Who has a problem with commute time?

[sixers33 3]

Me!!!!!

Nup, not moi

 

sometimes

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The answer is in the NAM. It is not for the faint of heart or the relatively novice computer user.

[mudspreader 0]

I have the NAM and I still get ridiculous commute times. Subways, buses, trains, and still get commute times of over 40 minutes. This actually brings up another point. A large city is only 4 km wide. How in h*** can it take 40+ minutes to go 4 km?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

For one thing, it depends on which NAM modd you picked for the pathfinder. The other has to do with layout.

Mine works fine with the NAM. I don't have commute problems (by which I believe you mean abandonment) because I mix my R and C and run adequate services to the industrial area.

When placing transit stations, remember Sims will walk a total of 8 grid sections to get to work. If you have water venues, use ferries in preference to bridges.

[Tolomar 5]

the doozer don't have comute or abandoment problems either...sounds more like a city lay-out problem more than a comute problem though as nobody says.

 

ps the game is a simulation , hence the sim in simcity 4...not reality....MIT made a realistic comute simulator for Boston to help with route changes and other such things for the big dig...worked great...think it cost them close to 100 million though including hardware and software making.. I saw it on discovery and it's comute times were realisticly acurate to about a minute....but the graphics kinda sucked

[mcarch 15]

Well, I can admit this.

I use the NAM, and I do still have commute problems.  You say 40 mins cuase commute problems?  How about 10-20 mins?  Yes, 10 to 20 mins... at least that is what the graph says.

[newyorkstate 6]

Unintelligent Commute Times forcing me to come up with new strategy...

[De Ja Vu 117]

If you have commute problems, then just bring your commercial and ind. zones closer to your city. I fyou dont want your ind. zones pollutioning your city you should enect the clean air ordinance. That way I have no commute problems and still have a lot of jobs, ;D

[ayerike 0]

One sim walks to work about 7 tiles and when I clik on his house it says his commute is medium. Is there any way to modify the commute values?

[Praetorian Cohort 0]

Originally posted by: mudspreader

How in h*** can it take 40+ minutes to go 4 km?quote>

It took me 30 minutes to drive 2 miles today.

to answer the original question: I am normally able to keep my commute times pretty low. I use a lot of busses and subways, and my road layout is pretty much a solid grid, with a few odd roads thrown in for kicks and giggles.

[bigredk001 0]

I must be doing quite well then. In my cities 27 year history it has been well below 8 minutes. Only once for a brief time did it peak close to 16 minutes, and then against at around 10-11 minutes. It's currently down below 4 minutes. My strategy, an extensive network of passenger rail and ground/elevated Light Rail that has many stops in all the major locations, in addition to bus stops. I use a trainstop from Sim City Central called Martin's Train Stops. They have a low capacity (1500 for single track and 3000 for double track versions, but they do the job very effectively being really cheap, and the only space they take up is on the rail tiles themselves. I also have an effective highway, linking many parts of the city. The only place where my city is in a grid pattern is in the commercial core, and it is effectively central in the city with the residential sprawl starting in the north and then the sprawl making it's way in a clockwise, and counterclockwise pattern around the commercial. I've booted all the dirty and manufacturing out of the city into an industrial park that people's only option to get there is by rail, which helps keep cars off the roads. Looking at my traffic volume, here are my numbers. These are all estimates: 8200 car, 8000 pedestrian, 5800 Bus, 3100 passenger train, 800 sub/el train (but primarily because it's limited to a single route cutting through the commercial core. I'd use it more, but I've gotten to like having the passenger rails effectiveness. The city currently has 39k residential, and is still growing, but the current numbers indicate that commute times will still drop. Unless the sims suddenly start deciding to get into their cars.

[Marty22 0]

wow, you guys are doing great with the commute times!!! My city is at the moment 30k big (small) :-) and it's on a large tile. It's got a comm only downtown area and some more comm zones mixed with res. zones. the industry is on an adjacent medium sized tile. From the very beginning, i planted a plethora of busses, added the train and monorail.. but commute times are never lower than 80 minutes!!!!! what am i doing wrong? i have the NAM.

[dpk 0]

Heh, the commute time on my main city hovers between 90-100 minutes. I never have problems with demand, though. There are very few choke points in the system: A few fully-packed subways which I'm working on dividing up (parallel routes) and monorails, on which I am told congestion doesn't matter, and the occasional intersection.

I am using the NAM, and recently updated to the latest one, with the .exe installer. I didn't get to choose which pathfinder to use, but I've been using the 2x standard stuff -- I don't want to go overboard.

I think my problem is that I let the region grow "organically", and then applied some rather harsh policies ("no manufacturing in this city", "no busses", etc). I'm now going through the system location by location applying fixes, installing tunnels, updating routes, etc. I am wondering if it is hopeless, though. I've made major changes to major problem areas and have seen no change to the graph.

How much time is tacked on when a commuter has to leave town to work? I assume it isn't 0. That might be the entire problem.