NAM Traffic Simulators

[Need4Camaro 50]

The idea here sounds tempting and helpfull but there's still quite a bit that I don't agree with...

#1 Roads should have an lower capacity and speed than Avenue's/Oneway Roads...Roads are only one lane eachway where as Avenue's/Oneway Roads offer two lanes eachway thus how can a road offer the same capacity as a larger counterpart?

#2 RHW should offer Higher Speed limits but a Lower Capacity than the default SC4 Highways... RHW's only have two lanes eachway (an true rural highway typically has a higher speed limit than a city highway as it's out in the open, experiences less traffic, has smoother curves) The RHW 6 could pass for the same capacity as the lanes are equal but should still have a slightly higher speed limit... 

#3 The color map doesn't need to be touched... a Light Green Shade when your road is already close to its carrying capacity? that can fool you into thinking it's still okay...

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: Need4Camaro The idea here sounds tempting and helpfull but there's still quite a bit that I don't agree with...

#1 Roads should have an lower capacity and speed than Avenue's/Oneway Roads...Roads are only one lane eachway where as Avenue's/Oneway Roads offer two lanes eachway thus how can a road offer the same capacity as a larger counterpart?quote>

Capacity is on a per tile basis.  This means in one tile Avenue, Road and OWR all have the same number of lanes.  Hence the same capacities.  In effect because an Avenue is 2 tiles wide it has twice the capacity than a Road.

There is a second reason for this...  TLA-5 is going to be a RUL override of the 2 side by side Roads.  For these Avenues to have the same capacity as the original Avenues the Roads need the same Capacity.  There will also be TLA-7 eventually which is 3 tiles wide.  This is a proactive step in making it easier to implement these mods in the future.

#2 RHW should offer Higher Speed limits but a Lower Capacity than the default SC4 Highways... RHW's only have two lanes eachway (an true rural highway typically has a higher speed limit than a city highway as it's out in the open, experiences less traffic, has smoother curves) The RHW 6 could pass for the same capacity as the lanes are equal but should still have a slightly higher speed limit... quote>

This is a personal preference thing and everyone will have a different suggestion for the speed of RHW.  We have decided that RHW will be the same as the MAXIS highways because the RHW is only using RL Lane widths whereas the MAXIS ones are about 66% the width of a real lane.  I would expect one to choose to use the RHW and the MAXIS highways in the future can be made iinto a new 2 tile network instead.

Again capacity is based on a per tile basis, not a per lane basis.  This means RHW-6 and RHW-8 will always have the same capacity based one the width.

#3 The color map doesn't need to be touched... a Light Green Shade when your road is already close to its carrying capacity? that can fool you into thinking it's still okay...quote>

 

If you would like your Roads to still be green at 200% that is your choice... Delete the file and dont use it.  This has prooven to be useful to many people already.  It shows you when your networks are suffering from the effects of congestion, not after they have been suffering from the effects of congestion for an extra 100% capacity.  If you cant find a use for this than that is your choice.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: BlackStar I just checked my programs and features list, and Vista is reporting NAM Simulators as taking up 9.27GB of space.

Is this correct? =/quote>

 

No.. its a single file that is measured in kb and I think is under 10kb if I remember correctly.  I have heard Vista having errors reporting space used by files, but have not had first hand experience due to not having Vista.

[Zygar 0]

Are these compatible with the road top mass transit mods, like Cogeo's one here? - https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=13510

I ask because there are different dat files of the road top mass transit mod for different sizes - ie there's a "NAM 2x Capacity" .dat file, etc. I'd hate to have a nice, high capacity road, slap a bus stop in the middle of it, and cause a bottleneck!

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: Zygar Are these compatible with the road top mass transit mods, like Cogeo's one here? - https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=13510

I ask because there are different dat files of the road top mass transit mod for different sizes - ie there's a "NAM 2x Capacity" .dat file, etc. I'd hate to have a nice, high capacity road, slap a bus stop in the middle of it, and cause a bottleneck!quote>

 

Yes it is "compatible"...  but..  I cannot prevent you from using Road Top Mass Transit.

