Help with overcrowded rapid transport

[M33K 0]

 In my dense residential areas, my monorail stations are overcrowded and this has increased commute times alot. Im using the nam simulator z.

Demolishing the line solves most of the problem but roads gets clogged up and other areas gets affected.

IN my neighboring city the same problem exists but with the subway.

Any ideas on how to solve this problem?

[SC4BOY 21]

Don't run your stations in a straignt line.. each station should be on a "passenger spur" instead of the main line.. . for example move the track over 2 tiles and place each station, but let the main line run by without a station on it. No station is really designed to handle ALL THE TRAFFIC of a main line.

[kccl35 83]

Agreed

[M33K 0]

Owh, thanks. Diddnt know the game worked that way. The monorail in my city has stations on the main line.

[Spinmaster 75]

This is one of the fun paradoxes in SC4: is it "cheating" to tweak a building, for the sake of overcoming an unrealistic weakness in the game? My answer: cheating is in the eye of the beholder. Me, I would (did) change the station's capacity (e.g. iLive Reader, SC4Tool, etc...), or download a custom station with an already-jacked capacity.

The problem lies in that the network has one capacity representing how many passengers can traverse it, and each station has another (much lower) capacity, representing how many people can stand in that station and board trains. Unfortunately when the two occupy the same space - such as an inline station (monorail, el, subway), the lot's capacity gets overwhelmed by the network. So even a 2000-passenger station gets "severely congested" by the 5000 passengers riding through the station, even though none get on or off at it. And it just gets worse down the line, when more and more passengers do board at other stations, but don't get off until near the end of the line.

You can use a "spur" to get around this limitation, but personally I find that unrealistic. I've never seen that for a light commuter rail system; and I've been through most of the major cities in US and Europe). Ground-level heavy rails, sometimes, and around freight stations and railyards obviously, but not light commuter rails (not to say they don't exist, just that I've never seen it... I've never personally seen Nebraska either, but I'll accept that it might actually exist somewhere ). So, enter option B: raise the station's capacity to that of the network.

There is of course a drawback to this - because now the station itself can't become congested unless the network is. So your choice is between an unrealistic spur (nevermind the extra space it consumes) vs. effectively eliminating one of the gameplay challenges (congested stations). Note that it is still possible to manually detect congestion at a tweaked station, though it is a bit tedious. You'd have to route-query the station, disable the network passing through it in the view (eliminating the passengers merely passing through), and add up all the people traveling to the station, yourself... all while remembering what the station's true "passenger" capacity should be. This is only for your own information though, the game only knows the station's actual capacity, so to the game what you perceive as congestion is just that, your own perception.

One exception is the subway: since it's underground anyway, it doesn't "look odd" to set the station one or two tiles away from the main tube, unless you're actually looking underground at it.

[Riot55 2]

With subways, I used the on-road, on-avenue etc mods and just made a bunch for stations that i didnt need to bulldoze anything with. It worked real well. I also added more lines in between stations, so instead of a rectangle subway map, i criss- crossed tube lines from stations to bypass others ones, etc. I also only use Better Pathfinding, I may reinstall the nam to support park and ride however in my later cities, as right now i reinstalled my game and all my plugins and only have 5000 sims

[Riot55 2]

Also, do you not have busses? essentially only having a road network and a monorail network means that anysim that doesnt drive is on your monorail. Maybe try adding a park-and-ride bus system fromy our outter areas to the core?

[k808j 0]

Looking at your setup with the highway next to the monorail and a pop. of 92,000 +, I'm suprised the monorails are overcrowded. Which simulator Z mod are you using (High,Medium,Low or Classic)?

[SC4BOY 21]

In real life, you don't run the main line through the "passenger stops". Why would one think it should be that way in SC4?

[k808j 0]

I respectfully beg to differ. In New York City the subway stations are built right on the main lines.

[Loney 22]

Originally posted by: k808j

I respectfully beg to differ. In New York City the subway stations are built right on the main lines.quote>

I'm pretty sure those stations allow traffic to move through them without having to wait for trains that are still unloading/loading passengers. Otherwise, I would be surprised how it NYC subway system can transport large amount of passengers without suffering hours of congestions and delays at the stations.

In SC4, the station coding will recongize ALL traffic going through it as a "usage", regardless if those passengers are getting on or off board.

[SC4BOY 21]

Yes, unfortunately that can't be modeled in SC4 due to the way transit switches work.. so setting them aside is the only way. .. and I'm no expert on NYC subways, but I bet even a quick check will indicate that through trains don't use the same track as stopping trains.. btw, the subway in SC4 can handle this by placing the station "beside" the line instead of on it.. its the only exception. If you wish to pay the overhead for subways, you certainly could replace that with subways.

[kingdiz_55 12]

How's about just adding another station right next to that one. That works for me.

[spaced5 1]

Interesting topic. In NYC many subway stops will have both a track for local traffic and another for express trains.  Manhatten generally has both as nearly every single subway line runs through Manhatten.  At other stops, for example in the north Bronx or southwest Brooklyn, there is one track each direction.  Unfortunately none of this information helps with our Sim City 4 cities.

This topic has me wondering about the bus routes. I always build them next to the road and some stops seen completely overwhelmed. Does anyone know offhand if building the bus stops with one road tile in from the main road would help in this situation as it does with the subways?

This leads me to my next thought, has anyone noticed that mass transit systems will not work if you want them to run to a city two city tiles away, unless the city in between has the same sort of stop?

[SC4BOY 21]

They all are related issues dealing with "entry costs". There are long threads discussing this, but not many actually make use of them as it requires the user to mod all his stations.. I for one am not that interested in the issue, so I put them on spurs. Suffice it to say it is a rather specialized discussion. Those interested can search for "entry cost" or take a look at some of the threads discussing simulator behaviour in depth.. The other option is to just make the station capacity equal the network capacity.. That of course would make a rural "bench stop" statioin have the same capacity as the big main stations. both methods are a bit artificial and again require the user to mod each station he choses to use.