NAM Traffic Simulator and Data View Support Thread

[chris0101 8]

To put it simply, the Simulation Z likes people using subway because it is the quickest way to go. As the subway gets more and more crowded, some Sims will abandon it.

Otherwise, try introducing another method of transportation. Try using GLR puzzle pieces. They use no space (with GLR on avenue, road, and street + roadside stations) and can help you get around the city much quicker. Hopefully z1 will have the newer RTMT v3.6 and v4 up soon.

For the person that installed the NAM (rebs) and had problems, try reinstalling the NAM again. Another thing to do is you may want to install the BTM. It may help you get around that monorail problem. On the downside, I find that BTM is unrealistically intolerant of slopes too much. I modded my file to make it a little more "willing" to go on slopes.

[z1 566]

Chris101 has given a good summary explanation of the subway behavior.  For more details, please see this post over at SC4 Devotion.

Originally posted by: darn42

that's weird, every one of my sims is walking now, none have cars, even the high wealth. It makes it real hard to play. but my cities that already have cars in them still doquote>

It sounds like you installed a Park & Ride version of the traffic simulator by mistake.  This is exactly what happens if you do.

Originally posted by: rebs

I have watched my monorail paths and found that after sections of the rail were removed by the plugin, the monorails are no longer able to go straight ...also, there are remnants of the circular sections of track where they once formed the aesthetically pleasing loops.quote>

Yes, not all the rail paths are the same after this change, and you may need to rebuild parts of your monorail to get it to do what you want.  I have also seen reports of the remnants that you describe; these are in the process of being fixed.

I personally had nothing to do with the rail network changes, so if you have further questions about them, I suggest you ask them in the NAM General Discussion Thread.

[longhorn 25]

I'm liking Z a lot now. I got the HSR to work better by adding more stations. Not the most realistic thing but it works. Does a commuting sim know how far away the next station is in the next city when he hits the edge of the map, or is the edge the final destination as far as the currently loaded city is concerned?

I'm going to need to change the transit switch traffic capacity on most of the train stations. I'd love to be able to get Gare du Nord close to its actual usage in real life. I've got 60,000 riders using Gare du Nord and 80,000 using Amsterdam Central Station in my second largest city, so they are more than double capacity for the original BAT specs. Hub and spoke works well with Z. A lot of the subway stations choke with passing traffic as well. Best traffic sim yet by far.

[chris0101 8]

Communication between the cities isn't that great. In fact, that is why there is the Eternal Communter bug.

However, when x number of Sims go from city A to B, when you access city A and B, you'll see both the same number of Sims and in theory, destinations, unless you're dealing with the Eternal Commuter Bug.

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: longhorn

I'm liking Z a lot now. I got the HSR to work better by adding more stations. Not the most realistic thing but it works. Does a commuting sim know how far away the next station is in the next city when he hits the edge of the map, or is the edge the final destination as far as the currently loaded city is concerned?

I'm going to need to change the transit switch traffic capacity on most of the train stations. I'd love to be able to get Gare du Nord close to its actual usage in real life. I've got 60,000 riders using Gare du Nord and 80,000 using Amsterdam Central Station in my second largest city, so they are more than double capacity for the original BAT specs. Hub and spoke works well with Z. A lot of the subway stations choke with passing traffic as well. Best traffic sim yet by far.quote>

I'm glad you like Simulator Z!  To answer your question, if SIms reach the edge of the city, they're considered to have reached their destination.  Each city contains no knowledge of the geography of adjacent cities, although it does have knowledge of the aggregates of the various demand types in its neighbors.

Station capacities can definitely be a problem.  The NAM Team already has a "NAM Team Certified" classification for transit stations; as a member of the NAM Team, I'll be working to make that certification include appropriate capacities for stations.  In the mean time, for buses and subways, I would recommend using the High version of RTMT, which is designed to give sufficient capacity for any city.

[chris0101 8]

I think that at this point, with existing stations, the only real solution is to mod them ourselves. I have found that my monorail/BTM stations are overcrowded, as are my subway stations. Simulation Z has a preference towards them (monorails with the BTM mod @ 400km/h), and I have updated them to keep them with Simulation Z Ultra's capacities.

It is even possible withe plenty of mass transit in very dense cities to jam Simulation Z Ultra's one ways, avenues, and highways, especially in cities with populations above 10 million. At that point, even high capacity RTMT can have troubles supporting the capacity needed.