[Zygar 0]

I mainly ask because I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of how both of these mods work - road top mass transit had separate versions for the different network capacities for the base NAM. I thought that maybe these would conflict in say, the case that a modded 1000 capacity street tile connects to an "unmodified" 250 capacity street tile - that tile being a road top mass-transit tile of some sort. If I'm making sense.

I guess this would really be a question for the author of the other mod, but thanks anyway!

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: Zygar I mainly ask because I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of how both of these mods work - road top mass transit had separate versions for the different network capacities for the base NAM. I thought that maybe these would conflict in say, the case that a modded 1000 capacity street tile connects to an "unmodified" 250 capacity street tile - that tile being a road top mass-transit tile of some sort. If I'm making sense.

I guess this would really be a question for the author of the other mod, but thanks anyway!quote>

 

Actually, I can give you a full explaination if you want, because I am not sure why the different Capacities were created for RTMT.

First off, I have a problem with Transit Enabled Lots being used for network tiles the way they are with RTMT.  TE Lots should never replace a network tiles unless required such as the Monorail, El-Rail and Subway Lines.  The problem with TE Lots replacing a network tile is that it resets the Sim's commute.  Basically, if you force your Sims into a TE Lot by replacing a portion of their route with a TE Lot, then your are forcing the game to recalculate a new path for the Sim everytime it hits a RTMT.  This means if on the route to work the Sim hits 5 RTMT lots on the way to work there are 6 trip calculations for your Sim.  This also means the Commute is reset 5 times and only the last trip is used for your Commute Time Graph Calculation.  So, by using these lots you will have an incorrect calculation of the Commute Time Graph, and it will make your Pathfinding Engine (Traffic Simulator) work exponentially harder and can end up causing abandonment due to the game taking too long to calculate all the extra paths it must.  This is the biggest problem I have with TE Lots on a network tile, because it causes much unneeded disruption within your Simulator and will cause more issues than you may notice.  Something that affects one Simulator will affect how another Simulator reacts to it, such as Demand Simulators.

Now, TE Lots in the past have caused quite a bit of issues with "shortcutting".  These are Sims that will get off the bus and use the lot as a short cut to get 1 tile ahead.  This is because the TE Lots generally dont have a Transit Switch Cost, or have one that is not calculated properly to prevent the "shortcutting".  This problem was in enhanced and made worse with the NAM Traffic Simulators of old that changed the Speeds of the traffic types.  This Traffic Switch Cost should be calculated to equal the maximum distance of the lot (in tiles) multiplied by the amount of time it would cost for a Sim to walk through the Lot.  This means a 1 x 1 tile RTMT should have a Traffic Switch Cost of 0.29, which is 10x higher than what a car would take to go through the lot.  The reason it should be calculated based on the slowest through traffic type is so that we are not putting any traffic type at a preference.  You can only have one Traffic Switch Cost per lot and it applies to every Sim that enters the lot.  IF the Sim travels, through a TE Lot and there is no Transit Switch Cost there is no cost for travelling that tile and it will allow for shortcutting which is bad because Sims will unnecessarily enter the lot and "reset" their Commute.

Thats my rant on TE Lots.

Anyways, back onto your question.  I am not 100% sure about the RTMT but IF there is no Traffic Switch Cost, there will never be any degradation of the cost to go through the lot.  This essentially gives the lot an "unlimited" (upto 10x) capacity of the lot.  Since the lot will have an "unlimited" Capacity, it doesnt matter which one you have installed.  Now, IF the lot does have a Traffic Switch Cost, it is my theory that it<

[Zygar 0]

Oh wow, I didn't know about any of that! Thank you very much for the explanation, this probably explains why I had so much abandonment due to commute time in my cities, and why the game slows my Core 2 Quad 6600 to a crawl. I had road-top bus stations every 12 tiles in the majority of my cities. I don't particularly want my route calculations to reset every so often and break my cities, so I guess I'll give RTMT a miss this time around. It's a pity that bus and subway stops are so intrusive, but I suppose it's just something I'll have to live with in the pursuit of logical pathfinding!

