Where I live there was very poor city planning in a quickly growing area so it's almost impossible to fix the issues without destroying businesses when you click to upgrade roads or add roundabouts.
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines omg what a relief. I was off sick a few days ago and just binged these videos... the next day I was out saying "pick your lane" to everyone!!
@@tls5870 Yup. It's like that on one of the major roads near where I live. A ton of commercial traffic, poorly planned, not at all walkable or bikeable (and of course buses actually drop off pedestrians on gravel shoulders so my disabled partner has to actually walk in the street to get to where we're going cuz he can't walk through the steep ditch). During rush hour, traffic is often at a stand still all along that road. And of course, that's also where the movie theater is located. There is technically room to fix all of the problems on the road, but the city doesn't really have the funds to do it and none of the businesses care about handicapped ppl that take the bus either. It can be extremely difficult to get around in this town if you're handicapped. I've no idea how a woman I see around town in a wheelchair manages - half of the bus stops don't even have cut curbs (including the new cement pad that was put at a stop right next to Target). And yes, I've seen her riding the bus a lot, so I know this is something she regularly has to deal with.
One reason one gets a lot of "returning to facility" cargo traffic is that you import a LOT. I had the issue and after adding some industry 4.0 I produced goods so that I don't have to import as much, this balanced import/export and fixed the issue for me without changing much with the infrastructure.
Sorta proves a point with regards to Cities Skylines traffic. It's all about three main things, road layout (lanes, junctions, type), passenger routes (bus, tram, metro, monorail, train, etc) and cargo distribution (air, sea, train, etc), get one wrong, particularly badly wrong like relying on a single cargo terminal for a large portion or the entirety of a city, and traffic tanks.
And also you will have an issue if you export lots of things. I have a city with TONS of industry, so I export 45000 & make around 400k money per week, but of course I have backed up port and queuing up trains those go outside the city. I have done all the tips, but still have 60% traffic with despawning turned on. So don't build more industry than the city needs.
17:50. Nope, lane switching is disabled there. Probably why all traffic goes straight through. 13:50 Same thing. The green icon is "continue into intersection". 😁
People who complain that the "traffic sponge" is unrealistic probably aren't aware of massive transport hubs. First keep in mind that Cities Skylines puts into a relatively tiny freight hub what should be in an area the size of a small town. There should be a dozen cargo ship or cargo train loading bays, and several dozen truck bays. But there aren't. And even if there were, in the real world we still have lines 100s of trucks long backed up waiting to unload and load cargo. They don't use a "traffic sponge" but it's not far different. It's more like a giant truck parking lot / queueing lot. And Cities Skylines doesn't have an option like that. I think what you're doing is perfectly fine, and is a great solution for what the game developers have presented us with. Good Job! And "Lane Mathematics" is always a classic.
Basically, they'd use something like a truckyard, where the trucks park and wait their turn to be unloaded, usually paired with or very near a truck stop, where they get refueled. Even those, typically have a parking lot just for queuing up waiting their turn if they are willing, (especially if it's the end of their shift, and are about to shut down for the night). So, the traffic "sponge" is basically a low tech version of that.
At our local port, the truck doesn't even stay with the trailer (the most of the time). They arrive and unhook the trailer, and the truck leaves, leaving the trailer in, like what you said, a huge carpark (think the size of airport parking when you see them during take-off and landing) and a similar sized area for the trucks to use when waiting for their pick-up/drop offs. Plus everything is split to the various different ports/companies within our "Harbour Estate" depending on which ship is arriving (dropping off the last of the trailers) or departing (collecting some trailers), but also, to my knowledge, a lot of the work is done overnight (in preparation for the 7am departure, trailers are dropped off before 5am, so they are on the motorways long before commuter/school traffic). If actual transport hubs/ports were "turning over" at the rate of the vehicles going in and out of "Traffic Maker", the entire world would have ground to a halt, not just a few highways around the port! haha
I like it best when you try to work with the existing infrastructure to solve the traffic problems by optimizing what's already there, especially in heavily developed areas. It just feels more realistic and organic. IRL nobody would bulldoze big buildings or move skyscrapers to add in a roundabout or relocate an intersection to a smarter place. IRL they'd look at how to optimize what's already there as best as possible. Some tools i'd like to see you work with in these are the custom traffic lights in the TMPE mod which can fix a lot of problems in an intersection that a roundabout would fix, but without having to resort to bulldozing stuff, just creating better traffic flow and I think that would be fun to see you have to use more of the options available with the TMPE mod and vanilla tools to fix problems. It would also help those of us who like to avoid demolishing buildings unless it's an absolute last resort.
Oh my god yes, him saying "set the junction to pick your lane, as you can see" had me questionning myself on wether he might actually be right the third time he made the mistake. Biffa you get a bit loopy when you haven't put down a round about in a long time !! Love ya anyway :D
He also forces traffic to go certain ways by removing all options for them. He does that very very very often, almost every video. Case in point at 18:30, where traffic that came off the highway is forced to then make a right afterwards.
