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NAM Traffic Simulator Development and Theory

Started by z, August 02, 2008, 05:07:50 PM

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0rion79

Thanks for everything. Of course, I will glady wait for it! :)

0rion79

#61
cars air pollution

Z,

testing your mod in the spare time, I'm registering impressing levels of air/traffic pollution. Avenues and highways are surrounded by a yellow color that is nearby to orange. I have made a test in a city that, before, was working fine and now I have the following scores:

Population 132.000
Average pollution: between 25/30 (and there are no industies or dirty power plants)
Traffic distribution:
pedestrian 100.000
Sub/el: 90.000 (subway and monorail)
Bus: 70.000
Passenger train: 60.000
Cars: 40.000

traffic pollution is becoming really a problem in high density cities, and that one is not even that big. I don't remember such high scores in previously built cities: pollution, yes, but around 15.
If I remember right, you have incresed the % of Sims using cars, to make the game a bit more realistic, and decreased car pollution, right? Maybe this is the cause...

Also, you should see the shape of that city.

It has a more external ring made with highway, then another monorail ring. Then, it has bus&subway stops to "cut" across the city, but Sims, instead than switching from subway to monorail (that are very close) prefer to take the buses. Without buses, the use of subway is drastically limited and reduced even if they occupy the same place.

I would like to ask this: is it possible to set different pollution levels for $,$$ and $$$ sims?
To make a more realistic game, $ sims may have old cars that are cheap to afford but have old, very polluting engines. Or use motor-bikes, that also are not very clean. $$ Sims have cards that are a mid-way, since they are not that rich to afford ecological prototypes but alsto tend to have better and newer cards that produce less pollution because have a better engine tecnology, while $$$ sims have very expensive cars, that are often hibryd or use alternative power sources, like GPL, gas or bio-diesel: being ecologist is cool and in fact even my loved Ferrari does care a lot about CO2 emissions :)
In this way, since $ sims are the ones that most often use mass transit systems, over all traffic air pollution should be a bit easier to keep under controll! Even because, as far as I know, there are no other remedies for traffic air pollution!!

z

#62
At the end of this post, I have attached the Alpha 3 release of Traffic Simulator Z.  It features more realism in the areas of traffic pollution, the Congestion vs. Speed curve, and more realistic numbers for the Commute Time Graph.

Quote from: 0rion79 on October 28, 2008, 02:18:19 AM
testing your mod in the spare time, I'm registering impressing levels of air/traffic pollution. Avenues and highways are surrounded by a yellow color that is nearby to orange. I have made a test in a city that, before, was working fine and now I have the following scores:

Yes, I had noticed this and fixed it in my own version a while ago.  The problem is that I made the fix in the Utilities simulator, which has all sorts of other settings in it, a number of which are affected by some popular game mods.  So this wasn't really suitable for a general release.  Instead, I convened a special session of the SimNation Congressional Parliament (you have to be in God Mode to do this) and had them pass an amendment to the Clean Air Act that greatly limits traffic pollution in those cities where the Act is enabled.  So try it out, and let me know what you think.  Meanwhile, since I was fixing this issue, there were a couple of other fixes that had accumulated that I mentioned at the top of this post, so I have released them all as Simulator Z Alpha 3.

Quote
Also, you should see the shape of that city.

It has a more external ring made with highway, then another monorail ring. Then, it has bus&subway stops to "cut" across the city, but Sims, instead than switching from subway to monorail (that are very close) prefer to take the buses.

This sounds like you've run into the basic limitations of the pathfinder.  If your monorail is in the shape of a ring, then the pathfinder looks at all paths as you cross the ring toward the city center.  It doesn't look at the entirety of the paths, though; it's been shown that the beginning part is the most important.  And when the pathfinder looks at the ring, it sees that at least the first few squares are perpendicular to the direction it wants to go, which means that the distance from the center is actually increasing slightly over those first few squares.  Not only that, but since the monorail is very fast, the pathfinder thinks that that path is moving you away from the center at a high rate of speed.  So it doesn't look very far down that path.  After all, the bus line is headed directly where you want to go, and the pathfinder considers speed only if alternate routes aren't too far apart.  Otherwise, it chooses the shortest distance.  I have the pathfinder set at maximum optimization in Simulator Z, so I don't think this problem can be fixed without access to the underlying code and essentially rewriting the simulator.

QuoteWithout buses, the use of monorail is drastically limited and reduced even if they occupy the same place.

