Monorail Tracks Looping The Station

[scrounge33 0]

I have read somewhere, wish I could find it and link it, that you should have your rail tracks 'loop' the station so you can cut down on your commute time. See the attached image.  The logic was if the station ahead is congested the train can continue on to the next station without having to wait through it.  Given what I have learned about SC4 and NAM Sim. Z, this didn't logically add up. It doesn't know whether or not it has passengers for the next stop, right?

I set up a test bed city: high density residential in the upper left-hand corner, high density industrial in the upper right-hand corner and medium density commercial in the bottom middle. NO streets/roads of any kind connect any of the 3 zones. They are completely independent of one another. 

 

I connected all three zones via rail and let the simulator run for a year. Noting the commute time, I added more stations to bring the capacity under 100%, noticing that it did decrease commute time a bit (as expected) after the next year. When I 'looped' the rail tracks around each station (same as in the attached picture), the commute time went up. So I continued this on with the following types: Rail, Subway, Elevated rail and Monorail. The simple results are:

 

Rail = 'straight-through-the-station' faster than looping

Subway = no difference either way

Elevated Rail = 'straight-through-the-station' faster than looping

Monorail = 'straight-through-the-station' faster than looping

 

Can anyone else confirm or deny this? Perhaps I've missed something

[flyatl 4]

It is interesting that the subway is not affected.

[flyatl 4]

So do the trains actually stop at the station? Mine just go through.

[BattleshipAgincourt 1]

I hate this feature of the simulator. You SHOULD have intersections and stops taken into account, but they are completely disregarded and make absolutely no sense to commute times. Having the station on the looped track would only have an impact if the station is congested and the primary track is the more direct route.

[Mayor Dylan Thomas 2]

Originally posted by: BattleshipAgincourt

I hate this feature of the simulator. You SHOULD have intersections and stops taken into account, but they are completely disregarded and make absolutely no sense to commute times. Having the station on the looped track would only have an impact if the station is congested and the primary track is the more direct route.quote>

would a spur off of the main track have any impact on the commute time?? I imagine it would as there would be no debate for passing traffic which way was the more direct path (there would be only one)

[Nuck97 0]

I agree with Elclipticalstorm....Try placing the station on the secondary loop and have the main line run straight through uninterrupted, and use the same technique for the other methods of MT you tested.  The difference in commute time will likely be negligible until the line itself is congested with traffic.  If you could coax 15-20 thousand commuters onto that line, you should notice that only trains with passengers will leave the main line to go to the station.

Whether or not a stop either on the line or away from the line actually has any effect on commutes, well, I eagerly await any possible results.  I, too, once read that adding a secondary loop would help reduce commute times, so I've incorporated the same design that Eclipticalstorm has suggested into all my cities ever since.

[BattleshipAgincourt 1]

Originally posted by: Nuck97

I, too, once read that adding a secondary loop would help reduce commute times, so I've incorporated the same design that Eclipticalstorm has suggested into all my cities ever since.quote>

Even if that isn't so, it at least is something that would be more realistic for a city transportation system. Chicago doesn't have this, but I believe is considering adding this feature to provide nonstop traffic to and from O'Hare International to bypass several stations.

[scrounge33 0]

Damn nations, this is proving to be more than I can chew.    For every result I get, a new question arises.  I don't know where to begin.  I can prove myself wrong with almost every result if I work hard enough at it, lol.

Here is the basic setup:

- For a result to be valid the population must remain within relative approximation of the target population (small = 10k & large = 50k).

- Each test was completed 3 times, setting the track back to normal (with the station touching the main line [see R1]) and letting the simulator run for 1 year before beginning again.

- A test would run for 1 year and a definite "flat line" in the commute time identified to confirm results.

- Everything locked down tight and only changed the track between tests.

- Track laid out in a zigzag pattern in the large pop test in order to gain some time in the commute and make the results more obvious. [see TrackPathExample]

 

- 'Blocks' of residential, commercial and industrial, separated from each other, were connected via road only to a single station. [see SmallPopTest]

 

- Stations were not pushed past ~75% capacity usage, unless that was desired effect.

 

I was only working with passenger rail at this point and found enough anomalies to put a question mark beside every finding.  Sometimes I would simply switch which station came first and the commute time would drop by minutes.  Meanwhile the population, number of jobs, usage on stations, etc all stayed the same.  On a large scale, I found that it appeared the more track you laid down, even if it all flowed the same direction, commute time would slightly rise for each additional piece.

Is the algorithm for NAM sim Z a bit squirrely, does Maxis have some "flip a quarter" logic in there?  If anyone else wants to jump in and take a stab at it, please do…  stab the hell out of it.    I'm going to go outside and get a breath of fresh, clean, just-rained Missouri air.