@@hkr667 I have no idea which highway you mean, there are like 15 roads intersecting everywhere, most of them highway segments, post a link to a picture explaining what you mean if you can please
THIS. This is what I came down here to say after the third time Biffa says the "pick your lane" is set correctly. "NO. No it isn't, you're looking at the 'enter blocked junction' symbol you twit!" I screamed at the computer screen. Clearly, both he and I need a couple more cups of tea.
The interchange you didn't like was a DCMI, and are one of the smallest continuous flow interchanges that don't add a lane to take it away. As long as you use lane mathematics and give a bit of space between to get in to the right lane, they are fantastic.
Curse you Biffa, I am now unable to look at my cities without getting disgusted with how bad I made them, I am now painstakingly fix each and everyone of them! Consequentially 2 of my cities I thought lost causes were saved thanks to your tips and tricks! ;)
18:17 the traffic coming in from the left hand slip road (orange lane management) can't get across to the first right exit (dark purple lane management), there's no node in between. Apart from that, bloody good show sir.
I love how the fly through at end of video shows how much growth and upgrading is done after traffic is fixed to above 75% . Great job Biffa. Looking forward to more.
The city was at 130k when the traffic maker hits with all its rage. Then it drops to 60-70 during hopeless attemps to solve this problem. It just back on tracks
Thinking of one particular exit on I-95 South in Philly (Girard)... What actually happens is that people use the "empty" exit lane to dive around a few hundred feet of backed up traffic. The big difference between the game and real life is that people naturally try to get into the lane with the least traffic in real life, while the sims are more than happy to queue up forever in 1 lane if it cuts 10 ft off of their trips. In other words, real people value their time, and sims only value total distance traveled.
@@JCPRuckus we're actually a living sims in ShangHai, no one dares to cut the queue because it would get your driver's license point deducted. So yeah, traffic isn't so bad in here
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines If you want to be judged to a lower standard, you shouldn't do such a good job all the time ;-P Also, as @Tsz Fung Li said, I can never tell when you're trolling after the roundabout debacle!
This video is calming for me almost terapeuthic. There is something that just makes this so satisfying and calming to watch so you watch more and more. This happened to me and i was just recommended a video of Biffa fixing traffic out of nowhere (UA-cam algorythm is wierd. I know.) and i just wanted to watch more!
Whenever you fix the roads with lane mathematics & traffic goes from a standstill to moving is so satisfying to see. Also every time Biffa says horky borky take a drink 😜
Another great job in clearing the traffic, Biffa. Those snake roads going to the cargo terminal were hilarious! 😆 My favorite shots in these videos are the Before and After ones... 😌
The AI is interesting at least. I have seen a car (A tourist) diving from the right most lane down an off ramp on the left side and I have lane mathematics, three lane highway going into two lane highway (right and middle lane) and the offramp (left lane), there were nodes allowing lane switching, but no management, due to my PC being barely able to handle the game as it is. The biggest problem I have is trains unable to despawn at the end of the map, as Biffa has shown previously in a TeaVille episode, but that is only a problem because litterally every train goes that direction, despite a second route on the other side being available. And you misstook Enter blocked junction with Pick your lane.
Oh that before/after time-lapse was incredible!!! In time with the music and everything. It’s amazing also to see how the buildings upgrade with better traffic
Horky Borky… a phrase I'll probably never use... but never get tired of hearing you say it :) I've watched about 20 of your vids after finding your channel about 1.5 weeks ago... love it. Looking forward to more Teaville and Surviving the Aftermath. Thanks for putting out content for city builder lovers.
@@Tfin Well, you also have the fact that only so much can be stored inside, and having very slow(but consistent) ships that are not relyable on emptying it at all, meaning that the only other way is cars, and if they get stuck in a traffic jam, you only have the ships. Adding trains to it, means that there always is an option for a train to lower the storage at all times. Which, on its own, allows for the average speed to be faster.
For more compact traffic sponges, you can use a six lane one way road in a circle, with an input and output on opposite sides (one on the inside, one on the outside) of the same node, and set all other nodes to stay in lane. It acts like a spiral and is far more compact than single lane roads, and if you need less of a sponge later on you only need to change one node in traffic manager.
Biffa's tips help me a lot in managing my traffic but I also found some nuggets of wisdom on the steam support boards. 1) Do not mix cargo and passenger trains. This stops cargo trains from clogging your passenger network (forcing people back into their cars). 2) Passenger trains should have a few dedicated train stations connected to the outside, and a separate internal system.This prevents your passenger trains from getting blocked by intercity trains. 3) Try to keep your imports of goods down. Raw materials is so far fine. The internal transport of your own produced raw materials is much heavier traffic (lorries, not small trucks). 4) If you do create train (t-)junctions, keep a train length between crossings. This gives them a place to stop without blocking a junction.
I played cities again after watching your videos for a while and thanks to the things I learned by watching I have absolutely no traffic issues anymore. Thank you!
18:15 again forced people not to use the junction. I know you're probably doing so many of these, it makes sense to miss a few, but YT comments are here to always point that out :p (p.s. I think you may have missed some lane management on the swindon randabout)
Most of my playtime in CS was in this map (Islands)... I love seeing what ppl do with this map. and I really loved the looks of this author. Good job to you both for a great looking, traffic free, city !
