Mass transportation strategies?

[Sgt_Strider 0]

I'm building a city for growth and I'm wondering what is the best form of transportation to use as a city grows in size? I'm afraid of buildings being abandoned due to commute time. I'm avoiding avenues because of the space that it takes up and I'm not sure how efficient it is in terms of reducing traffic congestion. I just experiemented with roads and subways and it appears that it's still not enough to ease traffic congestion. Should I add monorail or rail into the equation? Can someone give me an ideal layout in terms of putting mass transit next to the C/R/I zones?

[logintime 93]

You need avenues. They might be twice the size of normal roads, but they have a much greater carrying capacity and sims move faster on them. DItto with highways. It's hard to make a decent large city without either.

As far as mass transportation, use bus routes for your R$ sims, the subway for your R$$ sims (though really it is effective for all of them), and monorail/ferries for your R$$$ sims. Monorail is the fastest transport route but is also very expensive to set up and takes up a lot of above-ground space. If you have NAM you can also set up trams which run in streets to conserve space.

[jacksunny 741]

Also if you are ever laying out a subway, make sure you place plenty of stations even if they are all nearby each other. Sims tend to be lazy and don't like to walk very far.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

And bear in mind that Sims will drive at the drop of a hat, or on least provocation. R$$$ will almost always drive or take monorail if the distance is long. Consider NWM if you want higher capacity roads.

I just replaced a heavily congested ground highway in my mid town area with a MAVE-6, which fixed that problem beautifully.

If you don't like the idea of avenues, use careful one way road (OWR) circuits, but be careful of putting some properties into an unreachable corner.

[Sgt_Strider 0]

And bear in mind that Sims will drive at the drop of a hat, or on least provocation. R$$$ will almost always drive or take monorail if the distance is long. Consider NWM if you want higher capacity roads.

I just replaced a heavily congested ground highway in my mid town area with a MAVE-6, which fixed that problem beautifully.

If you don't like the idea of avenues, use careful one way road (OWR) circuits, but be careful of putting some properties into an unreachable corner.

What's the advantage of monorail over elevated rail or even rail? Instead of using a combination of those options, would it be feasible to use only avenues and subways? Or that strategy will be doomed to failure once the population starts growing?

Would it be feasible to just use a monorail system as a ring around the city instead of criss-crossing it?

What about rail? Is rail a viable alternative to use with roads/avenues?

  Edited May 12, 2011 by Sgt_Strider  

[Zeck180 18]

What's the advantage of monorail over elevated rail or even rail? Instead of using a combination of those options, would it be feasible to use only avenues and subways? Or that strategy will be doomed to failure once the population starts growing?

Would it be feasible to just use a monorail system as a ring around the city instead of criss-crossing it?

What about rail? Is rail a viable alternative to use with roads/avenues?

If you lay enough rail down it will almost eliminate your road congestion less yellows and reds. don't use only subs and avenues or else you'll see massive traffic jams during rush hour. Use rail ways though they may take up space they can hold more commuters and less strain on your intersections. I have a 340k+ city that is fully made of rails and street traffic 50 to 70% less than it would be if I only used streets and subways.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

What's the advantage of monorail over elevated rail or even rail? Instead of using a combination of those options, would it be feasible to use only avenues and subways? Or that strategy will be doomed to failure once the population starts growing?

Would it be feasible to just use a monorail system as a ring around the city instead of criss-crossing it?

What about rail? Is rail a viable alternative to use with roads/avenues?

I realize that monorail looks attractive, but it is really for long hauls like intercity transport. It is more expensive than anything else unless you adjust the fares in the simulation control program. It, and every other transports system except ground heavy rail, has no built-in parking, so you have to provide parking garages and/or bus service.

For myself, I use streets a lot, and sometimes decorate them with SAM textures to distinguish fancier sub-urbs. I tend not to have a really packed up city, but a scattering of sub-urbs with a downtown. I grow my downtown as indicated, and am not at all shy about demolishing (cherished) skyscrapers. If it is in the way, it is in the way. Upgrading a street to a road with updates of RTMT stations is natural and good. When the street becomes too congested, it is possible to add subway, but remember subway only absorbs pedestrian traffic and some of the bus traffic. RTMT stations have to be upgraded.