One annoyance is that when you have GLR on a road or avenue and then a subway running directly under that road/avenue, the data view can be very annoying if it is crowded. Which one is crowded becomes the big question? This is a problem that originated in the game itself as elevated rail is just "elevated subway" and GLR is just "surface subway", if you get what I am saying.

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: chris0101

I think that at this point, with existing stations, the only real solution is to mod them ourselves. I have found that my monorail/BTM stations are overcrowded, as are my subway stations. Simulation Z has a preference towards them (monorails with the BTM mod @ 400km/h), and I have updated them to keep them with Simulation Z Ultra's capacities.quote>

Just to be clear, it's not that Simulator Z has a preference for the BTM per se; it's just that Simulator Z is good at finding the fastest mode of transport, and that happens to be the BTM for many routes.

It is even possible withe plenty of mass transit in very dense cities to jam Simulation Z Ultra's one ways, avenues, and highways, especially in cities with populations above 10 million. At that point, even high capacity RTMT can have troubles supporting the capacity needed.quote>

Ten million!  Yes, I'm not surprised that you'd get congestion in a city that size, even with Ultra and RTMT High.  After all, how many real cities of ten million do you know of that aren't congested, especially during rush hour?  But there's a simple way to reduce the congestion as much as you want:  Build more subway lines.  Since they take up no surface real estate, you can build essentially as many as you want, and as long as their usage is high, they'll pay for themselves.  As for the subway stations, if you build them with just one network square between them, they'll look like different entrances to the same station, but you'll double your capacity.  Essentially, both in looks and effect, you're creating a larger subway station.

One annoyance is that when you have GLR on a road or avenue and then a subway running directly under that road/avenue, the data view can be very annoying if it is crowded. Which one is crowded becomes the big question? This is a problem that originated in the game itself as elevated rail is just "elevated subway" and GLR is just "surface subway", if you get what I am saying.quote>

The game actually keeps track of congestion on a per network basis, although that information has not been available to the player up until now.  But it will be with the release of RTMT V3.60.  You can see how it will work by looking at the new query shown in this post.

[chris0101 8]

There's no easy way about it. I tend to build my subway networks as complex grids. That way, you can link together

Real estate becomes precious at 10 million. I wonder if supporting a city of 15 million people is possible. I have heard that somebody did once build a large city with about 25 million commercial jobs, and 5 million (or so) people surrounded by 4 large residential cities. Traffic is apparently a nightmare there. So is the eternal commuter bug. I suppose that you'll use a network of E-SURE links along each city, as the grids are simply intolerable. The problem is that it can get confusing as you need to know which ESURE lines go where.

Here:

4 D 3

B A C

1 E 2

Each is a large city. Despite using straight subway lines that run underneath the cities, there are problems. Cities B-A-C are linked as is D-A-E. The problem occurs when you want to link say, B-A-D, B-A-E, C-A-D, C-A-E and on top of that, you want to avoid the eternal commuter bug. It is technically possible, but the ESURE links apparently get very confusing at times. Developing cities 1,2,3, and 4, will add to the confusion as you want more links. On top of that, some Sims use the bus connections sometimes to cause the bugs. (thank god r$$$ rims haven't thought of using helicopters to get to work - as most modern skyscrapers have helipads on top!) The reason is because subway and rail and elevated rail and monorail get so crowded that busing or driving becomes compeititve. There are lane restrictions, such as those no truck lanes, no car lanes, bus only lanes that you can download, which can be something of a workaround. And leaving zero neighbourhood connections hampers industrial growth.

As you have pointed out on Sc4 Devotion, what we really do need is an underground puzzle piece, preferably 3x3 or a cross that has a non-intersecting subway system that is clearly marked and visible to help solve the eternal commuter bug. (Of course, what we really need is access to the source code to allow cities to somehow better communicate with each other to avert this bug to being with). In the meantime, I think that the only real solution is RTMT v4. Hopefully we'll have a system of underground railway stops as well as subway stops. Won't that be interesting though? A subway/underground rail/GLR/bus stop, with GLR in road, a subway underneath, and an underground rail underneath. The ultimate space saving system, unless of course, you care to add a double decker on top of that. I suppose that such a system is needed for super-dense cities with 25 million+ jobs in them and may be the only viable logistics solution. Indeed, one of the reasons why I use monorail so much is becuase intersecting tiles don't cross, along with the avaliablility of puzzle pieces like high monorail to avoid congestion. The problem of course is that monorail and elevated rail take up valuable surface space.