Cheers.

[cogeo 960]

@Zygar: RTMT has different capacity options, in order to match the NAM capacities: for TE lots, the through traffic is added to the station's usage. If capacity is low and the through traffic high, this can cause overusage and thus degradation of the QoS. So the workaround is to increase the station's capacity by the anticipated through traffic. Hence the need for the different capacity settings for RTMT. Higher capacity versions of NAM require higher capacity RTMT settings. One thing that may have go unnoticed, plopping some RTMT stations can help zoned buildings around quickly be upgraded to a higher growth stage (if the zone density allows), and this can happen as soon as you plop them! Also sims can find jobs at very distant workplaces, this is tested and really works, esp if fixed-track networks (rail, subway, GLR) are involved. Give it a try and you will see what I mean. RTMT works really well with the "Better" pathfinding NAM optons (avoid the "Perfect" pathfinding)

@jplumbley: What you mean RTMT lots reset sims' commute? Is that proven? Many tests I have made - in pretty dense and congested cities - have given excellent results. Another point, often TE lots display the paths as broken lines, but I believe this is due to poor modding (the Traffic Switch Point and capacity settings). Is this what you mean? My RTMT lots mostly display straight and continous traffic paths. Also Traffic Switch Cost is set to 0.02 for 1x1 lots. This is enough to eliminate most "shortcutting" (which wouldn't be signifant anyway, as these are plopped on top of roads, not at corners). How does it come that Traffic Switch Cost should be sett to 0.29, are your calculations correct? A value of 0.05 eliminates almost all shortcutting and makes usage (attractiveness) somewhat lower, a value of 0.1 causes a noticeable reduction of usage, while a value of 1.0 renders the stations unusable. This is thoroughly tested in practice (sorry, but I didn't attempt to develop a theory about the game's mechanics), and has been found to work really well. Having, say 5 RTMT stations on the road would cause a 5 x 0.29 = 1.45 delay, which would block the road completely.

[stylinmartyr 0]

Oh my goodness!  That is whats happening to my city... and the world makes sense once again.  I had a theory that it was the RTMT, but I couldn't find the discussion on it until now.  Thanks, let me try my city without them and see if things improve. 

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: cogeo

@jplumbley: What you mean RTMT lots reset sims' commute? Is that proven? quote>

The Pathfinding Engine uses a mechanism called Manhattan A* Pathfinding.

Manhattan A* Pathfinding is not the easiest thing to describe but it is a mechanism that calculates the shortest path to a destination.  In basic principal the Pathfinding Engine must always be moving towards the destination and will never double back on the same tile.  Lets do an example:

Home  11 Tiles  Bus Station                 30 Tiles                  Bus Station Backwards 11 Tiles Work

OK... So as I have discussed earlier, Sims will not walk more than 11 or 12 tiles to a bus station.  Which actually takes up the entire allowable Commute Time for a there and back trip.  But yet a Sims will still take a bus and then walk the rest of the way to work, which essentially equals 3x the Maximum Commute Time "Hop Count".  This means that the game is calculating the path in a minimum of 3 separate and different sections.  If it carried the "Hop Count" through the TE Lot, the bus trip wouldnt be allowed to go anymore than 1 tile because it had already reached its maximum by walking to the station in the first place.

Another "proof" of the Simulator "resetting" the Commute hop count is that it allows for the Sim to retrace its path when reaching a TE Lot.  So, it can go to the closest Bus Station even though its 5 tiles out of the way.  This is a big no, no for Manhattan A* Pathfinding, the mechanism remembers the paths it has already taken and if it is doubling back on itself it is creating a useless loop and is not the most logical choice.  To allow for this MAXIS was required to wipe the slate clean when a TE Lot is reached for situations such as this.

