Heavy traffic driving to nowhere

[WeBuiltThisCityOnSimCity 40]

I made a city connection to a city, and all of a sudden, there's thousands of people commuting to nowhere. There aren't even many jobs, if ANY at all, in that city. Yet there's tens of thousands of people driving there. I have a subway connection there too, and the next city doesn't have any subway stations, yet there is still traffic (albeit not too heavy) in that direction.

What causes this?

[Darkwings 5]

Did you connect 3+ cities or just 2?

If they're commuting to a city, and you know for sure they're not reaching a workplace, then you got an infinite loop.

[Pudgy 2]

what is an infinite loop?

[WiiGoGetter 65]

what is an infinite loop?

When sims drive round and round for no reason.

I made a city connection to a city, and all of a sudden, there's thousands of people commuting to nowhere. There aren't even many jobs, if ANY at all, in that city. Yet there's tens of thousands of people driving there. I have a subway connection there too, and the next city doesn't have any subway stations, yet there is still traffic (albeit not too heavy) in that direction.

What causes this?

I think its the loop bug

[CaptCity 4,669]

Randomuser, when the Sims leave to the second city, is there a way for them to return to the original city via a another city. If so, check the other neighbor connections in the original city. If you find one that seems too high, you've probably got an eternal commuter loop that the others are talking about. In that case, you'll need to break the loop and restructure your connections to decrease the likelihood of a loop forming.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The sure test of a commuter loop is, if between three or more cities, you get overloaded connections that carry more passengers than you have in the city. The response is to break the loop, then restructure your connections in a tree so that there is no loop back. One of the items that really contributes to this is inter-city ferries as they seem to operate in no-time.

[WeBuiltThisCityOnSimCity 40]

Will setting a maximum Commute trip time solve the problem?

[z1 566]

Will setting a maximum Commute trip time solve the problem?

No. To have any effect, you'd have to set the maximum commute time so low that you'd get massive abandonment in all your cities. Instead, you need to break the loop.

  Edited October 29, 2012 by z1  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That's right. You need to remove all loop-backs by changing your transportation network into a tree that dead ends in the boonies.

[Prophet42 1,500]

Another possibility is that the simulator assumes a certain amount of growth in the neighboring city while you playing the current city (called extrapolation). I simulator assumes 10% growth in the neighboring city's population and commercial & industrial demand. Maybe the increased traffic is assuming that the neighboring city has grown. Having said all that, it is most likely the commuter loop bug as stated by A Noony Moose.