On an unrelated note, how does the Z handle busing? If I recall originally, buses do not add to traffic, but Z has changed that. Well, a road should be able to handle more bus capacity than cars. Just how effective is bus at reducing traffic? When I build my RTMT stops and train stops, etc. I tend to build the multiusage ones with the bus, the T-RAM (if there is GLR on the road), and subway. Bus is sort of an afterthought bonus. Some Sims do take it though, so, it is worth it, but how effective is it? It seems to exchange buses for cars 1 for 1. I noticed that when park and ride versions of Z are enabled, road capacities are the same, no matter whether it is for bus or traffic. (Sims take the bus a lot with the park and ride interestingly enough). Sometimes slow buses are attractive, even for R$$$ sims.

So is ferry for that matter. I'll do some tests to see how ferry routes will change between Z and other simulators. For the most part, Sims like bridges more than ferries. R$$$ Sims especially seem to avoid the ferry. Of course, ferry has its beneifts. Ferry takes up little space on land, uses otherwise wasted space on water and can go diagonal.

[rudric 0]

in the game. maxis had restricted possible commuting vehicle change to i think 3, what is the value in Z?

[chris0101 8]

Capacities are a huge problem. Look at what I had to do to modify my city: (Click for full resolution to see text)

(For your reference, the city has a population of 543,202. CAM was not used).

[z1 566]

Well, Chris, it seems you've really got yourself an interesting situation here.

Originally posted by: chris0101

Real estate becomes precious at 10 million. I wonder if supporting a city of 15 million people is possible.quote>

I don't know; the previous maximum residential population I had heard of was eight million.  There are a lot of indications that Simulator Z makes much larger populations possible.

As you have pointed out on Sc4 Devotion, what we really do need is an underground puzzle piece, preferably 3x3 or a cross that has a non-intersecting subway system that is clearly marked and visible to help solve the eternal commuter bug.quote>

This actually exists now in the form of ESURE, which works.  However, there are a few minor bugs in it that I need to fix up, and I need to get some of the lots converted to puzzle pieces.  I'll be working on this after the release of RTMT V3.60, and ESURE should be up on the STEX and LEX later this summer.

In the meantime, I think that the only real solution is RTMT v4. Hopefully we'll have a system of underground railway stops as well as subway stops. Won't that be interesting though? A subway/underground rail/GLR/bus stop, with GLR in road, a subway underneath, and an underground rail underneath.quote>

Yes, a full system of underground rail stations will be coming out with RTMT V4.0.  I hadn't thought about that four-way stop that you mentioned; there are no puzzle pieces that support such an intersection, but there's no reason that I couldn't make a station like that.  It would need to have a fairly large capacity...

On an unrelated note, how does the Z handle busing? If I recall originally, buses do not add to traffic, but Z has changed that. Well, a road should be able to handle more bus capacity than cars. Just how effective is bus at reducing traffic? When I build my RTMT stops and train stops, etc. I tend to build the multiusage ones with the bus, the T-RAM (if there is GLR on the road), and subway. Bus is sort of an afterthought bonus. Some Sims do take it though, so, it is worth it, but how effective is it? It seems to exchange buses for cars 1 for 1. I noticed that when park and ride versions of Z are enabled, road capacities are the same, no matter whether it is for bus or traffic. (Sims take the bus a lot with the park and ride interestingly enough). Sometimes slow buses are attractive, even for R$$$ sims.quote>

In Simulator Z, buses don't reduce road traffic at all.  However, road capacities are set to take this into account.  You're right in that a bus passenger causes the same amount of road congestion as a car passenger.  This is obviously wrong, but the only other alternative is to bring back Singularity Services, who run the Black Hole Bus Company in all the other traffic simulators.  You can stuff an infinite number of Sims into their buses and have no effect on traffic at all.  This seems far worse, and produces some very unrealistic traffic patterns.  I think that the only reason that other simulators don't let buses contribute to traffic, based on my experience, is that if you let them, the pathfinder isn't smart enough to prevent huge congestion problems on the roads.

The reason that some Sims prefer buses to cars, even though they're always slower, is that a certain proportion of Sims (which varies with wealth level) prefers mass transit to cars.

So is ferry for that matter. I'll do some tests to see how ferry routes will change between Z and other simulators. For the most part, Sims like bridges more than ferries. R$$$ Sims especially seem to avoid the ferry. Of course, ferry has its beneifts. Ferry takes up little space on land, uses otherwise wasted space on water and can go diagonal.quote>

Ferries are treated differently from all other forms of transportation.  They're not even governed directly by the traffic simulator plug-ins.  So they should generally behave the same among the different traffic simulators.

