experience congestion hurts commute time way more than the speed at which the sims can travel.  The max distances are ok for a 16x16km city but once congestion is factored in everything goes down the toilet.   Plus now that evening commute is added to congestion the capacity of the networks are halved compared to pre RH.  Probably should start by doubling capacities and then working from there since I already modified the intersection penalty.

[jimbo 0]

What disturbes me most above all else is the speed. I mean, even if every sim knew perfect pathfinding what you will see below is still very disturbing.

 

There's a lot of debate over the x10 bug, some say it isn't a bug, but at the very best its a VERY poor way to compensate for the job-finding issue as toroca mentioned.

 

A realistic way for maxis to do this would have been to put in some sort of a not-too-complex equation invoving some random factor to determine where each sim would work. Even if they weren't able to do that, a more realistic compensation factor would have been 2, not 10.

 

Here's a point I'm trying to prove. And what you see below is what disturbes me the most:

Pictures first. This is one of my tests.

 

 

 

Now, as you see, the sim travels 82 tiles in 59 minutes.

 

Now for some math:

 

82 tiles/59 min

=82x16m/59min (assuming a tile is 16 metres, which is probably is)

=1312 m/59min

=1334m/60min

=1334m/1hr, which is

 

1.334 km/h!

 

In other words he took an hour to travel 1.334 kilometres.

Yes you saw that right; the car on the road travels slower than a turtle.

 

I really don't know how some people making other test tables could've came up with kph values in the 20's and 30's.

I don't care how you try to solve it, this is the real road speed we're talkin about!

 

this is no longer a x10 or x12 issue, if you ask me its more of an x30 issue, as normal municipalities allow 40 km/h on their medium-speed roads, and since 40kph/1.334kph is approximately 30.

 

Darkmatter, your other mod that increases the speed by a factor of ten, I really appreciate it .You said it was a 'radical' mod but I think it should actually be made into something standard, like a patch.  People playing simcity deserve much higher speeds than what is originally given.

[Vimp 1]

As I understand it the only big problem remaining that theres no mod for is the commute times for cities other then the city the sim originates from. Currently no matter how you change the travel-network speeds its still going to be faster for a sim to travel to the edge of the map to go to a job outside the city then it is to travel within their own map to find a job because once they reach the edge of the city they instantly reach their job even if that job is 3 cities away.

In other words alot of the time, even all the time if you design your cities a certain way, its faster for the sims to travel to distant cities for work then it is for sims to get work in their own city which makes it immpossible to make an independant city if you dare make any connections to neighbours.

[The Great Chozo 34]

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On 10/16/2003 8:06:44 PM Sharp Dressed Man wrote: Ok... I have two questions. First of all, do the new pathfinding mods still kill mass tranit? And if I want a mod, where do I save it?

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I have a city journal called My Athens Region which has four cities soley reliant on mass transit. You can find it here:

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=42070&sessionID=29342A3053D14684B5DE4944D6C0C0DF

If you visit my journal scroll down to the middle and you will find pics and explanations on a mass transit set up I have.

I have installed all the recent transportation updates, and it has not killed the cities, and they rely on mass transit alone.

7trumpets I don't know if this post helps you or not, but go check out the journal and if you want me to post some shots on my commute time graphs, and ridership numbers I can. But the gist of it is, that I have 4 small tile cities surrounding a medium tile city, and the four cities are only connected by mass transit only no roads, and I have a min. pop. of the four at 78K, and a max at 108K. I have only just now begun to get recurring NJZ's in the largest of the four, and I am going to add some more lines to empty tiles next to the city, and add some industrial over there. If you would like to see what this does to the commute times, and the NJZ's I would be glad to help out this ongoing test. Keep in mind though, these are large cities, not the one house one job, tests that have been posted, so I don't know if it is pertinent. But let me know.

TGC