Sometimes upgrading adjacent streets to OWRs works best. I upgrade overloaded roads to avenues and overloaded avenues to MAVE-6s as needed. A MAVE-6 occupies the same space as an AVE-4 (Maxis avenue), but currently has some drawbacks which will be fixed on the next release. Since the transition pieces for these are 3 x 2, you have to have good length and you must use them or your path finding goes awry.

Urban heavy rail works well, can be anywhere, and stations are cheap, which means you can have a lot of stations. At the destination end you need bus service to get people to work from the station. For a downtown area, you might consider GLR, with Elevated Rail feeders and subway transitions as needed. All this light rail can be configured quite elegantly. If you drag elevated rail tracks down the middle of an AVE-4 while holding your mouth right, it turns into GLR tracks. You should download a tram image for this. If not, you will get the default Elevated Rail cars when you connect to it. GLR stations must also be downloaded from the STEX.

There are many options, and you should try to use as many as you need. Do be careful to keep any intercity lines in a tree structure. If you create a loop back, even from three or four cities away, the Sims will ride round and round, inflating your stats, and driving you mad. This is the dreaded transport loop that is a real bug, and we can't fix it. If you get a loop, break it arbitrarily, then repair the damage. One of the nearest occasions of sin in his regard is car/pedestrian ferries.

You may discover that stations get overloaded easily. If that happens to you, there are lots of higher capacity stations on the STEX.

Keep at it, and have fun.

[Sgt_Strider 0]

What's the advantage of monorail over elevated rail or even rail? Instead of using a combination of those options, would it be feasible to use only avenues and subways? Or that strategy will be doomed to failure once the population starts growing?

Would it be feasible to just use a monorail system as a ring around the city instead of criss-crossing it?

What about rail? Is rail a viable alternative to use with roads/avenues?

I realize that monorail looks attractive, but it is really for long hauls like intercity transport. It is more expensive than anything else unless you adjust the fares in the simulation control program. It, and every other transports system except ground heavy rail, has no built-in parking, so you have to provide parking garages and/or bus service.

For myself, I use streets a lot, and sometimes decorate them with SAM textures to distinguish fancier sub-urbs. I tend not to have a really packed up city, but a scattering of sub-urbs with a downtown. I grow my downtown as indicated, and am not at all shy about demolishing (cherished) skyscrapers. If it is in the way, it is in the way. Upgrading a street to a road with updates of RTMT stations is natural and good. When the street becomes too congested, it is possible to add subway, but remember subway only absorbs pedestrian traffic and some of the bus traffic. RTMT stations have to be upgraded.

Sometimes upgrading adjacent streets to OWRs works best. I upgrade overloaded roads to avenues and overloaded avenues to MAVE-6s as needed. A MAVE-6 occupies the same space as an AVE-4 (Maxis avenue), but currently has some drawbacks which will be fixed on the next release. Since the transition pieces for these are 3 x 2, you have to have good length and you must use them or your path finding goes awry.

Urban heavy rail works well, can be anywhere, and stations are cheap, which means you can have a lot of stations. At the destination end you need bus service to get people to work from the station. For a downtown area, you might consider GLR, with Elevated Rail feeders and subway transitions as needed. All this light rail can be configured quite elegantly. If you drag elevated rail tracks down the middle of an AVE-4 while holding your mouth right, it turns into GLR tracks. You should download a tram image for this. If not, you will get the default Elevated Rail cars when you connect to it. GLR stations must also be downloaded from the STEX.

There are many options, and you should try to use as many as you need. Do be careful to keep any intercity lines in a tree structure. If you create a loop back, even from three or four cities away, the Sims will ride round and round, inflating your stats, and driving you mad. This is the dreaded transport loop that is a real bug, and we can't fix it. If you get a loop, break it arbitrarily, then repair the damage. One of the nearest occasions of sin in his regard is car/pedestrian ferries.

You may discover that stations get overloaded easily. If that happens to you, there are lots of higher capacity stations on the STEX.

Keep at it, and have fun.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by tree structure? What do you normally use? Just for fun, I decided to use roads, subways, and monorail to surround a small 3x3 grid of residential zones. Despite having those three options, I'm still getting traffic congestion.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

A tree structure is exactly that. No branch loops back to the main trunk, and anyone traveling on it must come and go along the same branches. If any of the branches touch each other, you get a loop, or closed graph, which the Sims eventually will find, then just ride around, wrecking the simulator's statistical reports. Look at any deciduous tree, and you'll see how it has to go.

[z1 566]

Just for fun, I decided to use roads, subways, and monorail to surround a small 3x3 grid of residential zones. Despite having those three options, I'm still getting traffic congestion.