Originally posted by: rudric

in the game. maxis had restricted possible commuting vehicle change to i think 3, what is the value in Z?quote>

I'm not quite sure what you're asking; there's nothing in the traffic simulator that restricts how many time Sims can change vehicles.

Originally posted by: chris0101

Capacities are a huge problem. Look at what I had to do to modify my city...quote>

Yes, the High capacity version of similar RTMT stations uses similar capacities, though not quite as high.  And the "Service Quality" label is actually a lie; service quality does not decline until well after these stations show up as completely congested (completely red).  In RTMT V3.60, I am changing this label to "Reserve Capacity," which is a more accurate description of what is displayed.

[chris0101 8]

Originally posted by: z1

Originally posted by: rudric

in the game. maxis had restricted possible commuting vehicle change to i think 3, what is the value in Z?quote>

I'm not quite sure what you're asking; there's nothing in the traffic simulator that restricts how many time Sims can change vehicles.

quote>

I believe that he was asking whether or not there was a restriction in how many time you can change vehicles.

For example, say a Sim drives to a parking garage and changes to walking. That counts as a change in mode. The Sims gets on a subway and takes the subway to the nearest station. Another change. The third change in mode is from subway to walking.

Rudric believes that the original Maxis simulatior limits changes to 3 and is asking what the limit is on simulation Z. As you have pointed out, it is unlimited on Simulation Z. I have however seen Sims go from driving to walking to monorail to subway and get off at the RTMT in front of their work (or closest and walk). I believe that it is unlimited as well. I've seen ferries and other modes in use.

[chris0101 8]

I'll try some tests.

Things to experiment include:

- How much time, if any is saved by lowering the pathfinding heuristic even more? 0.003 seems like a good compromise, as lowering to 0.001 produces little tangible results.

- What if the boolean about busing adding traffic was changed to false? Will that make more Sims take the bus?

- Altering the intersection and turn capacity effect. As the intersections have less and less effect on traffic, will they make the Sims more likely to want to use their vehicles? By how much?

- Changing the max mass transit strategy trip length. When increasing or decreasing it, how much will it affect Sims' choosing of mass transit.

Although the answers to some of these questions may seem obvious, the question of context and magnitude of effect are not so easy to answer.

[z1 566]

I've already done all these experiments; I'll share my results.

Originally posted by: chris0101

- How much time, if any is saved by lowering the pathfinding heuristic even more? 0.003 seems like a good compromise, as lowering to 0.001 produces little tangible results.quote>

The value of 0.003 is the theoretical optimum.  Lowering this number does not improve efficiency, but does slow down the game.

- What if the boolean about busing adding traffic was changed to false? Will that make more Sims take the bus? quote>

Yes; please see my comments about the Black Hole Bus Company above.

- Altering the intersection and turn capacity effect. As the intersections have less and less effect on traffic, will they make the Sims more likely to want to use their vehicles? By how much?quote>

Theoretically, yes, but the amount is very small, and in most cases, it is not measurable.

- Changing the max mass transit strategy trip length. When increasing or decreasing it, how much will it affect Sims' choosing of mass transit.quote>

I tried many different values here, and was unable to establish a verifiable relationship.

[chris0101 8]

Pretty much that is it then. Simulation Z is the best simulator that can be made at the moment, at least without access to the Simcity 4 source code then. Good work!

[mfrk 0]

In and NAM traffic choice I don't see any of my rail networks in the data view. Neither passenger or freight rail shows up in the volume or congestion view. It is as if my rail doesn't even exist on the map. The stations are lit up in green, thought, like all the other transit stations. Thoughts?

[z1 566]

My guess is that you are using the viaduct (heavy elevated) rail, which for some reason does not show up in these views.  I personally don't know why; you might want to ask this question in the NAM General Discussion Thread and see if anyone else from the NAM Team knows the answer.

If you are referring to the regular ground-level rail, then this is not something I have seen before.  Posting a picture in that case might help.  My guess in that case would be that it was some mod causing the problem.

[Mike1814 0]

I feel that simulation z isn't being fully utilized. on my game. I think the only thing its doing it getting the traffic cop off of my back. Cuz there is few complaints about traffic but the abandonment still persists. Idk if the simulation is installed right or not because when I first installed NAM,  I did it without sim z just because I didn't know it existed.  i didn't uninstall it per se but just installed it again w/ sim z to see if it'll overwrite. Should I uninstall then reinstall the NAM.

[z1 566]

Simply rerunning the NAM installer and choosing a different traffic simulator should work fine.  It might be good to verify that you have only one traffic simulator installed; in your Network Addon Mod folder, you should have exactly one file whose name begins "NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_".