Many tests I have made - in pretty dense and congested cities - have given excellent results. Another point, often TE lots display the paths as broken lines, but I believe this is due to poor modding (the Traffic Switch Point and capacity settings).  Is this what you mean? My RTMT lots mostly display straight and continous traffic paths.quote>

Broken paths does show a bad modding style, but TE Lots do have fundamental flaws.  The #1 flaw is it is not phyiscally a network piece and should not be used a network pieces.  Network pieces allow an un-interrupted Path for the Pathfinding Engine to do its job.  Entering a lot is essentially considered reaching a destination and restarting again.  This exponentially multiplies the number of paths your computer has to calculate.  The game will still show the query path it has taken previously through the whole route, probably because the query path is held separately and tied to the Sim, rather than the raw calculations of the Pathfinding Engine. 

Also Traffic Switch Cost is set to 0.02 for 1x1 lots. This is enough to eliminate most "shortcutting" (which wouldn't be signifant anyway, as these are plopped on top of roads, not at corners). How does it come that Traffic Switch Cost should be sett to 0.29, are your calculations correct? A value of 0.05 eliminates almost all shortcutting and makes usage (attractiveness) somewhat lower, a value of 0.1 causes a noticeable reduction of usage, while a value of 1.0 renders the stations unusable. This is thoroughly tested in practice (sorry, but I didn't attempt to develop a theory about the game's mechanics), and has been found to work really well. quote><

[marknlard 1]

So, if I'm following this RTMT part correctly...would it make good sense to keep the RTMTs off the main arteries of the city's transit?

If I have streets leading from lots of smallish residential zones all onto the same road or avenue heading towards work zones, I should keep the RTMTs serving the residential zones on the streets? And the same set up at the commercial/industrial end of the trip?

Interesting, if slightly baffling, stuff. I'm looking forward to trying this new simulator.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: marknlard So, if I'm following this RTMT part correctly...would it make good sense to keep the RTMTs off the main arteries of the city's transit?

If I have streets leading from lots of smallish residential zones all onto the same road or avenue heading towards work zones, I should keep the RTMTs serving the residential zones on the streets? And the same set up at the commercial/industrial end of the trip?

Interesting, if slightly baffling, stuff. I'm looking forward to trying this new simulator.

quote>

 

I would like to state, that I am not trying to tell you, "You cant or shouldn't use these lots." but, I am trying to bring awareness about the functionality of them.

Just like with any TE Lot, it would be a very good suggestion to limit the number of TE Lots a Sim must pass through to get to their job.  The issue with RTMT is that all traffic on a given path is forced to enter the TE Lot, whether it is inetended to enter the Lot or not, it is forced to.

I would suggest, leave routes that are of equal cost that do not have TE Lots on them.  As you have suggested also, avoid use of these types of TE Lots on main and central arteries.

For Freight Trucks you are going to want to place some routes without TE Lots on them to the Neighbor Connections or Freight Stations because these are a different type of traffic, which should be kept separate from your MT system.

Remember:

TE Lots, not only include RTMT, but also things like Truck Blockers, Bus Only Roads, etc.

[raildigga666 2]

I have been using the mod for a little over a week and I must state that the mod drastically improves the functionality of my cities. In a decision to experiment a little, I removed the mod and I realized that my monorails were still polluting. I am unsure if I altered the original NAM mod when I installed this traffic simulator mod, but I guess I can no longer complain about the added pollution from the monorail system. Anyway keep up the great work and feel free to remove the pollution effects from both the monorail and GLR systems in the update :-) Thanks again for your hard work.

