Transit Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread

[CLR1SC4D]

Sorry about the long time between responses.  Other than the normal reasons like being busy I have been further testing the commute engine to better understand it, and isolate parameters so that I am dealing with only one at a time.

@dedgren: Thank you.  CLR, Chris, or Christopher is fine.

While working with the commute engine exemplar to refine information on "Transit Switch Entry Cost" I have come across some interesting info and discrepancies between what has been posted and what the tests are showing.  If I am missing something, or the test information can be repeated/confirmed it would be good to know.  (If this would be better posted in new thread or in the commute engine tweaking thread started by Mott let me know and I can post there or it can be moved.)

All the information was gathered with experiments where each Sim had the same network travel length by setting up a city in some form as below (except for point 4):

R   C
R   C
B==B==B
R   I
R   I

Where:
"R" = Residential Zone
"C" = Commercial Zone
"I" = Industrial Zone
"B" = Bus station
"=" = Road
In some scenarios the bus stations were replaced with roads or changed in size.  Most scenarios the bus stations did not provide jobs.  Also some experiments had a road looping around the top.

As the bus station in the middle was increased in length, with all other parameters remaining the same, the Commute Time increased proportionally to the increase in number of bus station lot tiles and the "Transit Switch Entry Cost".

Below are the summarized results in no specific order.  Information related to transit switch entry cost has been bolded.

1.) Commute Time displayed can be calculated by:

Commute Time = INT{[ SUM(Tiles Transversed/Transit Speed) + SUM(Transit Station Tiles Transversed/Transit Switch Entry Cost)/0.96 ] * 24}

with the following criteria:

• Sims start at the center of the tile beside the residential.
• Sims enter a lot at the center of the tile beside the lot.  If the commuter is entering for a job the "Transit Switch Entry Cost" is not counted.
• Sims leave a transit enabled lot at the center of the lot tile next to the transit network at the speed of the transit network it is going to.
• When calculating the number of Transit Station Tiles Transversed only those tiles crossed in the station plus the entry tile are counted.  If the width of a 1X10 station is crossed then one tile is counted, if it is crossed in the length then ten tiles are counted.

To get the appropriate "Transit Switch Entry Cost" to maintain commute time across a transit station can be calculated by:

0.96/Transit Speed

To maintain consistency with the previous information on preventing Sims from cutting across a station on a corner a "transit Switch Entry Cost" could be calculated by:

1.357645/(Transit Speed)

(96% of the diagonal across a 1X1 tile)

This Commute Time calculation might also roughly work with a scenario that jplumbley posted in Mott's thread on commute engine tweaking.  A Sim traveling a average network speed of 60 over 225 tiles would have a commute time of 90

2.) The "Trip Length to Minutes Display Multiplier" seams to have no effect on the commute time graph.  I have changed this by factors of 10 from 0.001 to 1000 with no changes.  This has occurred even when starting a new city in a new region.  Is this possibly a pre RH property or do I need to be looking for the effect elsewhere.

3.) "Trip Starting Cost by travel type" does not affect the commute time by adding to it directly.  It is the amount of extra time a Sim is willing to take on his preferred travel method (mass transit vs. car) before switching to the faster method.

4.) For non-rail travel (walking, bus, car, freight truck, monorail) adding to congestion also adds to air pollution.  I had a city of pedestrians only that I allowed to add to congestion and I obtained air pollution on my roads.  Likewise be switching off monorail congestion I was able to eliminate the pollution it was causing.  (Different city used for testing than the rest of the experiments.)

5.) "Commute trip max time" and "Max Mass Transit Strategy Trip Length" both seamed to be for one way of the commute.  When I set up a scenario with walking/driving speed of 1 and a "Commute trip max time" of 4 the Sims would travel a total of 4 tiles one way to reach a job.  Residential zoned further out would not develop.  This was consistent for other max trip times/lengths and network travel speeds.  (Network speed of 15 and a Commute trip max time of 17 allowed a Sim to travel 255 tiles across a map one way.)

Christopher

[jplumbley]

Im gonna go backwards here and start with #5.

5.)   What doesnt entirely make sense is that the Sims will walk upto 11 (tested) tiles in the default Simulator.  Any homes beyond that are abandoned.  This varifies the calculation mott did where you divide the "Commute trip max time" property by 2 and multiply by traffic speed.

6 max commute /2 = 3 * 3.5 speed = 10.5 tiles

So this test contradicts your findings...

4.)  Yes, the pollution is something that was known in the past and not realizing it when I packaged mine and mott's Similators for inclusion with the NAM... I set the monorail to be affected by congestion.  MAXIS dropped the ball on that one!!

3.)  I dont agree.  The values for "Trip Starting Cost by travel type for Mass Transit" are 0,1.95,0,0,0,0,0,0,0.....  The 1.95 value is in the position for Car Travel type, which would make sense only if it was adding this as a negative effect to the Car Travel type to promote the Sim to use MT.  Vice Versa the Car Preffered has 0.1 in the Pedestrian Travel type and again would only make sense if it was adding this as a negative effect to walking (MT) and promoting the Sim to use his Car.