No traffic simulator eliminates abandonment completely; this seems to be due to a limitation of the underlying Maxis engine.  But you shouldn't have a lot of abandonment.  If you do, there are probably other factors at work.  Could you post a picture of your RCI Demand Graph (the extended one)?

[b22rian 153]

Abandonemnt can be a complex problem involving multiple factors.. Only  a few of these factors involve the

traffic sim's per se... For example even  "abandonment caused by commute time" isnt always the fault of the

traffic sim as silly as that looks.. here.

let me quickly illustrate the point..

"abandonment by commute time"- involves actually 2 areas..

1) involving the traffic sims sure, as sims struggle to get 2 and from work on time....

    however the second way you get this error message..

2) sims cant find jobs.. does not involve the traffic sim at all..

and its a little more complex than saying sims = available jobs..

For each wealth class of sim, be in $, or $$ or R $$$ sims have propensity for working in certain type of jobs..

and unless those certain type of jobs are available sims wont work there.. period.

it has nothing to do at all with how good or efficient the traffis sim is..

anyways just one example of factors outside the traffic sim involving abandonment..

Hope this helps,

brian

[Mike1814 0]

Thank you for the advice. I wound up ultimately obliterating the city just cuz the network wasn't set properly.  I had a highway that barely appraoched the CBD where most of the jobs were and the mass transit was being overused.  

[rudric 0]

Hello.

My city has currently population of 80 000 sims and im aiming at 1 200 000 population in the city and more in the region.

I have Z medium which I tweaked a bit. My problem is that im having red squares - congestion - even though the use of roads/avenues are (at the troubled spot) only like 1200 cars and 600 in busses, and my road capacity is 4000 and avenue capacity 4000 (=8000twolanes?), but yet im having congestion and red squares. Why is this?

Im also not very keen on the idea that the traffic plugins now include monorail pollution when in the previous simulators did not. I know that in Z u can use ordinances to iron down the pollution by congestion. But really, there should not be monorail pollution at all cos monorails do not pollute on tracks/lines. I thought that in the orginal RH monorails did not add to congestion (the tracks, stations yes).

[rudric 0]

I think, in many ways - Z is very un-IRL.

[krbe 193]

I think, in many ways - monorail is very un-IRL.

[krbe 193]

I think, in many ways - monorail is very un-IRL.

[krbe 193]

I think, in many ways - monorail is very un-IRL.

[CaptCity 4,893]

rudric...

Are your red squares at intersections? If so, that was 'designed' into the mod to give a realistic representation of slowing and stopping (even though Sims don't) at intersections. As for the monorail pollution, I believe this was a consequence of adding a congestion characteristic to the monorail network. You can have no pollution, but then it would never be congested. Or you can have congestion, but this comes with polution, hence the pollution ordinance.

I'm sure this is an over-simplified explanation, but I hope it clarifies things a little...

CaptCity

[CaptCity 4,893]

rudric...

Are your red squares at intersections? If so, that was 'designed' into the mod to give a realistic representation of slowing and stopping (even though Sims don't) at intersections. As for the monorail pollution, I believe this was a consequence of adding a congestion characteristic to the monorail network. You can have no pollution, but then it would never be congested. Or you can have congestion, but this comes with polution, hence the pollution ordinance.

I'm sure this is an over-simplified explanation, but I hope it clarifies things a little...

CaptCity

[CaptCity 4,893]

rudric...

Are your red squares at intersections? If so, that was 'designed' into the mod to give a realistic representation of slowing and stopping (even though Sims don't) at intersections. As for the monorail pollution, I believe this was a consequence of adding a congestion characteristic to the monorail network. You can have no pollution, but then it would never be congested. Or you can have congestion, but this comes with polution, hence the pollution ordinance.

I'm sure this is an over-simplified explanation, but I hope it clarifies things a little...

CaptCity

[rudric 0]

OK, thank you. Well there are many other issues with Z as well which im not going to list in here atm.

I like my monorails. And I like them without air pollution because monorails do not cause air pollution at all.

I have now switched back to plugin A due of many reasons.

I like the pathfinding in Z though, and I think Z would be really great if you remove and downgrade:

- the extra intersection congestion

- the 100% forced fastest way to go to work

There are traffic lights in every road and avenue intersections in SC4. But in IRL that is not the case. So there is also no congestion.

If Z wants to aim to IRL, it needs still to focus on how the game is hardcoded, because you cant hardcode the game in traffic plugins and trying to do so, you just mix the game more and more and are actually making more bugs.