[chrisnhl50 2]

This might be a repeated question but if I pick easy, will that be like having Radical Custom Special? And what is the deal with automata? I want it to be 24 hours.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: chrisnhl50 This might be a repeated question but if I pick easy, will that be like having Radical Custom Special? And what is the deal with automata? I want it to be 24 hours.quote>

 

Easy is not like using the Radical Custom Special at all.  Easy is the closest you will get to it, but the difference is the Simulator is now balanced properly compared to the Radical version from NAM.  I have one tester that has a test city of a medium tile which inhabits 2.8 million Sims on the Easy Simulator, so the Simulator can still support a large number of Sims.

Automata, was a mistake in the Cleanitol File.  When I made the file I copied the file names from the NAM Cleanitol File and accidentally added the Automata ones in.  You can restore it by re-installing NAM and then removing the old NAM Simulator that is created when you re-install.  The new Simulators are going to be integrated into the next Update of NAM, which hopefully wont be too far off.

[marknlard 1]

Since I've installed this simulator, I've had a problem with SC4 crashing. It seems to happen when I am putting in pedestrian mall tiles, in particular with the footbridge over rail. Anyone else experienced this? It could be connected with the January 08 NAM update instead, I installed them at the same time, and haven't done tests on them yet.

[Godzillaman 21]

Crashes are known to happen with the puzzle pieces Marknlard.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: marknlard Since I've installed this simulator, I've had a problem with SC4 crashing. It seems to happen when I am putting in pedestrian mall tiles, in particular with the footbridge over rail. Anyone else experienced this? It could be connected with the January 08 NAM update instead, I installed them at the same time, and haven't done tests on them yet.quote>

 

This is a bug that dates back to the begining of NAM.  It is a bug that is well known and is impossible for us to do anything about.  It is a MAXIS issue with the Source Code which we do not have access to.

_____________________________________________________________________

I have just released another Information Guide into the Traffic Simulator which may help some people understand this mod a little better.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3907.0

[marknlard 1]

Thanks for the replies on the puzzle pieces. I've now read some other interesting threads on it. I'd not had a problem before, but now I know what to avoid.

And thanks for the excellent work on this simulator, by the way...it's had a noticeable effect on my larger cities!

[chrisnhl50 2]

jplumbley, Yopu have answered my earlier question about the automata in great detail and thanks. I am still wondering what the folders should look like and whereshould the radical custom special automata file be?

[jamicha 0]

I hope someone can help me here. No matter what I do I cannot get this to work for me. My city commute times and routes do not change. I have looked at houses with long commutes that drive and have placed subways next to the house and the work place and they still take the car. None of my long commutes have changed since the installation of this new mod. I have opened all the cities in the region and let them run a couple of years before going back to the main city I am playing. I have been playing my main city for a couple of years since the installation and still no changes. Did I do something wrong? I know I installed it in the right place because some of the downloads from the nam are working.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: chrisnhl50 jplumbley, Yopu have answered my earlier question about the automata in great detail and thanks. I am still wondering what the folders should look like and whereshould the radical custom special automata file be?quote>

 

It should be left in the Network Addon Mod folder where it is originally installed.

Originally posted by: jamicha I hope someone can help me here. No matter what I do I cannot get this to work for me. My city commute times and routes do not change. I have looked at houses with long commutes that drive and have placed subways next to the house and the work place and they still take the car. None of my long commutes have changed since the installation of this new mod. I have opened all the cities in the region and let them run a couple of years before going back to the main city I am playing. I have been playing my main city for a couple of years since the installation and still no changes. Did I do something wrong? I know I installed it in the right place because some of the downloads from the nam are working.quote>

 

Have you removed the old Traffic Simulator that comes with the NAM?  If you have not removed the old Simulator, you will have caused a conflict.  The old Simulator will load after the new one because of the naming scheme.  Due to this, the game will use the old one and not change anything when you install this one.

Generally it takes 6 months for the Simulators to update.  But, it may also depend on what Simulator you used to have and what Simulator you have installed.  If they are similar, the new one wont have much of a difference.

