Unable to Solve Traffic problems

[duhlink 0]

I spent nearly 4 hours trying to figure out how to manage the traffic flow properly, my trade depot vehicles were unable to make it back to the city so I could complete upgrades to my Petroleum and Trade HQ, I had 4 trade depots maxed out with 3 oil, 2 coal and a recycling center maxed out. My trucks just couldn't make it back to town fast enough.

Image1

TRAFFIC PROBLEM
1. I restructured my traffic flow 4 times, the entrance to my town a 6 lane highway STRETCHING THE ENTIRE DISTANCE OF THE ZONE just to get traffic in to my city... sooo that didn't work.

Here is an image of the insane traffic.

 

 

 

VISITOR PROBLEM

2. Had so many people moving in + visiting but my trade trucks were so slow I was barely able to stay positive, so I increased the tax rate to 20% on all income levels and zones
3. At a max tax bracket, no services enabled everything being destroyed I was being invaded by visitors... Did I attract all the neighboring meth addicts to strip my abandoned builds of copper wire???


 

[halicem 16]

Avoid 4 way intersections especially avenue x avenue.

- I found that sometimes only one side were moving, so with only 1 out of 4 avenues moving, it was pretty disastrous

T-intersections are life-savers.

- at worst case where only 1 out of 3 sides are moving, that's still 33% of cars moving compared to a paltry 25% on 4 way crossings

Also, avoid having small square grids - have your blocks longer.

- this lessens the chance of a gridlock since you've got longer stretches of uninterrupted road

Make sure you have more than one main road running through your city(3 - 5 running parallel would be nice).

- main roads don't have to be contiguous - if you find sims preferring one road over the other road, find a way to divert the traffic like inserting a break on the preferred road and channel traffic to the other arteries(don't just transfer it to another arterial road)

This may seem counter-intuitive, but in my city, I purposefully made my entrance a T-intersection. ie. you either have to turn left or right.

- this is an application of all the rules above, especially since sims seem to prefer the straight road that came from the region and runs through the city

These solved my traffic problems which was literally killing me(am relying on coal from global market.. Buildings turning off.. No more power from the region.. Losing money thanks to investment in big industry - whose deliveries are also stuck in traffic.. Yeah.........).

[perafilozof 143]

I have almost exactly the same problem as you do. I build at Oil city next to my 3 friends. I have 70 k population and 180 k visitors a month. My main problem is the shortage of workers, because the map is dominated by hills so I have little living space. There are over 10k medium wealth people commuting into my city and another 15k shoppers.

 

It took me very, very long time and probably $500k + from my friend not to go bankrupt (which I did about 10 times), because the traffic was stooping my raw oil deliveries.

 

What I found is that you can have all the "visitors" that you want, because they are part of the fake population. You have to eliminate the commuting in workers and commuting in shoppers that are driving to your city and making those huge highway traffic jams.

 

Develop your mass transit as much as you can, and change your city so you have no one commuting in or out for work or shopping.

[cristobal99 0]

I had a similar problem of my road into town being backed up by commuters, mostly students and shoppers. It was nothing to the extent of your problem with so many tourists, but I added a passenger train depot and added some bus stops. This has helped a bit with people getting in my city. Maybe try that and see if it helps any?

[TinyWeeny 6]

Make sure your population is balanced with your available jobs.

 

Too many available jobs? You'll see masses of people commuting in. Too few jobs? All your dudes will start commuting out for work. 

 

The commuting numbers are bugged or something though, so it will always say you have -between 0 and 500 Sims commuting, but you can tell there are tons leaving/entering if you just turn on the population data filter.

 

I'm working trying to make a max population city right now. It's about 200k at the moment, and if my jobs are imbalanced, everything goes to $%&^!. If I get them balanced, I have no problems at all.

 

 

And like halicem said, use T intersections. That 4-way intersection right at the beginning of your city is probably giving you troubles.

 

You'll need to play around with it to get it right. Just remember that for T intersections, traffic going straight will flow better. Traffic turning will have to wait.

 

IE:

 

| : |

| : |___

| : ____

| : |

| : |

 

Traffic will flow up and down quickly. Traffic coming from the right will usually stop and queue up for a bit before sending a batch of commuters through.

 

 

Another thing that I've been hearing is that medium density roads will not make stop-signs or traffic lights when they cross an avenue. If you have a high density road crossing and avenue, it will make a 4-way traffic light. If it's a medium density road, the avenue will flow free, and cars on the medium density road have to wait for an opening before joining the avenue. This can be handy in some places, but can also create large amounts of traffic in others.

 

 

And also always keep in mind that Sims always go the shortest route. If you can find the right ratio of residential to commercial to industrial, your sims will stay in the same basic area and won't try to commute all around your city.

[Ghnyltolk 1]

So far the highest I have reached was 720,000 people on a flat land.

[Ijuin 2]

Another thing that you can do is to build the Trade Port as soon as it becomes available and connect it to your rail line (if one runs through your city map) or the waterfront (if you have that). Rail/water transport will let you ship cargo in and out while bypassing road congestion entirely.

[notyetsuperman 0]

Is it also safe to say that those cities which are trying to rely on trade for economy should have a rail port or sea/river port?  Those will ship goods way more efficient than relying on trucks.  

 

*I've logged about four hours of game play still learning.  

[bjl707 4]

I've recently installed a trade depot in my oil city.  Now I don't need to worry about traffic (so far as oil shipments go.) Shipping by rail and ship is much more efficient than shipping on the freeway.