Intersection vs. (NAM) Roundabout

[bigthing 35]

Originally posted by: 3dpuzzlemaster

Even though, in real life, the light won't be red/green all the time.

EDIT: That means with intersections, the commute time would be increased/decreased. If "sim Bob" commutes one day, he may hit both red lights. The next day, he hits one intersection green and the other red. Then the next day, he hits both green.

Let's be real with time and distance.

So, if he hits one of these, his commute time will be...

Both red: Increased/control(Control means he could start out with any of the three possibilities)

One green and one red: increased/decreased/control(Means that the commute time is either increased or decreased depending on which possibility is the control)

Both green: Decreased/control

Even then, "Bob" must drive different speeds each day.(He's not a robot!). There is too many possibilities to know which is faster.

Remember: This is in REAL LIFE cases not for the game!

And it would be interesting to see the 2x2 instead of the 3x3.

quote>

Good point, im just continuing it 

As well as seen above being a factor, there are many types of traffic lights :-

Timed: these are what appear to be in the game, although in real life there is alot more flexibility.

You can vary the times that a light stays green relating to the congestion on the road at that very second, although these are new generation ones so therefore would not have been around when the game was developed; but when the game was developed there was the technology to change the timers to certain settings at different times in the day (this would compensate for peak times).

Sensor: These are generally used in low traffic areas or paired with a regular, constantly green signal. When a car stops on a sensor embedded into the road surface the lights change according to that car's position. In the second instance it can be a turn out onto a main road (there is one around mine for a new housing estate off a bypass), where the lights on the main road are constantly green unless a car stops on the sensor at the entrance to the estate.

Pedestrian: A common addon to a intersection is a pedestrian crossing. This is where a pedestrian presses a button which turns some or all the lights to red in order to give him/her a safe crossing opportunity, this can greatly increase the time to get from A-B

There are thousand of different combinations of lights and millions of different times you can get if you bring human error into the equation. There really is no way there could ever be a road system or traffic simulator so advanced as to accurately copy these circumstances.

Sadly not in the near future anyway, so there is my findings. Enjoy :-D

[zwr100 2]

I didn't see a unit for the 400 on that graph.  I know it's normally in minutes, but perhaps the commute was very short and changed the unit to something else 400 seconds or maybe 0.400 minutes?  I didn't think Sims were ever willing to commute that long.

I think the roundabouts take longer when there is no traffic since you have to go north and south one tile on an east west road.  However, if there were more traffic I bet the roundaboutwould handle traffic better than a normal intersection which is normally the choke point.

However, I bet the difference would change depending on the type of road leading up to it as well.  A 'street' or 'road' might benefit more from the 'one way road' roundabout than an 'avenue'?

[Cyclone1001 10]

Yes, all of this is true but, what if you have avenues and your job is not on the same side of the road? You would have to stop in the median, get in the inside lane, and change lanes on top of all of the intersection/roundabout confusion. I'm sure it could make a difference.

[bigthing 35]

Originally posted by: Cyclone1001

Yes, all of this is true but, what if you have avenues and your job is not on the same side of the road? You would have to stop in the median, get in the inside lane, and change lanes on top of all of the intersection/roundabout confusion. I'm sure it could make a difference.quote>

Yes, that is why every now and again (maybe 10 tiles) if there isn't one already you should make a crossing

[alicepleasance 0]

I made a somewhat interesting discovery while following soldyne's tutorial "Making Money the easy way". While building my rural suburban area I used the roundabouts from the NAM to connect my avenues, while following all other steps of the tutorial to the letter. I did not get any growth in my suburbs at first. I kept the game running for a couple of months, but the "popcorn effect" did not start. In the end I replaced the Roundabouts with regular avenue intersections, and almost immediately my Sims started moving in. This could of course be a coincidence, but I thought it should be noted. 

[IonWind 3]

alicepleasance: you might have had installed wrong-hand NAM to your SC4. That happened to me once; I somehow managed to install left-hand SC without noticing it and then installed right-hand NAM. If I remember correctly that caused the problem with Sims not using roundabouts (as they would have to travel the roundabout to wrong direction), while everything else seems to work right.

Originally posted by: bluemoose

My city recently installed roundabouts along a busy stretch of road, and the idiots STOPPED TO LET PEOPLE INTO THE CIRCLEquote>

What? People driving in the circle are not supposed to let people into the circle, you wait at the edge until there's a free spot for you in the roundabout.

During this decade my hometown has changed at least one trafficlight intersection and almost a dozen of normal intersections to roundabouts and on my opinion the traffic goes so much smoother than with traffic lights or normal intersections.

Edit:

Okay, so there is difference between roundabout, rotary and traffic circle. In roundabouts all entering traffic yields the traffic in the circle. In some special traffic circles the circling traffic has to yield entering traffic. Thanks Wikipedia!

[thepokemaniac 18]

I would assume just on common sense (not actual game experimentation) that a roundabout would be faster, but it takes up space. It would make sense because in theory, roundabouts never stop moving traffic, I guess.

[etatauri 0]

I knew people who lived with 13 other people in a 3 story house. They were all college students and the house was modified to have 13 tiny rooms with a kitchen and a bathroom on every floor. So 15 is possible but needless to say, would be very inconvenient.

[astondb9 7]

Originally posted by: etatauri

I knew people who lived with 13 other people in a 3 story house. They were all college students and the house was modified to have 13 tiny rooms with a kitchen and a bathroom on every floor. So 15 is possible but needless to say, would be very inconvenient.

quote>

Yes, but that house only has one floor and by the looks of it 1 room too :/

Its said here that the UK is putting traffic lights on roundabouts so traffic can be controlled easily when it gets heavy (although the lights are never turned off) While the US is putting roundabouts where there were traffic lights before. The roundabouts without traffic lights are alot quicker to get around than ones with.

And as said somewhere up there if the traffic is too busy or there is another junction close by roundabouts get messed up as people cant get off the roundabout because of traffic but people can still get in = Gridlock.