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Gridlock Expert Takes On Sim City Streets
Thanks to the Gaming-Age messageboard regulars for pointing to an EA webpage interviewing real-life traffic engineer Sam Schwartz, aka 'Gridlock Sam', and discussing "ways to alleviate traffic congestion in your own virtual metropolis" for Maxis/EA's PC game Sim City 4: Rush Hour. Schwartz notes some of the tricks gamers use to get round traffic congestion in-game: "I have read on the Sim City message boards, and seen screen shots of cities where mayors build roads at certain angles to avoid the creation of a traffic light", but goes on to suggest relevant real-world tactics, particularly noting players should "...use underground rail where [traffic] density is the greatest." However, 'Gridlock Sam' found unexpected social issues even in the virtual city: "One time I made the mistake of turning all my roads into streets thinking I was improving the level of service and therefore congestion would lessen. It did, but now I had Sims yelling at me because their once bucolic roads became bustling streets."
What did Gridlock Sam have to say about the increased instances of Godzillas and Volcanoes in his cities? How did this impact on traffic analysis?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
It made sense to use ONLY railroad tracks. Albeit more expensive, it was more acceptable and well liked. How far our games have come. . .
Hey, Mr. Gridlock expert!
Why the hell doesn't the US build more roundabouts? They are not that difficult.
Coming from England, I find that the lack of roundabouts a *serious* problem on the roads of America. When they do build them over here, in larger places to be fancy and for show. And then the medium-sized ones tend to suck - they don't build any "raised bump & painted lines that you can actually drive over if you're going straight across the intersection" ones, these are awesome for minor intersections where there's not much room.
I've got a hunch that they can't build them here because driving tests are so amazingly simple and driver's education so sparse. Without the lights to regulate there would instantly be an accident on every corner. "What right of way?"
Traffic lights are cause of traffic delays, waits, burnt fuel idling at the lights. The only partial relief is the "right turn on red" rule - it means I find myself planning routes around town where I minimise turning left.
I remember in simcity 2000 a great strategy was to start your road in the center of the map, then have it be one continuous spiral outwords. there were absolutely no intersections but your road covered all the map. the newer versions probably take into account the fact that the trip would be enormous.
You realize, of course, Mr. Expert, that the periodic whining complaints about streets being made into roads makes just about no difference whatsoever? As long as the property doesn't suffer excessive traffic noise along its road, then you can deal with it. :)
Particularly effective SC4 traffic strategies usually involve forcing your Sims to take the bus/train/subway/monorail by making it the only reasonable route out of a development... include a good Parking Garage for people who aren't right near the stations... Your development's exit should be headed in the opposite direction from the way your Sims want to go, and place the mass transit exit on the reasonable side.
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Is called gridlock/ gridlock.h tml
http://www.crystalnewmedia.com/gridlock
I really hate Dan Patrick.
I tend to stock up huge amounts of cash (a well designed little village can be quite profitable if you ignore the Sims whinging for a decade or two), muck around with the land to allow myself to build a road runnel under a decent stretch, and then flatten that bit and zone it, leaving the tunnel in place, with smaller roads joining to the entrance of the tunnel. Now there is a long, straight express route with no traffic lights from A to B, and the residents above can't hear it. Costs a bomb though, and one error in the flattening can lose the tunnel. And of course, if you make the mistake of putting a surface road that gets from A to B anywhere as quickly, they'll all drive on that.
Due to an unwillingness to shell out more cash for what I feel should have been part of the original product, I never bought the rush hour expansion. I did buy SC4 though, the promise of all the new transportation methos drew me in like a moth to flame.
Unfortuneatley, the traffic model blew ass. There were a multitude of problems when trying to ferry people between different regions, sims were too stupid to take a highway unless it fell on their shortest path algorhythm (they would prefer to take narrow local streets even if the highway would have been faster), and don't even get me started on the braindead decision for the only way to have "busy" commercial zones was to have red traffic right next to them (duh?!). Some of the simulator variables were odd too, wasn't traffic modelled as if all cars were moving at 30mph or somesuch?
Did rush hour really fix this at all? Reading the feature list, it just seemed like a stop gap measure bolted on to try and cover some of the flaws.
I know traffic is hard and Maxis did a decent job with the game, but the flaws made it damn near impossible to build a "real" city.. invariably the game turned into a micromanagement nightmare as you bulldozed roads to try and convince the sims to take more intelligent paths. Almost all my cities wound up being groups of individual "pods" that used limited routes to funnel sims into more desireable travel modes.
I'm not a city planner, but this approach mimics no real world city I've ever witnessed.