How to Keep Traffic to a Minimum?

[Plat-O 1]

Hi All,

 

Like most I'm really struggling with traffic congestion.  How do you keep it to a minimum?

 

Road layout obviously plays it part, however I was wondering how you reduce the sims from using their cars in the first place?  In my most recent city I got buses and subsequently street cars up and running quickly.  I tried to keep them their capacity up so wait times were low.  This worked for a while, there was little traffic and the number of daily rides on public transport was high.  Then for no obvious reason they just stopped using public transport and the traffic blew out.

 

Any tips on keeping your sims on public transport would be great.

 

Cheers

[perafilozof 143]

Mix RCI, don't have many stations for busses or street cars. 2-4 for the whole city. Have lots of roads and avenues(not just the ones on which you zone, but extra ones so there is somewhere for all the cars to go once 300 cars leave a single high density building.) 
Use grade schools and school buses. College and University add a lot of cars. 

Don't have a reason for people to commute between cities.(unemployment, unsatisfied shoppers, unfiled freight orders)