NAM Traffic Simulator Help

[jplumbley]

I have just released another Information Guide into the Traffic Simulator which may help some people understand this mod a little better.

Understanding the Traffic Simulator

[anandus]

Is there any difference between avenue and road? They appear to have the same capacity and the same speed.
Am I correct? Why would one use an avenue over a road? Only for aesthethics?

[jplumbley]

Is there any difference between avenue and road? They appear to have the same capacity and the same speed.
Am I correct? Why would one use an avenue over a road? Only for aesthethics?

Because it is 2 tiles wide...  Capacity is based on a single tile... so effectively Avenue is equal to 2 side by side roads.  Therefore double the capacity.

[remyspam]

Because it is 2 tiles wide...  Capacity is based on a single tile... so effectively Avenue is equal to 2 side by side roads.  Therefore double the capacity.

Ah, like so
I thought the capacity was only about the lenght, didn't know width mattered. Thanks

Edit:
So the capacity for the highways is also twice the amount in the list?

[moolynx]

Hi,
I just installed the NAM traffic simulator (version Feb 2008) and was wondering if it's working properly in my game. Is there any way to check the road capacities to verify that the mod is installed correctly? I noticed that my toll booth on a highway has a maximum capacity of 4800. Does it imply that the highway only has a maximum capacity of 4800? By the way, I'm using simulator A (easy) on SimCity 4 Deluxe.

[jplumbley]

Hi,
I just installed the NAM traffic simulator (version Feb 2008) and was wondering if it's working properly in my game. Is there any way to check the road capacities to verify that the mod is installed correctly? I noticed that my toll booth on a highway has a maximum capacity of 4800. Does it imply that the highway only has a maximum capacity of 4800? By the way, I'm using simulator A (easy) on SimCity 4 Deluxe.

There is no definitive way to really find out "if" you have it working in the sense of looking for an exact number.  What you should notice is a change in the Commute Time Graph.  Do not compare the Commute Time Graph to an older Simulator, the old ones do not have the same scale, it should look different than when you didnt have Simulator A installed.  Another way to see if it is working is look for roads you know are almost or at maximum capacity, if they max out at around 200% of the stated capacity of the Simulator you are using, it will tell you that it is working.

[moolynx]

Hi,
Thx for the reply. Anyway, I uninstalled the NAM simulator and had a look at the traffic data, and the map was mostly orange or red instead of green when I was still on the simulator. When I reinstalled, everything went back to green. However, I did notice that the commuter time increased when I installed the NAM simulator. I take it that they're just taking a path that is less congested but has longer commuter time. Thanks for the help!
Cheers

[jplumbley]

However, I did notice that the commuter time increased when I installed the NAM simulator. I take it that they're just taking a path that is less congested but has longer commuter time.

You cannot in any circumstance compare between Traffic Simulators the change in the Commute Time Graph.  Due to the differences in the way they are designed, they Commute Time Graph will not display the same even if the Sim is taking the same route.

There is a property called the Commute Time Graph Multiplier.  In all of the original NAM Traffic Plugins, it was never edited.  Due to the changes in speed, max commute time, etc they never really portrayed an accuratce Graph that could possibly help you.

With Simulator B, the Commute Time Graph should look very similar to the Vanilla one made by MAXIS, because the speeds and the multiplier were not changed. 

But with Simulator A, there was a minor change to the speeds and the multiplier was calculated to provide you with a scale you could understand.  With Simulator A, the Max Commute Time has been set to allow a Sim to travel 512 tiles (1 large tile) on an Avenue.  I have scaled the multiplier to display a commute of 512 tiles on Avenue to show either 60 or 90 minutes on the Graph I cant remember off hand at the moment.  Essentially, IF you have a Graph displaying 90 minutes your average Sim is commuting 512 tiles by an Avenue.  By doing a simple calculation based on the different speeds you can find out what the average distance your Sims are driving, walking, taking the train, etc.

But under no circumstances can you compare 2 different simulators to each other because there is no mathematical comparisions you can do to derive the common denominator.

[Pharaon-Kheops]

hi all
I'm back at SC4 after a while playing other games and am very happy to see a new NAM sequel. Marvelous work, once again...
I am a bit of a realism fanatic, so the new park&ride thing made my cry of pleasure...  (for this reason, I also chosed simulator B, since I think people are too lazy to walk 7km (16m*43) )
I have some questions about the technical makability of some realism tweacks:

I don't know how things are in the US, but in Europe there are some things that go at the contrary of the park&ride:

- in small towns and low to mid density areas, workers can with no real problem park their cars in nearby streets thus having no real need for parking lots

- most heavy industry factories have huge "internal" parking lots for their workers

- a non-negligible part of middle-sized offices have also a parking (mostly underground)

- a good part of high-density offices offer parking lots for their upper ranking workers

Is there a possibility to work on this, or the way the game is designed make it totally impossible to tweak?