I don't really understand this sentence.  Would it be possible to post a picture of this situation?

Quote
I would like to ask this: is it possible to set different pollution levels for $,$$ and $$$ sims?

No, this is not possible.  But I think my modification to the Clean Air Act should solve your problem.

BTW, Orion, I would like to thank you for your extensive feedback on my simulator.  I really need feedback like this in order to know how my simulator functions in a wide variety of cities.  So for other people who have downloaded this simulator, I would really appreciate any feedback you can give, even if it's just to say that everything works fine.  Feedback is especially useful from people who have multiple large cities and significant intercity traffic, as this was the primary situation for which this simulator was designed.  Also, especially for larger cities, I'd appreciate comments on network capacities, such as whether they're too high, too low, or about right.  For smaller cities, I'm mainly interested in how the simulator works in general; if the simulator is formally released, there will be versions available with smaller network capacities.  But to get to that point, I need testing and feedback, so whatever you can tell me will be helpful.

EDIT:  This version of the traffic simulator has been superseded.  You can get the current version here.

0rion79

My fault: it was a lapsus. I ment that, without bus stops, the use of SUBWAY is reduced. Sims use it less, even if subway stops are just in front of their houses. I would expect them to take subway and reach the nearest stop and then switch to bus, but -without bus stops- they just use car more and - with bus stop - I've seen that they just take the bus to the final destination even if slower, instead than switching from subway to bus.

About air pollution, I will try your mod later and then I'll tell you.

z

What type of subway stops are you using?  And does this problem happen in the middle of a subway line only, or also where subway lines intersect?

0rion79

Z, don't know what to say: with version 3, the pollution problem is just gone, and there is a much better distribution of subway use, from outside to city center. From the other side, the monorail is basically much LESS used, nearby to 0 (but is still damn cute to see! :D)

It is not very clear for me what you ment with "SimNation Congressional Parliament (you have to be in God Mode to do this)" but I'm using the "improved clean air ordinance" MOD (effect & costs x5) and I've seen that now the cost has passed from the expected 250 to 600+ Simoleons and air pollution is between 15 and 20, and only pale yellow on avenues.

Can you give me more step-to-step options about this  SNCP option in God Mode?

Anyway, I'm using RTMT 3.5 stations.

z

#66
Quote from: 0rion79 on October 29, 2008, 02:36:47 AM
Z, don't know what to say: with version 3, the pollution problem is just gone, and there is a much better distribution of subway use, from outside to city center. From the other side, the monorail is basically much LESS used, nearby to 0 (but is still damn cute to see! :D)

This all makes sense.  The increased subway use is most likely due to the changes I made to the Congestion vs. Speed curve, which affects even uncongested networks.  Better working subways would then account for the drop in monorail usage.  Since the Sims can move only in the four cardinal directions, diagonal networks don't really exist; they're just a display illusion.  This also means that a network ring is not pi times the diameter of the ring, but instead four times the diameter; a semicircular route is twice as long as a route directly through the center.  So it is not only shorter in distance for the Sims to take the subway across the ring; it is shorter in time as well.  Basically, ring networks don't do well in SC4, except in short arcs, due to the way SC4 was designed.  You might get more traffic on your monorail if you put in more stations, but you're still not going to get a lot of through traffic.

Quote
It is not very clear for me what you ment with "SimNation Congressional Parliament (you have to be in God Mode to do this)"...  Can you give me more step-to-step options about this  SNCP option in God Mode?

Well, first you click on the...  No!  :'(  I can't do this!  :'(  It was just a joke.  ;D

QuoteI'm using the "improved clean air ordinance" MOD...

Not any more! $%Grinno$%  The amended clean air act included with the simulator has overridden your mod.

Quote(effect & costs x5) and I've seen that now the cost has passed from the expected 250 to 600+ Simoleons and air pollution is between 15 and 20, and only pale yellow on avenues

This is a very old, antediluvian, pre-Rush Hour mod.  It appears that the clean air act was strengthened for RH from 5% to 10%, so this mod now gives you 2.5 times the effects of the standard ordinance.  It appears to have a fixed cost of §250, unlike standard ordinances, whose cost vary according to population.  Being such an old mod, it was installed with the rpatch utility, which is no longer available, and for good reason:  It actually patched SimCity_1.dat instead of creating a copy of the exemplar that was to be modified.  This is generally considered a Very Bad Thing.  I have gone by the description of what this mod's ReadMe says it does, and I have created a standard .dat file with the resulting mod; this file also has the same reduction on traffic air pollution as the main simulator file.  I've attached the file at the end of this post.  Try it out and let me know if it does what your old mod did; also let me know if you think it's still a worthwhile mod.  You need to put this in your top-level Plugins folder for it to override the simulator copy.

