Stoplights are very inefficient

[Moonraker0 192]

 The stoplights in all my cities are very bad for traffic.  They stay green for a very short while at certain intersections, sometimes staying green for the same amount of time as they stay yellow, and this is causing a huge traffic jam whenever I use an intersection instead of a roundabout.  I'm using NAM's Simulator Z Low file.  Is there any way to fix them so they are more reasonable?

[heitomat 156]

That is one serius jam you've got there!

Traffic lights are timed/animated props to provide realism to the simulation, and the duration of the green/red light cannot be modified. You could install a traffic light mod to change the appearance of the traffic light, though (Some mods actually removes the traffic lights entirely). However, the cars will keep stopping at the intersections because the automata is set up to behave like there is a red light, even when it's not..

If you want a more reasonable traffic flow, you should use roundabouts (as you've already tried) or ease the amount of commuting cars by adding a GLR or subway network.

[Vahr 341]

Well thats some traffic I must say. Ease it by adding frontage roads that connect to the center avenue at select spots.

But as a note, the traffic lights in the game are very basic and not too smart. They are all timed together according to network.

However, I would like to correct heitomat's statements here....

1. The duration can be modified, there are properties in the automata tuning file. The traffic lights are 3 frame animations, 1 per state.

2. Only the very recent traffic light mods actually are properly animated (mrtnrln's mod is an example I believe), through a process I discovered. The rest are static props.

3. Traffic lights and automata synch to an internal clock that runs the stop-go sequences. So if you remove the traffic light, it will still behave like there is one, because of that internal clock.

[david1314 44]

I wouldn't call this a bug or technical issue.  SC4 is a city simulator after all.  Traffic lights behave in game just as their real life counterparts do (and as their name suggests): they cause traffic. 

[heitomat 156]

Thank you to Blue Lightning for correcting me and for explaining way better than I managed myself.

Anyway, I think we can agree that even though the actual duration can be modified, the traffic will still behave according to the internal clock.

Or am I wrong.. again..?

[Moonraker0 192]

Hm, well I guess that explains why roundabouts seem to be so popular. I will try adding frontage roads in my cities, and hopefully that'll help.

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

You may want to make that Avenue into a short ground highway, and use the NAM Stack Interchange. This one. http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Sim_City_Stack_Interchange.png/300px-Sim_City_Stack_Interchange.png

Another thing You should go Download the NAM.

[specializedguy 193]

Hey there folks. As the others have mentioned, that is a serious traffic issue you have going on there. In simply looking at your picture, I noticed the Elevated Rail as the only non-road MT you have going on. Perhaps an option for you would be to utilize a GLR solution or expand the Elevated Rail (no traffic lights on the the L-train) you have already to reduce traffic (based on the picture, MT is definitely being utilized). The NAM is an excellent solution also. The RTMT GLR stations even offer a combination of a GLR and bus stop so you can maximize your MT network. They are available on the STEX. Let us know what you implement and give us an update when you can.

[kingdiz_55 12]

How's about not letting roads run across the entire avenue bu rather just on parallel sides. that way, you can control the traffic flow and you could maybe just add some u-turn slots.

[Moonraker0 192]

All good solutions that I'll try to implement.

@kingdiz_55: Yes, I'll do that, but only when sims have a roundabout to change lanes in. It's fine, though, to have crossing one-way roads because they don't utilize their lights at all. Unfortunately, some of my small cities are elevated rail over road-based, so crossing roads across avenues are pretty much mandatory in those cases.

@JGellock: Yes, I guess I'll just expand the subway network there; it's covering only half of the city right now. I do have SFBT stations for tram-in-avenue that have a bus stop as well, and also the Mas'71 subway/bus in avenue roundabout station I recently downloaded and am now using often.

@YoshiMX3: I may do that for the main roadways. This might be a little off topic, but do you know what highway wall mod that is in the pic you posted? It looks really nice.

[willsim 0]

Yes that is a bad glitch in the game that needs to be fixed

[SC4BOY 20]

There is no "glitch" in the game. The traffic lights are PURE EYECANDY and have absolutely NOTHING to do with the sims travel simulation. (and the automata .. those cars and buses etc that you see on the roads... also have nothing to do with the game simulation as well).. All of that stuff is just to give the "appearance" of a busy city.. the actual simulation has NO TRAFFIC.. it is a series of states resulting from the simulation computations. And the "congestions" you see at intersections have little to do with travel times as well unless you have extremely high congestion (about 5x network capacity or more). Of course it always makes sense to design your cities with good transportation as well as travel options.

[Jeiman2008 21]

The quickest, easiest solution to get rid of this traffic jam is scroll away a screen or two, then come back and the automata will have righted themselves.  Another idea is reinstall NAM and try a different automata plugin.  If you're using Radical/24h try a Standard one.   You could also try my mod, which is basically a re-tune of NAM's automata plugin and has 3 versions. -Link-