[jplumbley]

- in small towns and low to mid density areas, workers can with no real problem park their cars in nearby streets thus having no real need for parking lots

Unfortunately, the way Park and Ride works... you have the choice to either allow cars to "reach destination" or not.  In Park and Ride, the cars are not allowed to "reach destination".  So its an all or nothing situation.

- most heavy industry factories have huge "internal" parking lots for their workers

- a non-negligible part of middle-sized offices have also a parking (mostly underground)

- a good part of high-density offices offer parking lots for their upper ranking workers

As for lots that in RL that have parking but dont in SC4...  Parking Lots in Sim City are Transit Enabled Lots (TE Lots), there have been some experiments that have prooved that TE Llot properties are able to be added to common growable lots and function.  But... there have been some issues that arise aswell.  When these "TE Growables" grow... they will never upgrade into a better building.  If the lot requires a connection it will complain to you in the News Ticker until it gets a subway connection or rail connection, whatever.

So this is expected to be possible but not likely to become a common effect.

[Pharaon-Kheops]

a great thank you for such a quick and clear answer....

by the way, RL is giving me some time now and after so long taking, I would be glad to give a bit to the great SC4 community.
I am a total artistically inept, so I can't help at all for any texturing things or the like, but I am involved in local politics and so, familiar with demographic/economic/traffic maths... though, I know quite nothing about the game's mechanics so I'll have to "try and learn" a bit.... Is there a "must have" tutorial (or several....) around that could spare me hours and hours (and hours and....) of experiments before I could be sentient enough to be of some real help?

[jplumbley]

Is there a "must have" tutorial (or several....) around that could spare me hours and hours (and hours and....) of experiments before I could be sentient enough to be of some real help?

Well, it kinda really depends on what you want to do.  There are lots of things you can do, even if your not asthetically talented (I know Im not).  Transit Modding is a group effort.

If you want to get involved with Transit Enabled Lotting or dealing with the physical Traffic Simulation these are 2 threads you need to read:
Understanding the Traffic Simulator by JPlumbley
TE Lots, Transit Switches and You
There is also some good information about TE Lots currently going on in this thread:
HSRP (Starting Pg 14)

If you want to get into adding props to networks this is the thread you need.. (props are things like stoplights, trees, etc):
T21 Exemplars (Network Props) by Swamper77

If you want to start RULing, this is the easiest RUL to start with and is more of a gateway to the others:
RUL 0x10000002 by JPlumbley

[Diggis]

If you want to get involved with Transit Enabled Lotting or dealing with the physical Traffic Simulation these are 2 threads you need to read:
Understanding the Traffic Simulator by JPlumbley
If you want to start RULing, this is the easiest RUL to start with and is more of a gateway to the others:
RUL 0x10000002 by JPlumbley

Talk about shameless plugs... 

[RippleJet]

There is also some good information about TE Lots currently going on in this thread:
HSRP (Starting Pg 14)

...which the shameless Jplumbley moved into his own thread:
Transit Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread

Thanks, Jason!

[Pharaon-Kheops]

just one question: how does SC4 handle, in term of commute time, people going to a neighbor city? I suppose people who reach the border are considered as having reached their job and so their comute time is equal to home-border time. Is that the right thing?

[RippleJet]

just one question: how does SC4 handle, in term of commute time, people going to a neighbor city? I suppose people who reach the border are considered as having reached their job and so their comute time is equal to home-border time. Is that the right thing?

In short: Yes

And in the neighbouring city they will start looking for a path to work as if they just stepped out of their homes.
At this point you don't want to find another border crossing closer than any available jobs though, as that would be the start of having eternal commuters, going around the common border point of four neighbouring cities and doubling themselves for each full commute circle.

[Pharaon-Kheops]

another one, just for pleasure   

how does the game manage neighbor connections? are they traffic switch lots, or only properties of the connecting network tile?

[xxdita]

I've actually gone searching for the neighbor connection properties quite a bit, and still haven't found it. So I can only assume that region play of any sort, including neighbor connections, is encoded in the exe itself.

[Pharaon-Kheops]

too bad.... this means we have no way to give neighboring commuters a "time penalty".... (I am currently trying to figure out how it would be possible to have real scale speed.... as there are numerous real scale maps...)

[xxdita]

That was one of the main reasons I was looking for it. 
Probably the best thing to do would be to put a modified toll booth just before the connection, to control commuters a bit better.