The pale yellow on avenues means that the traffic pollution mod is working as it should.

0rion79

In my cities, I usually give the "illusion" of rings and diagonals, and my monorail rings are just "squares" that have rounded corners, since monorail cannot have perpendicular intersections or bends, as streets or avenues, and there are no "diagonal" stops.
Even so, I have a much lower use of it even if it should be much faster than buses (250 km/h, right?). I expected that the gain obtained by speed should overcome the disadvantages from longer routes but my experiments, with your mod Sims just like it less and will use it only if there are no other opportunities.

Even more, Sims don't "switch" well from stops of different kinds. I have made one of my cities to have another monorail "square" around it, where Sims could switch from Monorail, that makes a "round" around the city center, and then take the bus that has stops that are just adjacent to . I have made some experiments, forcing sims to use only monorail and then switch off and take a bus from adjacent squares, to reach the most far away corners that the monorail doesn't touch, but Sims just don't do it.

As result, while other mass transit systems are nice and useful, the monorail now is useless: encumbering as a train, but with a very low usage.

Anyway, about your ordinance... yes, it is working fine, but I would like to know "how". Does the new Clean Air ordinance affect cars AND industry pollution? And why haven't you used the stantard "Automobile emission reductant act"? I think that the concept behind is working really fine, but you should care about the substance and the form of your idea. Just some new in-game ordinance explanation would help to make the player to "see" that it has a new use.

z

After looking into this situation extensively, I can say that there is definitely a problem with the use of monorails under Simulator Z.  This problem exists to a lesser extent in other simulators, and appears to be at least partially related to the Pathfinding Heuristic.  Setting this property to a lower value is supposed to improve pathfinding in general, and it does for all other networks, but for some reason, it makes monorail usage worse.  There also seems to be an SC4 bug in that monorail usage can be reported as nonzero in the traffic graph, yet the query tool reports zero usage along the entire length of the monorail track.  I will make it a high priority to figure out what's going on here.  And any further data from you on this (including pictures) would be appreciated.

As for the ordinances, I'll reply to those questions in a later message.  But I do have a very good reason for not using the Automobile Emission Reduction Act.

0rion79

Hi Z, here are some images that hope will help you.
Here is some more data related to the same city, Goldshares (from golden plowshares)

Population: 109.000
Mass transit usage:
pedestrian 90.000
Subway and bus: 70.000
Cars: 50.000
Passenger train: 20.000
Monoral: 1.400

R§§§ 70.000
R§§ 35.000
R§ 4.000 (no cheats, really!)

This is a snapshot of the city from above:
This is the city zone view, so that you can see the monorail:
As you can see, subway is perpendicularo to the main avenues:
And this is a concentration view of air pollution:

I have to say that, even if I don't see any difference with your "Super Clean Air Act" installed in "plugin folder" if compared with the one already included in your traffic simulator ver.3, It is possible to use PEG artificial trees or natural trees and parks to lower air pollution.
Here is the Air Pollution scores:
With PEG trees inside city area and all ordinances ON: 8
Without PEG trees: 14 (as in the picture)
With "cars pollution reductant ord." OFF: 16
With your Super Clean Air ordinance OFF: 24
Note also that I have reduced subway stops in residential areas because I wished to promote the use of monorail, but without success and that the other only polluting source is a Small international Airport, and that the map size is medium.

In another city, I have obtained the scores of Air Pollution = 70, but it is part of a "project" of mine, where I've built a "large" city using 9 small adjacent maps, with some problem of commuters loop (of course!) and where there is a huge in&out flux of cars and buses, and there is not much space for trees and parks, so it is ok to have the city so dirty.

If you need other informations, please ask.

b22rian

Hi Steve..

i finally got around to installing your updated traffic sim Z.. in my million population city and I thought it would
be interesting to look at some test results versus the previous traffic sim I had installed which had been
Mott's traffic sim B " hard difficulty.. What I did was quite simple.. I let the game run for a 5 year period without
making any further developmental changes to the city.. and here are my findings on traffic usages :

   Current traffic usages using Traffic Sim B  ( hard difficulty)...

