Network Speed editor & Region commutes

[Maverick]

Network Speed Editor:

The TSCT Is a great tool, big thanks to Stefan for it.

However many moons ago I recall an editor able to edit network speeds.
I want to encourage users to utilize the road network over streets by increasing roads to 60 or 70kph over streets 40kph (as defined by the CAM-NAM addon)

In addition, are there any quick tips on encouraging commuters to look for routes to neighbouring regions? Any clear nono-s? I've designed my map with the specific design away from the infinite commuters as described in the CAM Manual.
Even so I'm finding difficulty in commuters finding work in nearby regions, instead just no-job-zot'ing

Appreciate any replies! Spent a fair while searching before posting

[Korot]

The CAM-NAM addon? I hope you don't refer to the traffic simulator that comes with the CAM, as that one is inherently buggy and should not be used. Please remove it if you have it installed. Even if you use a NAM Simulator, there's no reason to have it lingering around if you don't use it, right?

Regarding a tool to edit network speeds, you can do that with ILive's Reader. Open up the Traffic Simulator file with that program, and it should be self explanatory, though do note that the values in the Reader are in hexadecimal.

The only way I can think of to get commuters to look for jobs in nearby cities, is to have a shortage of them in your current one. That way, they'll look at your neighbours for jobs. But, they only look at your direct neighbours. If you want them to travel farther, you need to apply some trickery. You first have to get them to travel to the neighbour city, using a job surplus in the neighbour/shortage in their home town, and then use a similar setup to get them to further neighbours. Ergo, remove the surplus in the direct neighbour, after you have commuters towards this direct neighbour. This should work.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Korot

[z]

The TSCT Is a great tool, big thanks to Stefan for it.

However many moons ago I recall an editor able to edit network speeds.
I want to encourage users to utilize the road network over streets by increasing roads to 60 or 70kph over streets 40kph (as defined by the CAM-NAM addon)

The TSCT contains all the properties of the traffic simulator that have been judged safe to modify.  Network speeds are specifically not among these properties.  One big reason for this is that it was discovered during testing of the traffic simulator that the structure of network speeds has a noticeable effect on the level of dilapidation and abandonment.  This effect is sometimes counter-intuitive; for example, better results were obtained by lowering certain mass transit speeds.

If you really want to edit the network speeds, then as Korot mentioned, you can do it with the Reader.  But I would advise against it, as it may cause seemingly unrelated problems that you might not realize were caused by your change.  I can see several potential problems with the change you mentioned in particular.

[Maverick]

Thanks for repling Korot and Z.

I've removed the CAM Walking speed NAM addon.

Korot I'll try the surplus, remove, surplus.

The background of why I was asking about encouraging people to commute was a rolling no-job-zot problem. It was occuring in medium and high wealth neighbourhoods.
I attempted to resolve this by adding over 100k of commercial office jobs in a neighbouring region with the superdemand ordinance's help.
Unfortunate they continue to rolling no-job-zot.

I appreciate the advice on TSCT and commute speeds.

Thanks guys, any advice on rolling no job zots? I haven't found any NAM specific threads (although maybe this is a base SC4 Issue I'm tackling)

[z]

Thanks guys, any advice on rolling no job zots? I haven't found any NAM specific threads (although maybe this is a base SC4 Issue I'm tackling)

Adding a lot of rapid transit (typically subways) and stations will often help.  This addresses a defect in the traffic simulator that can cause this problem.

[noahclem]

Out of curiousity, just how risky is it to edit network speeds? Is it only the mass transit ones (as was mentioned above) that tend to cause dilapidation and abandonment? And are major problems only caused by major changes? I've been considering increasing my RHW & heavy rail speeds to further encourage long-distance commutes on them and probably be a bit more realistic. Since traffic on an uncongested motorway can move 100-130 km/h (60-80 MPH) without any stops and even most arterials would have speeds limited at 60 or so (~40 MPH) with a substantial amount of time stopped at lights, RHW traffic could move as much as 4x faster. I'm don't plan to make such radical changes but I am interested in some tweaks that could achieve the commutes and commute times I'm interested in for realism.

Thanks for your time 

[z]

Out of curiousity, just how risky is it to edit network speeds?

Basically, in order to get notable results from editing the network speeds, you will get notable increases in dilapidation and abandonment.  The two phenomena seem to be somewhat proportional.

Is it only the mass transit ones (as was mentioned above) that tend to cause dilapidation and abandonment?

No; I've seen the same thing with highways.  At one point, I had to drop highway speeds slightly to address problems with Sims not getting to their destinations properly.  Later, once I determined the optimal value for the pathfinding heuristic, I was able to raise highway speeds all the way to 150 kph; compare this with the Maxis value of 82 kph.  Taking into account the effects of stoplights, stop signs, etc., the average speed of traffic on each roadway type in the real world is now the about same, proportionately, to the speed of the corresponding roadway type in SC4.  In absolute terms, the SC4 roadway speeds are about 50% higher.  The rapid transit speeds (excluding monorail) are about four times as high; this is necessary in order to get Sims to take rapid transit in reasonable amounts.  Even so, these speeds tend to be about 30% less than in the Maxis simulator; one notable exception is passenger rail, which is only about 7% less.  And monorail is slightly higher than the Maxis monorail speed, in part because it's also used for High Speed Rail.  However, this makes it about eight times as fast as real world monorail.

And are major problems only caused by major changes?

It all depends on what you define as "major."  In general, the problems caused will be at least as bad as, if not worse than, the benefits gained.

I've been considering increasing my RHW & heavy rail speeds to further encourage long-distance commutes on them and probably be a bit more realistic. Since traffic on an uncongested motorway can move 100-130 km/h (60-80 MPH) without any stops and even most arterials would have speeds limited at 60 or so (~40 MPH) with a substantial amount of time stopped at lights, RHW traffic could move as much as 4x faster. I'm don't plan to make such radical changes but I am interested in some tweaks that could achieve the commutes and commute times I'm interested in for realism.

Here's the reason that problems arise:  As you increase speeds on rapid transit or highways, their usage increases.  However, by necessity, this diverts Sims from other routes.  Specifically, fewer Sims will drive on roads past businesses, or ride buses on them.  This reduces the number of customers in these businesses, which reduces the demand for workers, which ends up leaving Sims unemployed, which in turn eventually leads to dilapidation and abandonment.  I fully sympathize with your desire to have things more realistic, as that was my goal throughout the development of the traffic simulator.  The problem here is that the SC4 demand model is intrinsically unrealistic; the number of customers that a business has is proportional to the number of workers passing by it on roads!  This major bit of unreality throws a wrench into attempts to make the rest of the game realistic.  So in order to have a healthy city, highways will almost always be less congested than in RL.

You can still get heavy usage on your rail lines, though; I've had passenger rail lines with daily usage in the six figures.  I've also gotten very heavy usage on subway lines, especially when they connect intercity.  One way to increase the usage of any network is to put more stops on it; this increases traffic in a way that's somewhat different from what a higher speed limit does, and as a result, there don't seem to be noticeable negative effects.

[chadmichael03]

Great thread.  What about walking speeds?  Have people seen bad effects raising that?  I just want my sims to walk a little father to mass transit stops.

[z]

Walking speeds are already disproportionately higher than others in order to facilitate transit usage.  If they're raised any higher than current limits, they start competing with cars and buses.