Commute time to neighbour always long?

[bippukt 0]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here

My main question is - is the commute time always long if a sim has to travel from one city to another for his job? I mean, some of them are shown to be going to their workplace as pedestrians and yet they have a long commute time! What on earth is this? Please comment on this and give me suggestions. I have read a lot of FAQs but haven't got any satisfactory answer.

I began to play SC4 deluxe after a really long time and am starting with something different. I am trying to create a medium sized bedroom community with dirty/manufacturing industry just next door. I am just doing this to start by doing something differently, otherwise I know I will get bored. Besides, it will really hurt when my shiny, efficient highways are not able to provide my sims with good commute times.

[Huaojozu 0]

Yes, having to travel to another city increases the commute a lot, even if the path itself isnt as long.

[bippukt 0]

That really spoils my party

Does this mean that having residences and commercial services/offices in one city and having industrial jobs in the neighbouring city won't work in the long run? Especially for the wealthy sims as theyt attach more importance to commute time.

[High5flyier 7]

No that not always the case. I have plenty of cities that have short,medium,and some long commute times to other cities. And most of my cities are hundreds of years old.

Direct travel paths to work places is what works best. If you give them too many options they get lost some times.

I slowly weed out my picky high wealth and confine them to certain areas and historically save the building that replaces them, both low and medium wealth. This can be tricky though when your trying to get to those higher stage buildings. Sometimes after a while I will undo the historical setting and see if I can get higher stage buildings. I will at times set the taxes higher for the wealthy to discourage them for re-growing.

So back to your original question, yes reasonable commute times between cities can be achieved.

[bippukt 0]

Originally posted by: High5flyier

So back to your original question, yes reasonable commute times between cities can be achieved.quote>

But how? I have a direct road connection to the neighbour. The residential zone is 3 tiles from the border and similarly, in the neighbouring city, the industrial zone is 3 tiles from the border. But they all have LONG commute times! BTW I have SC4 with the patch. No NAM.

EDIT - As I said earlier, some of them are walking and have a long commute. Why don't they just take a car!

[SC4BOY 20]

Neighbor connects are ALWAY LONG... infer what you will from that. WHY? because the program has NO IDEA where the adjacent job actually is, just that is "at the other city". The program actually assigns them all as to the MIDDLE of the adjacent city tile iindependent of where on the tile the job actually is. This is just a quick and dirty way to have "commutes" without overloading the commute algorithm to a point the system comes to a grinding halt.

[bippukt 0]

Originally posted by: SC4BOY Neighbor connects are ALWAY LONG... infer what you will from that. WHY? because the program has NO IDEA where the adjacent job actually is, just that is "at the other city". The program actually assigns them all as to the MIDDLE of the adjacent city tile iindependent of where on the tile the job actually is. This is just a quick and dirty way to have "commutes" without overloading the commute algorithm to a point the system comes to a grinding halt.

quote>

I can understand the rationale behind it, especially as my PC is not that fast. Thanks for clarifying

So, in order to make sure that my bedroom community has an acceptable commute time, I need to only look at the time it takes a sim to travel from his home to the neighbouring city? That will make it much more easy for me to plan both the residential and the industrial city.

As I understand it, what I need to do is:

1. For the residential city, just make sure that the transportation to the connection is smooth by having good roads and later on rail/highway connection. The commute time will be long, but acceptable, hopefully even for the relatively wealthier sims.

2. For the industrial city, just make sure that the transport to the neighbours (any neighbours) is good. I am sensing that toll booths might come in handy here

If I am wrong about any of this, please let me know. And thanks again to everyone who replied.

[edwardsw 0]

By the way, bus stops can greatly increase the distance people are willing to travel.

[spanning 0]

Also seems to imply that if your neighboring city (i.e., the industrial city) is small, that the commute time will be shorter, as the 'middle' of the industrial city is closer on a tiny map than a large one. I've not tested this notion, but will.

Thanks for the info guys, very helpful!

[Alabaster 0]

Welcome to ST, bippukt!

Just a thought I had while reading your post: you may want to check your traffic levels on the roads connecting your residential community with your industrial one. If ALL of your sims have to commute to a neigboring city, and there are only a few connections between the cities, there is bound to be a LOT of traffic. You can alleviate this by making more connections or upgrading your roads to avenues.

[Dizastrow 4]

I agree with what Alabastar says.  I usually connect one nice highway and one avenue to the adjacent city and it greatly improves commute times.  Also, like mentioned above, lots of bus stops help things immensly.  Be sure to add a few parking garages in your residential neighborhoods so people can park their cars and take the subway/buses.

[bippukt 0]

Thank you Alabaster.

BTW, there is one thing that came to my mind about the commute time algorithm. Why would it be too much of a resource hogger when the program already calculates the exactly path that different households take to the other city accurately. The fact that a few of them are pedestrians means that the neighbouring industrial city's layout is "known" to this residential city, In my opinion. Just a thought.

Originally posted by: Dizastrow I agree with what Alabastar says.  I usually connect one nice highway and one avenue to the adjacent city and it greatly improves commute times.  Also, like mentioned above, lots of bus stops help things immensly.  Be sure to add a few parking garages in your residential neighborhoods so people can park their cars and take the subway/buses.quote>

I am keeping an eye on the connections. As I left space for the future for avenues and highway, I will be able to upgrade the road when necessary. And I added tollbooths to the connections in the industrial city - the freight trips are still short and I am getting a few hundred simoleons a month

BTW, my average commute time is shown as around 40-50. Isn't that a bit less for a "long" commute?