[jamicha 0]

I did remove the old traffic simulator. All I removed from the NAM is NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_Radical_Custom_Special.dat right? I tried a couple different simulators and ran the city and its neighbors all for years and none of them worked. I currently have the Easy simulator A in there and ran each city this morning for 3 years on fast mode. I tried the Hard too but when it didn't work I switched. My city isn't large at all. I have houses where it is a long commute by car when they are only going around the corner. It's maybe 10 to 15 squares. I counted one that rode the subway and it was around 50 or 60 and it was long. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do to fix it?

[jplumbley 5]

Do you have HSRP installed?

[jamicha 0]

I don't now what HSRP is so I'm assuming I don't. Should I?

I just built a new small city and its definitely not working. The issues start when the first high wealth resident moves in and then the long commute times seem to affect all wealth residents. I really feel dumb right now since it seems to work for everyone but me.

[jplumbley 5]

Dont feel dumb.. You probably have a conflicting file that you dont know about or dont realize is a conflicting file. HSRP (High Speed Rail Project) is a conflicting mod to the game because they modified the Monorail network Speed and placed it in the "core" file.

My suggestion, unless you want to hunt down the conflicting file is to put a zzzz_ infront of the file name of the Simulator file you installed and place it in the root Plugins directory. If you take a print screen of your main Plugins Folder, NAM Folder and the sub folders of the NAM Folder, I can try to help you narrow it down. Sometimes its hard to find the conflicting file.

[jamicha 0]

I tried putting the file in the root plugin folder and put the zzzz_ in front of it. Nothing seemed to change. I'm beginning to wonder if I just don't understand what this mod does. Will there still be problems with commutes or is this supposed to pretty much allow any commute? I have so many subways around the city I can't imagine there being a need for a long commute. I took pictures of my folders. Maybe something is still wrong there.

[jplumbley 5]

OK your plugins, is obviously not the case.

You have installed Simulator A - Hard.  This is a BIG reduction in capacity from the original NAM Radical Simulator.  This essentially makes it so that your network capacities are that of the Vanilla game.

You are questioning if you dont understand the outcome of this mod.  I will explain.  This mod is not meant to "fix" what you have done in your city, it is in fact meant to give you some balanced and properly calculated Simulator options for your game.  In the past we have blindly changed values in the Traffic Simulator which has caused bad side effects we never really understood until more recently.  These new Traffic Simulators I have released have created that balance we have always been trying to achieve, and each one has its own "difficulty" with how it will force you to play the game.  It is not meant to make all your Commutes "short", or bring your Commute Time to 1.   The first post in this thread will help explain more what was changed, and the following link is to a thread that will help explain the Properties in the Traffic Simulator:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3907.0

_________________________________________________________

I think you have some congestion issues in your city and I will now try to help with it. 

First off, I think you will benefit greatly from installing this NAM Congestion Scale:

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?page=1&view=mine&id=117834

What the NAM Congestion Scale is, is just a mod that changes when the colors in the Congestion Data View show up.  For example at 100% Capacity the Congestion Data starts turning more yellow.  The Vanilla Congestion Scale didnt start turning yellow until closer to 200% Capacity even though your network was suffering from network Congestion issues at only 100% Capacity.  This help you judge better when your Networks are suffering from Congestion and will help you start making better decisions as to when you need to upgrade your road, or add a new route, etc.

When you have this installed please take a picture of the Data Views for your Zones and your Congestion.  This will give me a general idea of what is happening in your city.

[jamicha 0]

Thanks for helping me JP. I put in the new congestion scale, looked at the congestion and it was all green and good. I let it run for a good bit to make sure everything went into play. I took a screenshot of the route of one of the long commute houses. This is a house that was medium wealth and was abandoned and taken over by low wealth. The commute is considered to be long and it seems short enough to me. Is this picture something that won't be fixed by the traffic simulator?