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NAM Traffic Simulator and Data View Help

Started by z, January 18, 2009, 05:24:20 PM

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lorenz4

Thanks for your quick answer.

Sorry, I was confused thinking that simulator Z was still using the speeds/capacities in this post:
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5382.msg170200#msg170200

Now I see you use the same speed/capacity for road/one-way/avenue, not sure why you decided to change that. The original Maxis values though are biased towards one-way/avenue (1000/2000/2500, also more speed for avenue), and I somehow agree with that because in RL avenues usually have higher legal speed; and also one-ways even they usually have the same permited speed they have a greater effective speed than two way roads because the traffic-light sequence effect. However I think that Maxis values are too much biased (2x Capacity on one-way over 2 ways is too much), I would chose something in the middle between that and Z, but that is just a personal opinion.

So the intersection effect only affects roads? Do you know if it affects highways and RHW too?

About  GLR speed, can you point me to any discusion that may arrise about it? I would like to know if that is implemented and also just curious about how the speed change can be implemented there.

Thanks.

lorenz4

Also another question. Why is Monorail's "Travel type generates  traffic" and "Travel type affected by traffic" properties both set to false, isn't that wrong?

Thanks again.

z

Quote from: lorenz4 on March 12, 2009, 12:30:45 PM
Thanks for your quick answer.

Sorry, I was confused thinking that simulator Z was still using the speeds/capacities in this post:
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5382.msg170200#msg170200

Now I see you use the same speed/capacity for road/one-way/avenue, not sure why you decided to change that. The original Maxis values though are biased towards one-way/avenue (1000/2000/2500, also more speed for avenue), and I somehow agree with that because in RL avenues usually have higher legal speed; and also one-ways even they usually have the same permited speed they have a greater effective speed than two way roads because the traffic-light sequence effect. However I think that Maxis values are too much biased (2x Capacity on one-way over 2 ways is too much), I would chose something in the middle between that and Z, but that is just a personal opinion.

Capacity was changed for two reasons:  1) It's required to be compatible with the upcoming NWM, and 2) it's actually realistic.  According to standard traffic engineering principles, two roads with the same speed limit will have the same capacity per lane, all other things being equal.  And unfortunately, there's no way to get variable speed limits for roads in SC4.  As for avenues, you're right, and I initially had avenues at a higher speed (I'll have to fix that post you referenced).  But again, it was necessary to make them the same speed as roads for NWM compatibility.  So it really is NWM that's driving a lot of this.  But the lesser congestion that proper use of one-way roads produces does result in higher speeds.

Quote
So the intersection effect only affects roads? Do you know if it affects highways and RHW too?

It affects all roadway types, including streets.

Quote
About  GLR speed, can you point me to any discusion that may arrise about it? I would like to know if that is implemented and also just curious about how the speed change can be implemented there.

It would be some place on the main NAM board, quite possibly in the NAM development thread.  So I would keep an eye out there, although it's going to be a while before I can get to that.

QuoteAlso another question. Why is Monorail's "Travel type generates  traffic" and "Travel type affected by traffic" properties both set to false, isn't that wrong?

You're right - they should actually both be set to "true", and then monorails can get congested just like everything else!  Right now, to my knowledge, monorail congestion isn't turned on in any traffic simulator, but I have been planning to do this for a while.  As it's a minor change, I was waiting until I could get another minor fix ready too.  But in the mean time, feel free to change those values to "true."  That's what's eventually going to happen in the official version.

jplumbley

Quote from: z on March 12, 2009, 02:00:01 PM
You're right - they should actually both be set to "true", and then monorails can get congested just like everything else!  Right now, to my knowledge, monorail congestion isn't turned on in any traffic simulator, but I have been planning to do this for a while.  As it's a minor change, I was waiting until I could get another minor fix ready too.  But in the mean time, feel free to change those values to "true."  That's what's eventually going to happen in the official version.

Actually, I dont know if it is currently set to true in the Simulators A and B, it was originally.  There were many complaints about the Monorail then causing pollution, which was a result of one of those two properties being set to true.  I know that these properties were linked to pollution of traffic types, but I have wondered if there was another property elsewhere that controlled the amount of pollution generated per unit for each traffic type.  I never did look for it, so maybe you would want to look into that when you turn on traffic congestion for Monorails, because you will get many complaints about it as I did.
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lorenz4

Thanks Z and Jplumbley.

