Real Highway (RHW) - Development and Support

[Haljackey 17,354]

Originally posted by: Pixelrage haljackey: Is that a european road? I've never seen a highway with an HOV lane on the left like that.quote>

 

Really? You havent seen them on the left?  This is a Canadian road, and many highways in the province of Ontario are adding HOV lanes to them to help both to increase efficency and to persuade people to carpool which will help Canada achieve its Kyoto protocol.  I think I have seen other countries with HOV lanes on the left too.  Follow the link I made on the post as it will help explain how the HOV lane works

Heres the link agian:

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/hov/video.htm 

[Pixelrage 34]

Thanks! That's pretty interesting. Makes me wonder why they were never implemented here.

[Yoman3 5]

I think that the lights should be optional or something because I would want them and others may not?

[simzebu 19]

@ Pixelrage: From the New Jersey Turnpike logo, I'm wondering the same thing! I actually wish that we would put in some HOV lanes here where I live (Albany, NY). Although I guess that the tolls are probably the problem here.

[cnystrom1 1]

so im a bit lost... the 4 or 5 lane rhw is still in testing, and unavailable for download, right? either way, great job it looks great

[cityhawk 12]

Man, I haven't visited this thread in a long time, but I'm really liking what I'm seeing here! The potential in all this is really great, and I applaud all the modders that are working on this project. Great job, everybody!

[Pixelrage 34]

Originally posted by: simzebu @ Pixelrage: From the New Jersey Turnpike logo, I'm wondering the same thing! I actually wish that we would put in some HOV lanes here where I live (Albany, NY). Although I guess that the tolls are probably the problem here.quote>

Toll booths are awful here, too (mostly during rush hour). I think that busses and shuttles and all of those multi-passenger vehicles contribute to awful traffic. Unfortunately, all of our roads (especially Rt. 17, Rt. 4, GSP, Turnpike) are all ancient and will probably never be expanded for HOV. We're lucky if they can repair a patch of road within a year, as it is

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Agreed with Pixelrage.. heh..

[simzebu 19]

Ours are actually collapsing. But the Thruway is actually in pretty good shape near me. It looks a lot like that rural highway modd thing.

[josefmayor 8]

Toll booths in florida are getting better.

The newer toll ways (In Orlndo ad in the new Selmen Double Decker Reverse Traffic Cross Town Express Way in downtown) all use a "Sun Pass" Special Lane where they break off and can go 65MPH through the toll way then go back in to the main flow.

The sun Pass is the equivolent to the E-Z pass in the north east.

However I do wish they had HOV lines on the expressways without the break away lane, because it takes me 30 minutes to travel 7 miles to get to school in the morning.

[simzebu 19]

They're planning some new high-speed EZPass things that will let people with EZPass go through (Or Thru) the Thruway tolls without slowing down to 5 mph. They haven't put them in where they actually need them, i.e. anywhere within 20 miles of any city. Ge-ni-us.

[Haljackey 17,354]

People!  Lets stick to the RHW in this thread!

As for the toll booth problem, it is pritty much starting to be elimated everywhere but the in United States.  The rest of the world is now biulding electonic toll routes or upgrading existing routes to meet this standard.  Eletronic toll routes completly eliminate the need for toll booths, which completly eliminates toll booth backups.  No idea why Americans are not following the rest of the world here, but it has proven sucessful in every route so far.

Im not going to go into detail about how electronic tool routes work because it has been posted before in various threads.  Go to this website if you want more information:  http://www.407etr.com/ 

[simzebu 19]

I might have missed something, but it looks exactly like High-Speed EZPass. Correct me if I'm wrong, but basically you have a thing in your car that transmits a signal that is picked up by the toll place and gives you a bill every month or year or whatever, based on how far you go. But what if you don't have a transponder? Oh. Just found the answer to that. Yeah, why don't we have that?! Taking pictures of plates is a good idea! We already do, but we don't use them for tolling purposes. WHY?!?!?!

Oh, and as far as sticking to the topic, something tells me that won't happen until we get some more news about the progress.

[Ryan B 35]

I hope Buffalo gets rid of their toll booths. The New York State Thruway has toll booths on either side of Buffalo. Which stinks because if you live outside of Buffalo and have to use the Thruway to get to work, you've got to pay to go to work and come home. It's really ticking a lot of people off out here.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

50km free? The only way they can do that is through distance-based tolling ,and I highly doubt that many highway systems in the US have them. And we've been using those E-tags (as called here in Australia), for the last 6 or so years.

It's pointless having a breakaway lane, when the people with tags can just cruise through at 80kph, and the people who fiddle with cash go off to the side.

It works. Really.

[simzebu 19]

Originally posted by: Shadow_Assassin 50km free? The only way they can do that is through distance-based tolling ,and I highly doubt that many highway systems in the US have them.quote>

That's what we have on the NYS Thruway. I actually have been trying to firure out a good way to do that in SC4, but it hasn't worked yet.

