How about additional commuter types?

[Hutts 0]

In sim city, the only main traffic in the transportation system was to and from work.  This is leaving out a majority of real traffic in a major city.

Residential Commutes

The job commute is a given but there are two others that should be considered.

1.  Commerce - Everybody shops.  Sims should also travel to commercial lots to do their shopping.

2.  Recreational - Sims choose a recreation spot to relax whether it be a park, stadium, etc.

Commercial Commutes

Commercial lots should also have 2 additional types of commutes depending on the type of commercial business.

Services/Retail

1. Customers - sims should travel to a store to do thier shopping

2. Freight - service and retail business should receive freight from industry to get their product to sell to customers

Office

1.  Customers & Sales - office's should accept and create 'commerce' commuters, people or other offices travel as customers.

Industrial Commutes

Industrial commutes should also have an incomming freight as well as outgoing.

How it all comes together

Residentail lots would have 3 commute types - Work, Commerce, Recreation.

Commercial Servce lots would also - Work, Customers, Freight

Commercial Office - Work, Customers, Commerce

Industrial - Work, Incomming Freight, Outgoing freight.

Residents will try to find the closest available job, but also the closest commerce that's not to "busy" (based on its customer capacity) as well as the closest recreation that's again not "busy" (based on its recreational capacity).  Residential development would then be hindered if they would have to travel too far to shop or play.

Factory A would receive materials from Mine B and then ship them to Shop C. Shop C also receives freight from Warehouse D because Factory A has less outgoing capacity than Shop C's incomming capacity.  Shop C has 1000 daily customer capacity that travels from the local area.

These methods could then provide more realistic city to city transport.  You have more recreational capacity than residents your tourism would thrive from people traveling to your city to fill the demand.  Commercial office has more salesmen than customers so they must travel to other cities, or vice versa, not enough customers, they must travel from other cities.  Airports and other intercity transit would to recive and generate traffic.  Tourists would generate recreational traffic to parks, etc. if they have open capacity.  Or vise versa, if there were not enough recreation in your city your sims would travel to the airport and leave the city for recreation.  Would work the same way for commercial office commuters as well.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

i like this...especially the freight to commerce thing. It makes sense for the industrial freight to be shipped to commerce. Perhaps the demand of commercial jobs should depend on the health of the industrial zones instead of just residents needing jobs. I believe that industry should be the starting point of commerce as there would be no commerce without industry. So commerce's demand should be a result of industrial activity. Then the demand of commercial types should depend on the education of the various residents.

[KeanoManu 42]

Yeah, it's boring and unrealistic that big buildings like malls and stadiums doesn't generate much traffic in SC.

But the problem is our systems. Will they be able to handle all traffic?

[lrfox 2]

I think this is necessary. i have felt this way for a while about sc4. One thing this will hinge on is the betterment of region play. For example, as you said, mines should have transportation to factories. well, in most areas, the mine is not in the middle of the metropolis.

This idea requires better transportation, better region play, and more realistic zoning as a foundation.

The zones in SC4 were far too restrictive. For example, how many areas (especially rural areas and residential areas) have ground floor commercial and upper floor/ loft apartments in real life? This needs to be incorporated into the game with some sort of Dual zoning (if we're doing zones?) or dual residency. Say, light commercial/ medium density residential for residential urban areas (this would give it a more neighborhood feel), and in downtowns you have a lot of hotel/ residential in the same building in big cities. that translates to both medium/ high density commercial and medium/ high density residential in the same building.

This would mean you have people traveling to and from the same buildings at different times (for example, the residents of the hotel/apartment tower will travel OUT to work, while hotel employees and guests travel INTO the building for work).

this post and Hutts' post both call for a more advanced commuter/ transportation system and better regional gameplay. aka more realism.

I'd also like to see normal urban evolution. In SC4, how many times did your dense, dirty and manufacturing industrial areas become old and abandoned while your city's education and commerce grew? In real cities many times these areas become re-invented into lofts, bars, restaurants, etc. It'd be nice to see this happen in the new game- Automatic type changes. Example- when demand for industry drops, and middle class residential demand rises, then why not have some of the old factories house people in loft style apartments instead of demanding brand new residential areas while another part of the city rots?

Also, the need for different types of commuters is necessary as well. like Hutts mentioned, people don't commute just to work. I can't say how many times i made a suburban town next to a big city and all my citizens commuted to the big city for work while my shopping areas (using some of the malls and simgoobers shops, and box stores on the stex) saw little to no traffic (only workers). it'd be nice to see traffic to shopping areas pick up on sat and sun, while the business districts get traffic mon-fri.

maybe a heavy volume of pedestrian traffic in well-placed parks, or even include a new type of traffic, bike traffic (our dutch friends would love it) for inner city commuters and recreation.

Incoming and outgoing traffic is necessary no matter what as it is reality.

thanks for hearing my addition to this topic.

[zane900 1]

I think you guys might be a bit late. Chances are the Monte Cristo team has already made a decision on the issue of commuting.

[lrfox 2]

Zane- Could be. However, why not suggest it. they look, they take what we have to say into account. not all suggestions will be used in the game, but if even a little of this can be applied then it's worth trying.