Humm, do that means that the other rail networks generate pollution? Does subway also generates pollution? Also, will subway add to the congestion of a road that is just over it and therefore generate more pollution from that road?

z

Quote from: lorenz4 on March 12, 2009, 04:10:39 PM
Humm, do that means that the other rail networks generate pollution? Does subway also generates pollution? Also, will subway add to the congestion of a road that is just over it and therefore generate more pollution from that road?

If a vehicle has the property "Travel type generates traffic" set to "true" for its travel type, then it generates pollution - except for subways, which don't pollute.  This means that if monorails are allowed to generate traffic, which is necessary to create congestion, then they will pollute as well.  Not only is this a little strange, as in RL monorails are invariably electric, but as jplumbley notes, they generate an inordinate amount of pollution, or at least they did at one time.

Quote from: jplumbley on March 12, 2009, 02:31:06 PM
Actually, I dont know if it is currently set to true in the Simulators A and B, it was originally.  There were many complaints about the Monorail then causing pollution, which was a result of one of those two properties being set to true.  I know that these properties were linked to pollution of traffic types, but I have wondered if there was another property elsewhere that controlled the amount of pollution generated per unit for each traffic type.  I never did look for it, so maybe you would want to look into that when you turn on traffic congestion for Monorails, because you will get many complaints about it as I did.

I just checked, and in both Simulators A and B, "Travel type generates traffic" is set to true for monorails, but "Travel type is affected by traffic" is set to false.  This means that monorails generate pollution, but not congestion.  I remember one of the earlier discussions of the monorail pollution problem - perhaps this problem was fixed?

In any case, in pre-release versions of Simulator Z, I noticed that air pollution from traffic in general seemed too high.  In some ways, this was understandable, since even the low capacity versions of the recent traffic simulators have much greater capacity than the vanilla Maxis traffic simulator, and therefore there was typically more traffic, often much more.  But in many cities the air pollution produced by this traffic was so bad that you could go to the Air Pollution Data View and see the entire layout of the city's streets in the form of lines of air pollution.  Furthermore, examination of the Clean Air Act showed that it had no effect on air pollution produced by traffic, which simply seems wrong.  So from early on, Simulator Z has included a modified version of the Clean Air Act which, when enabled, reduces air pollution produced by traffic along with other air pollution, resulting in a much more balanced pollution picture.

Finally, monorail pollution was tested in a fairly extreme situation.  Brian (b22rian) has monorails that typically carry tens of thousands of passengers, and he turned on both of the travel type properties for them in Simulator Z.  Pollution was no worse than for other travel types.  So this shouldn't cause a problem for people who want to do turn on these properties now, or for when I do so in a future release of Simulator Z.

jplumbley

Quote from: z on March 12, 2009, 11:50:46 PM
Finally, monorail pollution was tested in a fairly extreme situation.  Brian (b22rian) has monorails that typically carry tens of thousands of passengers, and he turned on both of the travel type properties for them in Simulator Z.  Pollution was no worse than for other travel types.  So this shouldn't cause a problem for people who want to do turn on these properties now, or for when I do so in a future release of Simulator Z.

Im not saying that the Monorails produced *more* pollution than other networks.  They produced more or less the same amount of pollution.  The reason I received complaints is the fact they produced any pollution at all, not that it was *excessive* pollution.
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z

Ah, OK.  That's good to know.  I believe the Clean Air Act fix should take care of that, but I'll be sure to look into it a bit more.

RippleJet

Quote from: z on March 13, 2009, 04:24:06 AM
I believe the Clean Air Act fix should take care of that, but I'll be sure to look into it a bit more.

The in-game Clean Air Ordinance doesn't reduce traffic air pollution at all.
There is, however, one property that Maxis didn't use in that ordinance, Traffic Air Pollution Effect.

RalphaelNinja included this property in his Clean Air/Water/Traffic Ordinance,
which is included in his Radical Ordinance V2.0.

z

Yes, that's exactly what I did.  I looked at RalphaelNinja's Radical Ordinance, found the Traffic Air Pollution Effect, and included it in my modified Clean Air Ordinance.  This is the only modification I made to that ordinance.

lorenz4

That's weird, I just checked and wherever there is road congestion I see pollution (I can almost see a map of the congested roads by looking at the map of pollution as it apears as lines over the roads), hovewer over the rail lines I don't see any pollution at all, even on those that are congested. Is that pollution effect only for monorail or should it affect also the other rail types?

