NAM problem: All traffic pedestrian

[Potetgul 2]

I see someone else has posted a thread regarding a similar problem: All their sims cycling to work from one city to a neighboring city, but that person seemed to find a "fix" to the problem in using roundabouts. My problem is a bit different.

I am working on the first city in a brand new region, after reinstalling SimCity 4 and the NAM. I've had both installed and working properly before, and this time I did not even bother running SC4 before also installing the NAM.

The city is a medium-sized city, with development pretty evenly-dispersed all over the map. This morning, I poked around with the route query tool to find that pretty much all traffic in my city is pedestrian, no matter where I click. I have an industrial area right next to the edge, and clicking on one or two of those buildings reveals a tiny bit of freight traffic heading to the nearby connections--but aside from that it is all pedestrian. People are walking to work from one corner of the map to the opposite diagonal corner where the industrial zone is. Seriously?

I tried running theTraffic Simulator Configuration Tool to see what might be causing this, and I noticed that when I run it, a CMD dialog box opens up that displays the following error:

'java' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

If I exit out of that window, the Traffic Simulator shuts down too, so it seems that the TSCT tries to use java but has some problem with that and crashes. If I leave that CMD window alone, the TSCT stays stable and seems to work, though.

I just tried uninstalling and reinstalling Java, but that doesn't seem to have helped.

I'm totally confused now, not sure what is wrong or what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Potetgul 2]

Update:

Uninstalled the NAM and traffic went back to normal. Actually developed some areas with congestion. Never thought I'd be glad to see that!

Reinstalled the NAM afterwards, and things went back to pedestrian. One or two actual car routes appeared, but people are still mostyl walking.

[Potetgul 2]

Okay--Tried installing NAM with various different settings, and also tried tweaking the Traffic Simulator a bunch, and it looks like the "problem" is caused by setting the traffic capacity to Ultra: The higher I set the capacity, either in the Traffic Simulator or when installing the NAM, the more I see pedestrian traffic. I guess this is one of the ways the NAM augments the traffic capacities? When I set the capacity lower, I get more car traffic. So it's nothing "wrong" per se, but I must have been playing with Ultra settings.

Yeah...

[Zodicus 34]

Weird, never heard of this problem before.

[z1 566]

For the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool, are you running TSCT.bat, and not TSCT.jar?

The different capacity settings in the traffic simulator are simply what they claim to be. Using a higher capacity setting will not reduce the absolute amount of any kind of traffic. However, if you're looking at the Traffic Volume Data View, this view is based on total network capacity, and so it may seem to show less traffic as you use the higher capacities.

As for all the pedestrians, are you by any chance using Park and Ride? Although the traffic simulator will allow pedestrians to walk from one corner to the opposite one, this is extremely rare; as it's much faster to drive, they will usually do that instead. But Park and Ride does change that equation.

[Potetgul 2]

z1: Yes, I had been using Park & Ride, without fully understanding how it affects the simulation. Now I have read the Traffic Simulator guide and understand why Park & Ride is a very bad idea for a city with no mass transit system at all as of yet. Heh!

So now I've got it turned off and things are running more smoothly.

Thanks!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Generally speaking when installing a piece of software I haven't really sorted out, I choose the median way. I like the Greek motto "Nothing in Excess". Seems these days of everyone in a hurry, people just don't think to slow down a little. I am tempted to cite the story of the two bulls standing on a hill surveying the herd, but this is a PG13 site, and I'd get banned.

[Zodicus 34]

Generally speaking when installing a piece of software I haven't really sorted out, I choose the median way. I like the Greek motto "Nothing in Excess". Seems these days of everyone in a hurry, people just don't think to slow down a little. I am tempted to cite the story of the two bulls standing on a hill surveying the herd, but this is a PG13 site, and I'd get banned.

Being half eastern Cherokee indian I know this joke well. Hilarious and fits this situation nicely

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Yes, I've always believed one should saunter down the hill.

[redbullrampage 0]

I have this same problem but when i turn off the park and ride option, nothing has returned to normal.

The first time i set up the traffic simulator i had selected park and ride.  When i figured out that i dont want it, i was unable to change it back.

Now that i have learned that i need to be on the administrator account to make changes, it seems to have let me change it back, but it still doesn't fix the problem.

[Compdude787 916]

You may need to let the simulator run for a while after making these changes. The traffic simulator only updates a few times each game year. How long have you let the game run after changing the traffic simulator options?

[redbullrampage 0]

A few years, actually, but i figured it out last night.  I have two plugin folders apparently.

one under C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Plugins  and

the other under C:\Users\User\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins

 

In order to make the fix, i had to log into my admin account,

find the NetworkAddonMod_Volume_Data_View_Z_High_Custom.dat file and the NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_Z_High_Custom.dat files in the Program Files (x86) plugin folder,

and replace the out of date files under the users/user directories with these new files.

 

That took so many hours of frustration to figure out.  Ended up deleting ALL of my plugins in the process! lol

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, the clue here is stay out of the game residency.  The stuff at C:\Program Files ... is global to the entire machine and is really in the system area.  The only plugins that should be there are the sky textures that come with the game.  When you install some early Maxis plugins they also go there and should be moved out to the user area at C:\<your account>\Documents\...

 

One of the big problems we have these days is that users are unaware of this dichotomy.  The game essential data and executables are in the system area and should never be touched unless you really know what you are doing.  You should be a real system administrator before you hop in there because it is like working on your operating system.

 

In any case, everyone should know that the stuff in Program Files loads before any stuff from the user area.