Date   ...   5- 25- 435
Population ..  1091 K

          TRAFFIC  USAGE  ...

Pedestrian..          400 K
Car         ..          250 K
Sub/ El / GLR  ..    240 K
Bus       ..            185 K
monorail ..            170 K
train     ..             145 K 


    Test traffic usages... ( 5 year test period)  Traffic Sim  " Z"...

Date    ..  5 -25- 440

         TRAFFIC  USAGE  ...      Difference from Traffic  Sim B  ...    % change...

Population..    1126 K                             ( + 35 K )                      ( 1.0 % )

Car         ..         390 K                         ( + 140 K )                    ( + 64.1 % )
Pedestrian..         295 K                         ( - 105 K )                    ( - 26.3  % )
Subway/ El/ GLR.. 150 K                         ( -   90 K )                    ( - 37.5  % )
Train        ..        148 K                         ( +    3 K )                     ( +  2.0  % )
Bus          ..        82 K                           ( - 103 K )                     ( - 55.7 % )
Monorail    ..        75 K                          ( -  95 K )                      ( - 55.9 % )

Here are some percentage comparison  traffic usages  of the  2 traffic sim's.....
percentages as  a function of total traffic usage is in the brackets below ...

   ***   also please note , that total traffic usages will exceed the population figures because of some sims
            taking multiple forms of transportation on a single trip...

   Traffic comparison          ... Pedestrian       VS.         Car        VS           Mass transit....

Traffic Sim  B (hard)          400 K   ( 28.8 % )               250 K   ( 18.0 %)              740 K  ( 53.2 %)

Traffic Sim  "z"                  295 K   ( 25.9 %)                390 K   ( 34.2 %)              455 K  ( 39.9 %)



    Traffic  Comparison ......       CAR              VS.                   Mass  Transit ...

Traffic Sim B (hard)            250 K   ( 25.3 %  )                            740 K  ( 74.7 % )

traffic Sim  " z "                 390 K    ( 46.2 % )                             455 K  ( 53. 8 %)


.. .  and finally a chart showing the different modes of mass transit as a function of total mass transit usage
      and how the 2 traffic sim's compare.. ON A PERCENTAGES BASIS..


MASS  TRANSIT  MODES..   Sim B % usage...   Sim " Z"  % usage...   comparison...

Subway/ el/ GLR                  ( 32.4 % )               ( 33.0 % )               ( + 0.6 % )
Bus                                   ( 25.0 % )              ( 18.0 % )               ( - 7.0  % )
Monorail                             ( 23.0 % )               ( 16.5 % )               ( - 6.5 % )
Train                                 ( 19.6 % )               (  32.5 % )               ( + 12.9 % )


...   other comments and observations...

***   I read the above threads on the monorail usage  issues .. Although there was slight drop in
       monorail usage.. using the Z traffic sim..  but it was'nt an appreciable difference - 6.5 % as a function
       of total MT..

***  I am more a MT guy i suppose, ..i do realize many others are more road and hwy guys and gals..
       Which may explain the high numbers of MT in this city..

*** The obvious thing that the z traffic sim does as compared to the nam ones is increase the use of
       cars over MT, which steve designed it to do... and i also agree a more realistic reflection of real
      life traffic, if that is what you are looking for in your games..

***  Its possible there is less mass transit switching going on and less multiple modes of transport on single
       trips using the Z sim.. although cannot confirm this for sure from the data..

anyways i hope all this data helps some decide which traffic sim is best for them.. according to what your
looking for with your traffic goals and plans.. It is by no means some comparison saying one is better than the
other nor is it meant to encourage the use of one over the other.. hopefully just useful data for a few people..

really there are enough difference i think between the 2 .. that you could end up playing 2 diverse cities in terms of transport goals and plans..If you look at it in that light, it would add more enjoyment and diversity to an already fun game.



Regards, Brian


MassHelper

Brian... do u know which files to remove from NAM (Apr. 2008) in order to use Simulator Z...

Note: Can u list the files?


:) Mass
SC4 Modders' Assistant and Adviser

b22rian

#72
Quote from: MassHelper on October 31, 2008, 05:41:47 PM
Brian... do u know which files to remove from NAM (Apr. 2008) in order to use Simulator Z...

Note: Can u list the files?


