HSPR (GSPR) vs Rail

[Murcutt 25]

Hi Guys,

what actually is the specific difference between HSPR and Rail? I have read some posts about the use of the networks but for me it seems to be rather a matter of taste than a diffent use or purpose. I always have considered HSPR as a high speed train tool for long distances (like ICE in Germany or SNCF in France) with few stations in every city only. But from the capacity of it's stations it seems to be rather a local train than the usual railway which provides bigger stations... Also I do not find many HSPR (or GSPR) stations to download. There are more for railway.

So is HSPR just another train system or does it has effects to the traffic system of SC4, resp. different effects than usual railway?

[rsc204 21,867]

HSR is just an additional Monorail network, if anything it's better suited to long-distance travel than local travel. This is because of how those networks are coded in-game, sims will prefer to use it to travel between cities. It is impossible for us to add new networks in the strictest sense to the game. Everything added by NAM, must use one of the existing networks as its 'base', which defines many of the properties of it. In other words, it does and always will work the same as the Monorail in SC4, it just looks different.

What does this mean in practise? Well first it's a passenger only network, freight will never be able to use it. It will work with literally any monorail station, but may not look right (tracks). It is I believe the fastest method of transit in SC4 too, but there is a "time cost" for switching to/from Monorail, to make it less attractive for shorter trips.

If there are only small stations, that's simply because HSR was never a big hit, so it did not get much development from modders. There is no technical limitation against making very big stations, in fact if the rails are not part of the model, you can reasonably easily convert existing stations, to support other transit types.

However, HSR is not being developed further and may even be replaced entirely at some point. In the meantime a more flexible dual Rail/Monorail implementation, i.e. shared tracks that allow both types of transit, was recently added to NAM. I would expect that to see much more development in future, over the HSR/BTM/Monorail networks that existed previously. Although generally speaking, most of these things are more cosmetic, for example all SAM streets are just streets, but some fit better in particular situations. If the style of HSR works for what you are trying to create, that's the single-best reason to use it.

[Naomi57 2,985]

On 13/10/2020 at 6:30 AM, rsc204 said:

It is I believe the fastest method of transit in SC4 too, but there is a "time cost" for switching to/from Monorail, to make it less attractive for shorter trips.

I've had monorails in the past that were wildly successful, and others not so successful.  Some of those mysteries I solved, such as directness of commute, and type of workplace, but other monorail mysteries I'm still working on figuring out.

Does the "time cost" for transit switching mean that putting monorail stations on a siding (the middle station below) might noticeably improve commute effectiveness of through trains?

In a similar way, would use of a station adjacent to the line, such as the BriPizza 15m Multi-Purpose Station with Parking (on the left above), improve the commute effectiveness of through trains?

[rsc204 21,867]

6 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Does the "time cost" for transit switching mean that putting monorail stations on a siding (the middle station below) might noticeably improve commute effectiveness of through trains?

It just gives a delay for sims to switch between networks, i.e. to factor in getting on/off a method of transit and in/out the station. Without a valid TSEC (Transit Switch Entry Cost) property, this happens instantly.

That will improve capacity, since trains which aren't stopping have a dedicated line. However, it's a moot point, since the same number of trains will be travelling between stations, outside of that small 5-7 tile dual-track part. Stations don't actually need to "connected" to work, simply having them touching a transit network is enough. Which is how BriPlazza's station you showed works with an Overhanging set of Platforms.

6 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

In a similar way, would use of a station adjacent to the line, such as the BriPizza 15m Multi-Purpose Station with Parking (on the left above), improve the commute effectiveness of through trains?

Neither method changes how many sims are using the main line. I'd only do it in cases where I had capacity issues, but adding a second parallel line, with switches before/after stations, would improve the capacity of the network. But unless capacity problems are affecting efficiency, there is no benefit and a lot of associated costs with doing this.

6 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

I've had monorails in the past that were wildly successful, and others not so successful.  Some of those mysteries I solved, such as directness of commute, and type of workplace, but other monorail mysteries I'm still working on figuring out.

It's coded in-game such that commuters won't use Monorail for short routes. Due to the high speed of transit though, it's great for bringing large number of sims between large hub stations, where there are options to switch to various local-transit types.

How effective a station works in is a large part down to the specific transit switches in-use, i.e. those Inside to Outside and Outside to Inside entries. The Capacity and TSEC values are almost always pre-determined based on the station type and supported networks. Z (former RTMT Lead), along with the RTMT team did a ridiculous amount of research tweaking RTMT stations and testing the effects of those changes. This was in very large (multiple-million SIM) cities, with CAM in use as well. There is a quite a bit of this archived in the Private RTMT forums, but the basic conclusions of all this? Few, if any of the properties for TEing are as simple as they seem, the more you test a particular lot with multiple different setups, the better it may function in-game. But there sometimes seems to be literally no rhyme or reason to which settings make a station work better. If making new Lots, try to copy a Buildings Exemplar from a NAM or RTMT station which would work similarly. That way, it should be as optimised as possible, without having to do a lot of additional work.