Are you using the NAM or the NAM traffic simulator? If not, it may be necessary to use them to get acceptable congestion levels. If you are already using one of them, you may want to try using the next higher capacity traffic simulator.

  Edited May 13, 2011 by z1  

[Sgt_Strider 0]

Just for fun, I decided to use roads, subways, and monorail to surround a small 3x3 grid of residential zones. Despite having those three options, I'm still getting traffic congestion.

Are you using the NAM or the NAM traffic simulator? If not, it may be necessary to use them to get acceptable congestion levels. If you are already using one of them, you may want to try using the next higher capacity traffic simulator.

I just installed NAM, but I didn't do any configuring. Am I suppose to? If so, how do I configure it to produce the results that I want?

[z1 566]

I just installed NAM, but I didn't do any configuring. Am I suppose to? If so, how do I configure it to produce the results that I want?

The NAM traffic simulator comes preconfigured at a level of Medium, which is normally high enough for the vast majority of cities. So generally, it's possible to reduce congestion to an acceptable level at this setting. However, if you are unable to do so and want to increase your network capacities, then download the NAM Traffic Subsystem and use the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool to set the Base Network Capacity to High (or even Ultra, if you have a humongous city). You can also fine-tune the network capacity in 10% increments by using the Network Capacity Multiplier.

[nukeu123 307]

residents/commercial hgave monorail, at the of the line (industrial) zones place a subway at every block of the industrial with the monorail

  Edited May 14, 2011 by nukeu123  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

residents/commercial hgave monorail, at the of the line (industrial) zones place a subway at every block of the industrial with the monorail

Very expensive and unnecessary. Try buses. If you have the NAM, you'd be surprised how far Sims will walk.

[Androgeos 73]

I tried setting up an El Rail and Monorail system in the same city once. If I didn't make space for either one beforehand, I would have burnt through much of my 500 000 simoleans rather quickly. Not something I'd try again in a hurry.

How useful is the Subway with NAM installed versus the cost of laying it? I tried setting up a Subway network in one of my more recent cities, but it doesn't appear to relieve road congestion much.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I tried setting up an El Rail and Monorail system in the same city once. If I didn't make space for either one beforehand, I would have burnt through much of my 500 000 simoleans rather quickly. Not something I'd try again in a hurry.

How useful is the Subway with NAM installed versus the cost of laying it? I tried setting up a Subway network in one of my more recent cities, but it doesn't appear to relieve road congestion much.

First, remember that the unit of measure in transport of any kind is the single Sim. You can think of it as each Sim gets a private transporter of any kind. No consolidation is done for transport containers.

I think the subway is just as useful with or without the NAM in the separate environments. However, the NAM does let you tweak the transit system in most aspects, so it becomes up to you. You need to install the TSCT if you did not, and run it to get to the various parameters.

As for money worries, get rid of them. Play on hard only to eliminate the crap advice from the advisors, and use the extra cheats .dll command moolah to load your treasury when you open a city. I generally load up 2,000,000 Simoleons to give the city a running chance. Then I take this amount out of the treasury once this grant is no longer needed. Consider it a development bank grant in aid of getting going. If you burn through that, you should decide if the city is worth continuing before you do it again.

I don't often use monorail for local transport. I use it inter-city because it is fast.

[Sgt_Strider 0]

I tried setting up an El Rail and Monorail system in the same city once. If I didn't make space for either one beforehand, I would have burnt through much of my 500 000 simoleans rather quickly. Not something I'd try again in a hurry.

How useful is the Subway with NAM installed versus the cost of laying it? I tried setting up a Subway network in one of my more recent cities, but it doesn't appear to relieve road congestion much.

First, remember that the unit of measure in transport of any kind is the single Sim. You can think of it as each Sim gets a private transporter of any kind. No consolidation is done for transport containers.

I think the subway is just as useful with or without the NAM in the separate environments. However, the NAM does let you tweak the transit system in most aspects, so it becomes up to you. You need to install the TSCT if you did not, and run it to get to the various parameters.

As for money worries, get rid of them. Play on hard only to eliminate the crap advice from the advisors, and use the extra cheats .dll command moolah to load your treasury when you open a city. I generally load up 2,000,000 Simoleons to give the city a running chance. Then I take this amount out of the treasury once this grant is no longer needed. Consider it a development bank grant in aid of getting going. If you burn through that, you should decide if the city is worth continuing before you do it again.