2.)  The "Trip Length to Minutes Display Multiplier" has a minor effect, actually only a "cosmetic" one in reality.  The "Commute Time Graph" will always look identical in shape, what changes is the value on the Time.  When the value of the Multiplier is set to 1, it should display the "raw" average Commute time of your Sims in the display graph.  If it is equal to 2 then and they are all walking at a speed of 3.5 then your average walking distance is 7 tiles.

Now, if you change this value what you are changing is the value of minutes that each Commute Time Point is worth.  So, it is is set at 17, each 1 in Commute time is equal to 17 mintues of travel on the graph.  At a travel speed of 60 for Avenues that means the Sims go 60 tiles in 17 minutes.


1.)  I need some more time to read what you have said, so i will respond to this later.  Plus GF is getting angry with the clicking from my fingers hitting the keyboard.

[CLR1SC4D]

Some additional information found on the points you addressed

5.)  I will go back to the default simulator and make more tests to see if the differences can be clarified.  I was also interested in testing how one-way roads may affect this when the morning and evening commute are different lengths.

Edit: Testing with the default simulator (walking speed = 3.5, "Commute Trip Max Time" = 6) I had Sims walking 21 tiles from the residential to the commercial.  Why this is different from previous tests with the default simulator is a mystery.  When testing with one-way roads, driving speed 5, "Commute Trip Max Time" = 6 Sims would travel at max 31 tiles for the morning commute in approximately 150 time from the residential to the commercial.  The one-way road then continued in a loop greater then 3 times (> 100 Tiles) the distance between the residential and commercial for the morning commute which the Sims traveled for their evening commute with out problems.
<tt>
Diagram of one-way road testing.  The one-way road was laid in a counter clockwise direction.
===========
=         =
=         =
=         =
=         =
=         =
=         =
=         =
=  R   C  =
===========
   R   I

Where:
"R" = Residential Zone
"C" = Commercial Zone
"I" = Industrial Zone
"B" = Bus station
"=" = One-Way Road
</tt>

3.)  When I was testing this I had a city that started with car traffic only and the "Trip Starting Cost by travel type for Mass Transit" set to 0,0,0,0....  As I increased the "Trip Starting Cost by travel type for Mass Transit" there was no increase in Commute Time values until the Sims switched to travelling by bus, at which time the cummute time was that for the mass transit trip.  The time that the Sims switched to mass transit was when the commute time for car plus the "Trip Starting Cost by travel type for Mass Transit" was equal to the mass transit trip time, but the "Trip Starting Cost by travel type for Mass Transit" never appeared to increase the Commute Time Value.

2.)   It is the value on the Time that I was looking at and there was no difference as I changed the "Trip Length to Minutes Display Multiplier".  This was tested with NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_A_Hard.dat, as well as B_Hard and C_Standard.

Thank you for your review and time.

[RippleJet]

After mott posted his excellent tutorial TE Lots, Transit Switches, and You, I posted this reply and request:

I will implement the transit switch entry cost in the formulas for the "X Tool" for the creation of custom stations in the future!
And I suggest that the next NAM changes that property for all in-game stations accordingly!

Stations modded with PIM-X have since had an Entry Cost of 0.30.
After CLR1SC4D's excellent investigation and testing above, I suppose it should be lowered to 0.27 though.

However, making custom stations with an Entry Cost is futile as long as Maxis' own stations still have an Entry Cost of 0.00.
The picture below shows Sims walking some 17 tiles to a Maxis bus stop instead of taking any of SimGoober's closer ones.



PS. Thanks Barby for the picture!

In this picture there are four SimGoober 1×2 bus stops, all being closer to the Sim's house than the 1×1 Maxis stop in the lower left hand corner.
The Sims actually walked past one of SimGoober's bus stops on the way to the Maxis bus stop.
All these stops by SimGoober do of course have an Entry Cost of 0.3.

I know NAM doesn't contain any lots... at least the latest update did not change the Entry Cost of any of them.
Should I in that case make a separate mod that changes the Entry Costs for the in-game stations and stops?





Secondly, regarding RTMT stations, and in order not to bring this discussion up in the RTMT Team's board...
If the pathfinding is zeroed at each station the Sims pass, should we in that case even use the in-game ELR and subway stations?
Both the Elevated Light Rail station and the subway station are TE lots made byb Maxis (although the subway station is a little bit different).
Has any testing been made covering the subways? Wouldn't the pathfinder prefer subways over buses and cars in that case?

[b22rian]

there is so much custom content and a variety of modded stations available now.. indeed why even use any of
the original maxis stations.. ,wouldn't that solve the problem ?

Using the Cam and with such large cities now, i find using any of the maxis stations virtually irrelevant now,
mostly because of the low capacities they have..

Thanks for your investigations into this ripple

Brian

[z]

I know NAM doesn't contain any lots... at least the latest update did not change the Entry Cost of any of them.
Should I in that case make a separate mod that changes the Entry Costs for the in-game stations and stops?

I would certainly recommend that this be done - I think everyone's in agreement that there's no case in which the Entry Cost should be zero.  And if you're doing that, you might want to consider updating the stations' capacities and cost to match the simulator and difficulty being used.  This is clearly a separate issue, but it's something that would make the Maxis stations much more useful.