Thanks

z

The other rail types pollute as well.  It sounds like you don't have the Clean Air Act enabled - do you?  Different vehicles emit different amounts of pollution, and the specific amounts aren't controlled from the traffic simulator.  But I think it makes sense that a train carrying 500 people would emit a lot less pollution than the number of cars needed to carry 500 people (which is typically about 400).

lorenz4

Yes, I have the "Clean Air Act" enabled (and the "Automobile Emission Reduction Act" too), I am using simulator Z low. I am talking about high volume areas though, I see polution over high volume roads but not over high volume rail (greenish). Do you know what is the pollution amount of each rail type? It is monorail worse?

BTW, I am just curious, how can you make GLR going slower than El-Rail being both the same network?

Thanks again!

Swamper77

Quote from: lorenz4 on March 14, 2009, 09:48:06 AM
BTW, I am just curious, how can you make GLR going slower than El-Rail being both the same network?

You can't with how the simulator is set up.

-Swamper
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mike3775

I just installed this in one of my cities that has over 750,000 people and my traffic shifted big time.  I used Simulation Z High, and its great, I have people taking buses to work now, and walking over 6 city blocks to catch a bus or subway.

I like not having to place a sub/bus stop at every intersection now

Thanks for this more realistic traffic regulator

z

@mike3775:  You're welcome!  :)

Quote from: lorenz4 on March 14, 2009, 09:48:06 AM
Yes, I have the "Clean Air Act" enabled (and the "Automobile Emission Reduction Act" too), I am using simulator Z low. I am talking about high volume areas though, I see polution over high volume roads but not over high volume rail (greenish). Do you know what is the pollution amount of each rail type? It is monorail worse?

Something sounds wrong here.  I assume you're running the release version of Simulator Z, which contains the modified Clean Air Act.  If so, open up a city, then open up the Ordinances window, and click on the Clean Air Act.  Does the description contain the word "traffic" in it?

I am sorry, but I do not know the pollution amount for each rail type.  Perhaps someone else here does...

Swamper77

Quote from: z on March 16, 2009, 12:14:33 AM
I am sorry, but I do not know the pollution amount for each rail type.  Perhaps someone else here does...

There aren't any specific values for the pollution created by each transit type. The Utility Simulator file contains a property with a multiplier of .25 for the pollution generated by traffic. The amount of pollution from traffic is purely dependent on how much traffic there is of any transit type. Large volumes of traffic will create large volumes of pollution. So, if there are 1000 cars on a road, then there is 250 units of pollution above that roadway.

-Swamper
You can call me Jan, if you want to.
Pagan and Proud!

z

Yes, that property in the Utility Simulator does the exact same thing that the property I changed in the Clean Air Act does, although their ranges are different.  So if there are no individual pollution levels for travel types, I gather that what you're saying is that 1000 Sims traveling by car create the same amount of pollution as 1000 Sims traveling by train.  (For those not familiar with the internals of the game, at this level, we have to talk about Sims only, since there aren't really any vehicles...  $%Grinno$%)  Having equivalent pollution for all travel types is not very realistic, but it's good to know.

lorenz4

Yes, it includes "traffic" in the clean air act description. But that is not what I am concerned about (I understand some pollution over very used roads is normal, even with the clean air act), what I am concerned about it is that I don't see any pollution at all over rail lines. Are you sure all networks are suppose to pollute?

z

If travel types are set to contribute to traffic, which is true of the rail lines, then they pollute.  But with the modified Clean Air Act, it's not very much.  What's surprising is that you're getting that much pollution from your traffic.  The fact that "traffic" is in your Clean Air Act description means that you have the right simulator version, and that your Clean Air Act isn't being overwritten by some other one.  So either you have a huge amount of traffic on your roads, or else you have some other modified ordinance that is resetting this property.

BTW, the Automobile Emission Reduction Act has nothing specific to autos, or even traffic!  It uses the same global pollution property as the unmodified Clean Air Act.  The only difference between the two ordinances is that the unmodified Clean Air Act reduces demand for dirty industry slightly, while the Automobile Emission Reduction Act reduces the mayor rating slightly.