One little side note, road hierarchy doesn't always mean a difference in the amount of lanes. It can also be a difference in spacing, layout and the distance between intersections while keeping the same amount of lanes.
@@stephenmartin5766 Road Hierarchy just means the different functions of the road, so lane count, lane width, intersection commonality and type, speed limit, is all a side-effect of the Function. Arterials, Sub-Arterials, Collectors, Highways, etc are all determined by the function of the road, not it's attributes.
Nicolas Blume I use a few 6 lane boulevards and freeways through my city for fast / easy travel then a few 4 lanes but mostly just 2 lane everywhere and never any traffic issues
whats that supposed to mean? an average city easily has 1k cims moving hence why 180/180 and if it isnt full at any given time of the day theres a problem
Wow. You're a literal town planner. I see great success for you in the future. Those years of Cities Skylines was worth it, I see. Good luck in the future with your job!
My problem is, I start the game only having the small road unlocked, so the main road is a small road. But by the time I unlock bigger roads, to replace the small roads would mean destroying my entire city.
I think the best way of getting around this is waiting before starting lon a big city and making just a tiny village-esque residential area, and then, when you've unlocked all or most of the roads you can start building the big city :)
Small tip, if i may. At 4:08 you can see oncoming traffic onto the highway and "crashing" into eathother, in you from 4 to 3 lanes between the on and off ramps, you'd get better flow between those points. Another youtuber calls it Lane Mathmetics.
A good real life example of a main road dependence was the Skagit River Bridge failure in northern Washington a few years ago. It screwed up the economy and slowed transportation in the towns of Burlington and Mt Vernon for months.
All these videos showcase huge, already created cities. I'd like to see the original town & how THAT gets planned. Do the original neighborhoods get demolished for traffic circles? Do you just always play with unlimited money & everything unlocked?
More like nfl or nba players being themselves in their respective games.. they know what works cause thats what the people making the games look at to make it realistic😩
Good advice. If you can pull it off having no road connections between the industrial and the residential areas clears a lot of traffic. Force the AI to use freight trains for everything and supply blimps, and metro lines for workers.
I am from Kazakhstan but I'm in Amerika now and I'm Having fun watching your videos. I play Cities skylines too and my cities have been improving since I saw your channel, thanks a lot. -Aric Nyzzchy Clark
the problem with different connections to one place is good for real life, but the game traffic AI will always choose the shortest road, so even if you have 2 connections, one of them will be always way busier
Love your videos, especially on the tips on planning and building a city in this game. Probably should do another video on how to prevent train congestion.
9:00. Tip about public transportation: try to put the stations for different means of transportation close together to make it easier for civs to transition. I.E. put a subway station or train station near a bus stop or cab stand.
In other words, when you are having traffic problems you just need to *S.P.R.I.T.Z* the system up: S. Spacing ( have enough spacing between your intersections. ) P. Public Transportation ( Buses, trains, taxis. Walking! ) R. Redundancy( give more good routes to reach a destination. detours! it'll break up traffic) I. Intersections(use the best suited intersection, roundabouts are good, but not always the best) T. Tiers (road hierarchies i.e. bigger roads => long, compact transportation. small roads => building accessibility , disperses traffic) Z. Zoning (ex. break up and disperse your industry so they don't overload any one connection)
He said exactly what I need but haven't heard other tutorials mentioned at all, multiple entrances and exits to a district. No wonder my map keeps getting fcked with 30% flow.