I don't often use monorail for local transport. I use it inter-city because it is fast.

What do you use for intra-city travel then?

[Vern 29]

I do the same as Moose in that I give my cities a startup fund that gets repaid when the city is in black. I've been experimenting with using OWR as often as I can. This has worked well for me.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I tried setting up an El Rail and Monorail system in the same city once. If I didn't make space for either one beforehand, I would have burnt through much of my 500 000 simoleans rather quickly. Not something I'd try again in a hurry.

How useful is the Subway with NAM installed versus the cost of laying it? I tried setting up a Subway network in one of my more recent cities, but it doesn't appear to relieve road congestion much.

First, remember that the unit of measure in transport of any kind is the single Sim. You can think of it as each Sim gets a private transporter of any kind. No consolidation is done for transport containers.

I think the subway is just as useful with or without the NAM in the separate environments. However, the NAM does let you tweak the transit system in most aspects, so it becomes up to you. You need to install the TSCT if you did not, and run it to get to the various parameters.

As for money worries, get rid of them. Play on hard only to eliminate the crap advice from the advisors, and use the extra cheats .dll command moolah to load your treasury when you open a city. I generally load up 2,000,000 Simoleons to give the city a running chance. Then I take this amount out of the treasury once this grant is no longer needed. Consider it a development bank grant in aid of getting going. If you burn through that, you should decide if the city is worth continuing before you do it again.

I don't often use monorail for local transport. I use it inter-city because it is fast.

What do you use for intra-city travel then?

Bus, regular rail, elevated rail, glr, subway. El, glr, and subway can be linked.

[urmomology72 0]

I tried setting up an El Rail and Monorail system in the same city once. If I didn't make space for either one beforehand, I would have burnt through much of my 500 000 simoleans rather quickly. Not something I'd try again in a hurry.

How useful is the Subway with NAM installed versus the cost of laying it? I tried setting up a Subway network in one of my more recent cities, but it doesn't appear to relieve road congestion much.

First, remember that the unit of measure in transport of any kind is the single Sim. You can think of it as each Sim gets a private transporter of any kind. No consolidation is done for transport containers.

I think the subway is just as useful with or without the NAM in the separate environments. However, the NAM does let you tweak the transit system in most aspects, so it becomes up to you. You need to install the TSCT if you did not, and run it to get to the various parameters.

As for money worries, get rid of them. Play on hard only to eliminate the crap advice from the advisors, and use the extra cheats .dll command moolah to load your treasury when you open a city. I generally load up 2,000,000 Simoleons to give the city a running chance. Then I take this amount out of the treasury once this grant is no longer needed. Consider it a development bank grant in aid of getting going. If you burn through that, you should decide if the city is worth continuing before you do it again.

I don't often use monorail for local transport. I use it inter-city because it is fast.

What do you use for intra-city travel then?

Bus, regular rail, elevated rail, glr, subway. El, glr, and subway can be linked.

I like to use the subway for both inter and intra city travel. Although it is expensive, I like the fact that you can keep it out of sight and save a lot of space, because it is all underground. Most of my sims use the subway to go to their place of employment, be it in the same city, or in another. Even my R$$$ sims ride it to the ferry, that they take to the neighboring towns on the same waterway. I never really use any type of rail, with the exception of for freight purposes. For small cities, I can get by by using a main avenue, and then just streets. For larger cities, I have to use roads and avenues. A method I use to keep congestion down on my roads and avenues is to put toll booths. They will entice Sims to use Mass Transit. My cities are only average though, as far as in comparison to others, and it is highly possible that my lack of rail usage prohibits growth. But if you are really opposed to rail, you can get by by not using it.

[jacksunny 741]

I usually use subway for my cities because it is underground, then I bring it above ground to a GLR when travelling through rural areas.

[Lucario Boricua 7,049]

For those wanting a more clear example of the dendritric transport network structure, I have here two examples set up for a symmetrical blank region I prepared.

This one here, with the blue lines, has four medium-sized tiles whose only direct access is to the city center; the other tiles are connected in four branchings.

This other one, with red lines, has eight branchings from the center.

But to provide imput for the topic's main content, a mass transportation strategy that may be useful is to set up higher density corridors along the intended mass transit lines--this will ensure both a sizable amount of commuters as well as reducing the need of surplus coverage of the area with lines and stations.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Nice illustration. It carefully avoids the continuous commuter loop.