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Rail under-utilisation

Started by QuinRiva, February 04, 2012, 10:15:14 PM

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QuinRiva

I have an extensive rail and RHW network that connects the four cities in my region, which are:

  • A predominately residential city which most people commute from
  • An exclusively commercial city which the people from the residential city commute through to get to the other two cities
  • A predominantly agricultural / rural city
  • An exclusively heavy industrial city

On the main highway out of the residential city there are about 15,000 cars and 10,000 bus passengers.  There is no-one leaving the city by train.  About 300 odd people travel out of the residential city, commute about 1 full large city tile to a train station in the centre of the commercial city and board a train there, to commute to the agricultural city.  A single person commutes from the agricultural city to the heavy industrial city.  Absolutely no-one is utilising the express GHSR which has a more direct route.

I have confirmed that there is no problem with the rail network by commuting along the network with a UDI train; however it just seems that everyone would rather drive to work than take the train.  Most of my population is poor at the moment (highly educated but poor, my commercial district is still quite small).  The overall region population is about 80,000, with about 70,000 of those living in the residential city.

The RHW-4 connecting the cities are beginning to become congested, but still no one takes the train.

Any ideas of the cause?

Terring7

Can you please upload some pictures of your cities and transportation layout?
"The wisest men follow their own direction" Euripides
The Choice is Ours
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Simtropolis Moderator here. Can I help? Oh, and you can call me Elias (my real name) if you wish.

QuinRiva

Ok, so this might better explain my predicament:


Most of my populace live in Tepin, they commute through North Tepin (Commercial) and then to either Haradra Fields (Agricultural) or on to Velodon Industries (Heavy Industrial).  You can see the rail network that mostly runs parrallel to the highway, and the GHSR (Magenta) that runs from Tepin to North Tepin.  Neither rail network is utilised at all.

A close up of Tepin:


Interestingly, after I build the small community in Basidor a large number of commuters have begun travelling from Tepin through North Tepin and into Basidor.  About 5000 by bus and 4000 by car.  This is despite the fact that Basidor only has 1000 jobs, but a population of 8000 and has no bus stop.  The road to Basidor list 5000 by bus and 4000 by car, but the road in Basidor lists only 500 people commuting into the city.  What's up with that?

Another weird oddity is that RHW-6 seem to have higher congestion levels than RHW-4:


This occurs everywhere that I have RHW-4 turn into RHW-6.  Any ideas?


cogeo

Maybe the simulator thinks that it's faster for sims to commute through the road network, rather than go to the station and use the rails. This may be due to the simulator settings, so check your relative speeds. Another reason may be the long routes of the rail network (I see two big L's). Try dragging a GHSR and/or rail section straight north (to the North Tepin border). Of course backup your region (not just the city) before attempting this (it's easy, just copy the region folder somewhere else). Otherwise there may be some break of the continuity of the rail networks. This is easy to test too, in your (test) region put some ploppables served by the rails only (you will also need another station and a small section of road or street), to see if the network is usable. The rail station has parking facilites too, which means that it can serve larger (residential) areas, and not just the homes within walking distance off the station (park-and-ride).

The reason why commuters go to Basidor, is again due to the simulator. All these cities are considered "connected", and when you simulate (run) North Tepin, having no knoweledge about the networks and connections between Basidor and Velodon, it thinks that it's faster to commute to Velodon via Basidor rather than Haradra (the diagonal section to Haradra isn't shorter than a L-shaped section would be, as in SC4 diagonal networks do not really exist - techically they are 90° turns put together).

Tarkus

Quote from: QuinRiva on February 07, 2012, 02:40:09 AM
Another weird oddity is that RHW-6 seem to have higher congestion levels than RHW-4:

This occurs everywhere that I have RHW-4 turn into RHW-6.  Any ideas?

In order to increase the capacity of the RHW-6S network compared to the RHW-4, dummy paths were added to the network to trick the game into thinking they were intersections, and the first value of the Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect property was raised from the default 0.7 to 1.25 in the NAM Unified Traffic Simulator, causing a 25% capacity boost.

However, if you're still using an older traffic simulator, like the old "Standard" (Simulator C), "Better Pathfinding" (Simulator D) or "Perfect Pathfinding" (Simulator E), the first Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect property value is still set to 0.7, and as a result, any network with the capacity-boosting trick (including the RHW-6S) will have its capacity decreased by 30% instead.  This seems to be what's happening here, and if you want to get the most out of the RHW, NWM or TuLEPs (all of which utilize the capacity-boost), you'll want to switch simulators.

As mentioned, the default NAM Unified Traffic Simulator included in the NAM installer is compatible with the capacity-boost, and it may potentially solve some of your issues.  I'd give it a try.

-Alex

longhorn2

Most of Tepin has to walk a long way to get to your rail station.  That may be causing problems.  As to people commuting to Basidor, that is one of the most frustrating things about the simulator to me.  As soon as you create a new city, sims in all the surrounding cities suddenly think that new city will be the next Midtown Manhattan no matter what your plans for that new city are.