EDIT: I think that the Mass Pike has it too.

[Haljackey 17,354]

Originally posted by: SamJam That would require a lot of real estate in the game:

The Parclo A4, designed by the MTO, requires at least 100 metres of accel/decel lane, 50m of which does not include the ramp itself. You could get away with 3 tiles of RHW alteration there. The ramps themselves must be at least 100m (straight or curved) to 150m (loop) to maintain safe speeds that adhere to the legal limits (generally 40 km/h). A loop that size, combined with the straight ramp intersection at the road, would probably need a 9-tile box.

quote>

Just wanted to know how we are going to develop our interchanges.  Having puzzle pieces for each direction of traffic would be best, but it may be tricky to fully implement.  When the puzzle pieces are fitted correctly (like a puzzle)  the interchange should look like this.

MTO A4

This, one ramp from highway, two from roads, stoplights inside the interchange

US V5

Not this, stoplights would be on the outside, and 2 ramps from highway

Note:  I'm not developing the interchanges, but I just wanted to let the developers know what design may become the final decision and when it is avalable for beta testing.

[Haljackey 17,354]

Just an addon to my last post, but i have another proposal for regular highway/RHW interchanges.

Its called the cloverstack (part stack, part cloverleaf).  The flyover ramps would be used by the regular highway and the leaves would be used with the RHW.  Heres some pics to show how it works and to draw a base for interchange designs.

The RHW would run left/right here, 

                                                                   the regular highway up/down

A cloverstack viewed from the sky

The same interchange from the ground

A cloverstack attempt in simcity by oroen's city journal of Downingsford:

As for T-type intersections, I suggest using a trumpet.

I will not get into detail with that, for it has already been discussed in several threads in simtropolis' fourms.

Let me know what you think!

[cowkilla 12]

you guys are crazy... but i cant wait to plop these around my cities!

[Skyfire2275 23]

You guys have some excellent stuff here! I can't wait until it is completed! Keep up the good work!

[Zeddic 3]

Well... just to inform everyone... I've been on a long holiday trip around Europe, so I haven't had even an opportunity to do anything with RHW (or computers at all, for that matter). But now I'm back (even though leaving for a smaller trip already later today... *sigh*) and ready to do some work. Some 'new' textures here:

A smoother version of street ending to RHW

Street crossing RHW (Not sure if this can be used, but I hope so)

Finally, RHW with left-turn lane for at-grade crossings with road/ave.

However, there's no space for a right-turn lane with even a little bit smooth turning to the crossing road without using extra tiles outside the RHW itself...

And what about arrows? Shall I just copy them from ATL or something else? Suggestions?

(@ qurlix: Again, I have PNGs of the same things; better quality, I think.)

Oh well, so far that's it. I'll get back to it when I can just stay home.

/Zed

[____----____ 37]

wow Zeddic that looks great, it is real cool to see you back and doing such great work

Alek

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[Haljackey 17,354]

Wow, awsome work!

For right turns/exits, many rural freeways cancel their emergency lane on the right to replace it with a acceleration/decelleration lane for interchanges and possibly at grade crossings.  If you improvise, we can still have right turn lanes in the same tile but you have to take away the shoulder. Thats the only I think it may be done.

Heres an example

See that there isn't an emergency lane?  It ends at the start of the decelleration lane (exit ramp) and begins agian at the end of the acceleration lane (entrance ramp)

[louistsw 1]

I can`t build the RHW.

How to build it?

I have already tried many times.

[U3D 6]

1. You need the NAM

2. You need to have the ANT network installed (comes in NAM as option)

3. ...i dunno what 3 is, but you might need to reinstall NAM. Whats the exact problem?

 drag two ANT roads right next to each other... _{thats what i forgot} and it should show up

[mapper 1]

louistsw-

Here is a tutorial on how to create rural highways. 

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=23&threadid=75821&STARTPAGE=3&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

If that doesn't help, then there maybe something wrong with the way you installed the mod.

-mapper

[Zeddic 3]

Okay, back from that shorter trip... ...for a day home until leaving yet again... Aargh!

@haljackey Well, that's the way I thought of doing it... but there's still a small problem:

Tiles outside the RHW line itself should remained unchanged to keep junction versatility at maximum... But with a right-turn lane, an outside tile would have to be used to make any kind of curve to the turn. (Not as if SC4's own junctions have any, but...) Comments on this?

And some real work, too... Euro-road ending at RHW:

/Zed

[james50000000 0]

where is a good place to download the RHW i had to reinstall sc4 deluxe.

[hamsterTK 93]

^^^same question i was going to ask.

Its amazing to see whats been happening around here lately. i though this project sort of died but i can see thats not the case