:) Mass

sure..  here are the files you want to remove from your nam folders.. (Make sure u check both you my docs nam folder and the
maxis plug in folder just to be sure.. i had a duplicate file of one of the volume views in there although the
majority of my nam files are in the my docs plug in folder).. any files starting with...

networkaddonmod_traffic plug in......

also remove the network add on volume data view files

and also i think the congestion view files..

although i was a little unsure about needing to take out tarkus.s new congestion  view a002 ( which by the way
if havent used it yet is a beautiful creation !)
I took it out anyways just to be on the safe side..

than in their place you will want to put in your nam folder his nam traffic plug in file  " Z " and his volume view file
( he also provided a RTMT file if you are using that , which increases station capacities a bit)

also I wanted to mention something that i neglected in my above testing post...
I had to allow over 2 years (believe it or not !) before i started seeing changes in my traffic graphs !..
It may have had something to do with the complexity of my traffic systems and size of my city I
tested it in ( over a million population).. but you definitely have to give it quite a bit of time to make the
adjustments in a gaming sense..

Hope this helps, Brian

***  Edit.. he also provided a read me file in his zip which explains which files to remove and add..

MassHelper

I do hope that your list of files would not cause my PC to have CTDs

Note: I really need this simulator because my city took around 10 years to grow from 1930K to 1935K people and my streets (literally) are loaded with cars.

With all due respect, thank you.

:) Mass
SC4 Modders' Assistant and Adviser

MassHelper

#74
50% (or more) of my population uses mass transit and the problem is the capacity. Recently, I used SC4 Tool to help edit the traffic capacity of rail stations because they are all maxing out... (soon or later, I am gonna have to edit the capacity of subway and bus stations...)

:) Mass
SC4 Modders' Assistant and Adviser

0rion79

I absolutely agree. There is more than one answer to the problem and, as player and user, I'm happier since I can choose.

@Z, about your version 4.0, please warn me when it's out, so I will test it with my cities with monorail.

MassHelper

#76
Z, can you please include the cleanitol file in Alpha 4?

Thank you for your response!

:) Mass
SC4 Modders' Assistant and Adviser

z

#77
Quote from: MassHelper on November 04, 2008, 07:02:53 PM
50% (or more) of my population uses mass transit and the problem is the capacity. Recently, I used SC4 Tool to help edit the traffic capacity of rail stations because they are all maxing out... (soon or later, I am gonna have to edit the capacity of subway and bus stations...)

For bus and subway stations, I would recommend using RTMT with the CAM capacity settings.  They have many advantages over the in-game stations, as well as having much higher capacity.

b22rian

I wanted to take some time to comment on something I havent seen commented on ...concerning the
traffic plug ins..

But quite soon RHW version 21 is coming out and eventually so is the network widening modules...
Now there is going to be for sure 6 and 8 lane highways... and if your someone who enjoys seeing these
huge super highways put to use.. you may want to think of trying out traffic sim Z.. as according to my
test results , it does seem to encourage more sims to ride cars and use roads and highways , more so than
do traffic sims A and B.. And again im not saying which traffic sim is better...than which , but i think its fair
to point this out.. Also since the future of our game concerning custom transit content does seem to favor
wider transit networks and higher road capacities as well as the advent of these  "super - highways" and you
are someone who actually wants to see these highways used and not just "eye candy".. in some ways I
think traffic plug Z does lean a bit more in that direction ,if your more a highway man... than mass transit guy
..given it puts a bit more preference on sims using cars than mass transit...
Conversely , Sim A and B encourage a bit more use of mass transit over the use of cars...

obviously, you still have the option of simply building larger cities and higher populations.. as well as simply
designing your traffic system for whatever your prioroties are..  and eventually your going to fill up those big
highways and wider networks,,,

But also keep in mind game lag and your pc's
ability to handle huge cities and its subsequent performance..

Brian

j-dub

#79
I can confirm the mistake Chicaoland made in 2007. I think what he said is the reason the American housing marked collapsed. These new suburbs would be out in the middle of no where, with no amenities around. Its bad enough most roads are 25mph, but you have to drive past hundreds if not thousands of houses before gettting to the main road. These cities all made the mistake of planning too big. These builders didn't want to be around competition, and there would be no commercial near by. And when there was commercial built, majority was empty. The places that did do well were near the rest of civilization, maybe not right there, but close enough. I think the reality of this and the game is if you try to develop too big, it will cause some problems. I learned that from experience. Also having a highway after a certain reach, seems to be my best option for handling thousands of commuters from all these towering infernos.