I wish skylines gave you more control over train path-finding. The number of times I've had a network become completely shutdown by cargo and intercity trains just doing whatever they please is crazy. I hate having to build station bypasses or completely segregate my rail networks. You're cities look so well laid out and even they are suffering from ques of trains
Perhaps have one major central station with multiple platforms ? That works for intercity passenger trains to transfer passengers between inner city trains quite well with the lines being split into more than one
My city’s downtown is completely empty while my highways have lots of traffic I have 115k people. I play on console with no mods and I have over 20 bus lines, 5 monorails and metros, ferry etc
@Sam Bur Your 3rd point discusses how intersections that are too close to each other would be annoying to drive on. I just wanted to elaborate with that if that's ok. So Intersections like this would be not only a nightmare to handle but it would be absurdly counter-intuitive. Not only is traffic constantly needing to slow down and build up, the traffic could also completely jam. You might notice how cars that are waiting for the next road will drive behind a car and sit in the middle of an intersection. This IS A PROBLEM! Now that you have a car in the middle of the way, other incoming cars will get jammed from the sides. Suddenly, you have this giant cluster of cars trying to move but they can't move because of the limitations they set up for themselves. If you're lucky, the initial car will drive out of the intersection or disapear (can anyone explain why cars disappear on the highway sometimes?). Once that first car moves out of the way, traffic may return back to its regular state. However, the situation will only continue and may not be fixed on it's own. So yeah, don't put those intersections too close. Vincent out.
"More traffic needs more lanes" says someone who is apparently unaware of the lane paradox where increasing lanes does nothing to improve traffic flow.
11:34 best example how not to? 3 or 4 trams allready overlaping eatchother blcked by some trains and ahuge line of trucks waiting to pass the railway 12:45 this trains :D tipp seven: freight trains and public transport trains never on same piec of rail
Bearistopheles , I also had this issue when I had all of my train stations allowing intercity trains. When I had turned off that option in most of the stations; the never-ending train traffic had stopped happening.
I mostly have the issue fixed with a second route that connects to the main route in a few spots. I need a mod where I can manually choose the train routes. They like taking the longer passenger routes
@@Relitable intercity trains are such a pain, honestly, my city was running perfectly, then i had a cargo terminal that i unknowingly connected to the public transport rails (via intersection) and i had 8 intercity trains ruining my shit, all going for the same terminal, while carrying like 12 people
I remember a couple years back during the North America solar eclipse, I got stuck in a 3 hour stop and go traffic jam in the middle of nowhere that stretched roughly 40 miles and was caused by one single stop sign holding up everyone who went out there to see the eclipse. There were no alternate routes either. Was out in eastern Oregon.
Thanks for the videos, Sam. Very useful and very well explained. If only the town planners around where I live in the UK (Assuming they exist, which I doubt) would look at these videos, they might learn something too.....
All of us who live in "organically developed cities" One of the first tips was "look at a map of your city for inspiration" now my city on C:S is as much of a jam hellhole as my city :D
I do not understand Europes fetish for roundabouts. More than once I've been stuck in a backup caused by heavy flow from one direction that simply dominated the circle. It's great if you're part of the stampede, not so much if you're on one of the smaller branches. Maybe they work fine on a larger scale but they are not a panacea.
Yea they're all based on yielding to traffic already in the circle... so basically if people are dicks you may never get a chance to merge in during heavy traffic.
I have lived in 12 states here in the US, and been to around 40 of THEM. Also been to 6 foreign countries. Not once in all of my travels have I run into to a fellow American who liked roundabouts.
@@roberson644 not to mention for some people who live in areas that have no roundabouts take my father for example he when me and him went up to Newport/Cincinnati he was confused by the roundabouts due to the placement of the signs now I can say this I saw better traffic flow up in Cincinnati/Newport at the intersections even those that had traffic lights had good flow of traffic also off topic what Sam said about the one road in and out is not entirely true my town maysville has one highway that heads basically straight into town and over a small two lane suspension bridge and there is a decent amount of traffic including trucks on that highway no traffic jams I can remember and the only other route is a small two lane road that is also steep and curvy hardly anyone uses it that aforementioned highway starts as a four lane highway before going down to either three or two lanes With an intersection that has timed traffic lights
It might be the fact that Americans just don't understand how to use roundabouts. My town put in one several years ago because they predicted heavy growth and many people trying to get to different parts of town. The only problem is that literally no one knows how to use it. Many people STOP in the middle of it. And despite the fact that it has slip lanes so people making right-hand turns can bypass it, I see people constantly entering it to make a right hand turn. Which then causes traffic because now the slip lane has to merge in with the main road which is clogged with a bunch of people who made a right hand turn using the roundabout instead of the slip lane! They're building a Diverging Diamond interchange and I am afraid as to how these people are gonna handle that.
Wow, these people sound like fools. As a Brit learning to drive, I absolutely adore roundabouts. For me, I feel they are much quicker and safer than big intersections with traffic lights, and I'm only learning to drive. Almost all incidents I've had are due to other cars jumping the red light at traffic lights and this isn't a problem with roundabouts. @@user-ne2bb5nh7t
You mention the amount of lanes as if it was the solution to traffic when it's not. At the beggining of my game experience I was surprised to see a 6 lane highway with 1 lane congestion because many cars were to get off and used the external lane. So, in my experience, it's not about the amount of lanes, it's about the layout of your roads, because vehicles don't change lanes or change their path based on the congestion. they don't recalculate the path at any point, so you have to make sure you spread the traffic as even as you can to avoid a high capacity road have one lane clogging your traffic
Roundabout are actually fairly rare in north america. They are just barely starting to make a timid appearance, and even then, city planners still tend to favor 4 way intersections. Part of the north american problem with roundabout is that we just make them way too small for the volume of traffic they need to handle. Theses small roundabouts also cause problems with the long trailers which are ubiquitous in north america. I guess that we can chalk that one to poor planning. The other problem is that north american cities were never planned for roundabout in the first place. That means that in most cases, it is nearly impossible to retrofit existing intersections. With that said, there are a number of very inconspicuous roundabout where you least expect them, mostly composed of groups of one way streets intersecting each other. Those kinds of configurations are a lot more common in large cities and work fairly well. As for highway intersections, half cloverleafs and diamond interchanges are the dominant type of intersection where I live. There are also a number of cloverleafs, but they are slowly disappearing as interchanges get upgraded and modernised. You did not mention traffic merging as a problem. This is why cloverleafs are being replaced. Traffic trying to get on and off the highway are in direct conflict with a cloverleaf interchange. A large part of the bad traffic management that i've seen in city skyline can be chalked up to that problem.
The reason why the are rare on North America is because for a good portion of their existence, they were being used wrong. Stuff You Should Know did a whole podcast on roundabouts and talked about how the rules were reversed for awhile -- that people in the circle were being told to yield instead of people trying to get into the circle. It was all backwards, and Americans didn't have the patience for city planners to figure out all out.
thanks for you're amazing advice! I never thought of the Industrial - scattered throughout and near residential. I'm going to try that today. Also is it better to work with circular grids or square type grid systems for your city?
I ve been playing the vanilla game on xb1x for a cpl of weeks now. Traffic has been the biggest issue. When I started i had a traffic flow of 60-70% - with a population of 3000 🤣 My latest town has hit 30.000 People and traffic flow is at about 70-80%, 85 at the max. I incorporate pt always quite late, but I guess I ought to put it in much sooner and just add more lines as the city grows.
Once i built a city with no other public transports than zeppelins😂.. The zeppelins were completely overloaded and there were like 300 people waiting on the ground (per zeppelin stop). It didnt work out that good :P
Would you recommend to add more buses to a bus line if there are a lot of passengers on the buses or just add another bus line. Because that would increase the amount of vehicles on the road and that would cause congestion at the areas I do not want it in. Or should I add train and metro?
The only problem with the multiple entrances to the city thing is that the AI is pretty dumb. The AI always chooses the quickest route, but doesn't consider traffic, so you'll still have massive traffic jams with little to no one using the alternate routs.
Things you should never say at NASA: "And besides, it works in Kerbal Space Program" Things you should never say in the Mayor's office: "And besides, it works in Cities: Skylines"
Nothing I didn't all ready know, I only use 6 lanes from the get go and always add as much public transport as I can to a new area, just hit the 60 k milestone for first time on x box
these should be common sense if you ask me but i guess that isn't very common lol. I just started a new city a few days ago on a tough map(very mountainous and steep on a shoreline with a few rivers) first thing I did was delete the default exit when u first start, run a road from a new exit down to the shore and along it, and another across to the other side and connect it to the highway(equivalent of a state highway in america, 2 lane highway usually). i just finished building a junction today going from the highway down to the state highway on the west side using it as a loop with a 4 level interchange at the north end where the original hwy(highway), loop, & main street all intersect(town isnt huge but due to terrain and current road placement a 4 level junction with 3 major roads connecting was necessary). i have 4 major n-s roads(3 with on/off roamps to the highway) and the loop, & 3 major e-w roads(one with highway connections, one that is one of the major n-s roads but turns and becomes a major e-w road, & another that connects to a major n-s road), & the highway. all of those are 2 lane roads(except southern most major e-w road on west end from loop to just before bridge going into dowtown, it's 4 lane thru industrial area). like I said, new city but has around 6k people I believe and only 2 lane roads basically and excellent traffic.
This guy is making beautiful, sensible, and functioning cities...Meanwhile, I'm here making a clustered mess and flooding it with a poop volcano while playing "Take Me Home Country Roads" haha
The AI in this game is the problem I have. it doesn't matter if I have a highway or a road going to the same destination, the AI will choose the closest way like a straight line towards the destination. In real life we use GPS and it tell us if there is traffic and what roads to use, Google maps is pretty good at that. This game needs google maps in the AI. (calculate all possible routs and estimate a time of arrival and choose that time in regards to traffic, also prioritizing highway if possible). I also noticed for absolute no reason what so ever, some cars stop while driving causing huge traffic, so a buggy AI needs reworking.
In real life, a very large amount of people don't use GPS and follow the main roads. Plan for making the main roads more grand. Makes the city flow better and looks nicer
@@sand0decker I live in London and pretty much everyone who has a car uses GPS. I have to use GPS when going to work, it's almost a requirement, my colleagues uses it, I've seen others uses it. The only people who don't use GPS are those who use public transport or their work is always at the same destination and easily memorable.
@@21preend42 I live in Canada and I rarely use GPS. If I'm going like 15 hours away I do. Otherwise, it's not too hard to remember. For day to day driving, which is what most people do, I don't need a map
I swear the city planner at my city doesn;t actually know how to plan a city. Our roads here are too busy. For instance there is streeet that has a round about next to a traffic light system lol it makes no sense
In my opinion, you use far too many lanes and do not use lane mathematics. I personally would primarily utilise public transport instead of focusing on roads, so the road hierarchy is not as important.
Had 6 lanes avenues with 1 lane being used and jammed because of how the game deals with trafic. The key to traffic in this game is not what you'd apply in real life
I recently got the game and its really fun but after watching a few gameplays i noticed that i dont have all the street options the other people have and also i missing some of the tools like the one for the traffic light ect. do you know why that is?
1. Big traffic = Big road 2. No intersection, roundabouts 3. No intersection close together (ie. What the game tells you) 4. More connections = good 5. Public transport is good 6. Divide your industrial areas. Honestly? That's the tips you use in your real job?
My problem is that I play with money flow and by the time public transport gets available, my city is already so large and chaotic that i cannot make any adequate bus routes. So I make trains and metro. Feels american. PS. Russian architecture looks a bit better when being put in a good road layout, I noticed that in Kaliningrad (which is blessed by german heritage). But usually it's located in awful microdistricts, which I hate as a resident of one.
Victor Petukhov I’m not a professional or anything but when I do my bus routes in the game I have one large route that connects multi places. The large route would share stops with smaller more local routes which enables people to swap routes easily.
*is told to make roundabouts* Is there a specific size that they need to be. I have heard that if they are too small they can be very inefficient, and if they get to big the cost goes up exponentially. I have actually driven on a small rotary, (My city has) and found they can be very dangerous for those who don't think its a rotary due to its small size. So I would like to now restate my question, is there a specific size a rotary has to be so it can be easy to travers, safe, and not incredibly expensive?
well this is al well and good but i think that a normal player plays with out infinite money and tries to make some so, lots of different public transport systems are not the best way, most of the time its best to just use trains and subways/monorails and not all of em.