18:25 The problem I see many people "solving" is the one featured at this particular moment in the video. The different connectors are so close to each other than even with line math you can't solve. In this particular example, you have a 2 and a 1 line joining into a 3 line on the right and setting it to go each to one line, and without any node in the middle, you'll get to the next junction in which you force the rightmost line to go away to the right exit. Similarly, the ones joining from the left can never go right in the next junction. The traffic flows, yes, but there are impossible routes.
I must say as well... I love that you didn't need to touch every single junction in this city to get stuff working. Interesting to see something that wasn't just all correcting lanes & roundabouts.
Well that being said, he didn't need to touch any junction. Just delete all that messy lane management and get rid of truck traffic either by setting more cargo terminals or by fixing import problems (or both). Also that 4 way highway junctionts are not designed well in general and can't hold much traffic.
I dont even play this game, i have never played it, but somehow watching you fix fictitious traffic problems is very relaxing. Would you be able to get a hold of a real city in the future? "A biffa a day keeps the hypertension away"
@ 23:38 did you notice the boat sank in the river on the left? I was fighting my city ..... traffic was absolutely great like 90% (I like heavy industy load) and all of a sudden there was traffic on all the highways coming into the grids I had purchased from off grid and about a zillion cars just packed my city to a standstill. ... my laptop I think is the culprit. ... 100% CPU usage, 100% RAM usage and the dual GPU set up was reported as 410% usage with 4 FPR.... new computer supposed to be here tomorrow, wish me luck! And Biffa.... you got me into this mess getting me hooked on Cities Skylines, thanks for the tutorials and the addiction! Lol
I saw this city in on the workshop yesterday and loaded it up. Yeah, I fully expected this to become an episode after looking at it! Great job. I did some fixing myself for fun, but I learn so much from your videos as I'd never of thought of moving cargo by rail. I clearly need to continue building my own cities and learning the ins and outs of the game, but I am glad you make these videos so I can learn ahead of time. Whoever authored that U interchange that is common in this city needs to fix their asset. Every one of them that was plopped in this city had a hidden stop sign!?
That moment you find yourself mumbling in Biffa's tone while playing Cities Skylines... Thanks for the helpful video's Biffa, My Cities crashed from 105k people to 35k because off trafic, your helpful tips saved the citie!
Biffas videos have helped me so much, I've never had a problem with city traffic since following his videos except for the new one I'm building, gonna have to dig deep and find the root of the problem (it's only 50% traffic)
I enjoyed seeing the changes to the buildings as the montage played, maybe showing some of the cities growth as traffic and shipping is fixed would allow for us watching to understand how that helps. Love the videos, always watch with my Aunt now, she waits to hear it and is disappointed when you don't make her giddy.
In France, we have a song about a caterpillar. It says it: "C'est la chenille qui se prépare En voiture les voyageurs La chenille part toujours à l'heure" In english, it says something like this: "It is the caterpillar who prepare In cars, travellers The caterpillar go always on time!" The first picture of the video remind me this. :)
I had a ton of traffic "returning to the facility", so I built a one-way loop with two harbours in it and restricted trucks to go past the first harbour of the loop. Automatically, the first harbour only exports and the second one only imports with no returning traffic on either. Traffic went down a lot and the industry kept doing its thing. (Traffic manager mod required)
The traffic probably disappeared because most of it was owned by the Cargo Hub, so once the Cargo Hub didn't exist, the trucks it owned didn't exist either.
1:40 what you pointed at that is enabled was enter the node even if they cant leave it in one go. the other one thats DISABLED is the lane switching. either enable lane switching or connect the lines to both that go forward which gives the same result but can prevent the cars from switching to a wrong lane if only some of the available are supposed to be used so the way you did it was not only the opposite from what you said on video but also terrible wrong.
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines actually no because you got it disabled so they wont do it. they only automatically do it on nodes where the symbol is not visible because that means it can only be enabled there but in this case it can be enabled or disabled and you got it disabled so they will never do it at all
@8:45 What can we do? We shall dig! A massive underground corkscrew that goes from the surface down to 0 with built-in rest areas so they don't die before they drop off the cargo.
Not really, giant blocks of single use zoning is not good for traffic. It means everyone has to drive to work or to the shop and all industry has to drive to and from commercial areas. Mixed use zoning is super beneficial in decreasing traffic.
I'd just like to say, thank you for getting me interested in this game (and consequently spending a ton of time with it) and worrying about traffic more than I have ever done in my life XD I get worried if I see my traffic dip under 80% lol But you'd be disgusted by my underground roads :P
@@petrgrebenicek1067 My first "well done" city has a HUGE number of underground roads...it's horribly messy BUT it keeps my 1 highway main access working fine XD
@@sweetchik460 I placed cargo trains to edge of map. City is separated to districs. Did over 15 metro lines connecting districs and others running around in the district. Tree industry is separated circuit, ppl travel there through metro. It is my first city and going fine. Traffic is just busy, but flowing giving me 75% after fixing some issues with one cargo station that was spaming trucks. It is rather small city with 40K ppl now, but also provides like avg. 30-60K weekly income. However I am more focusing to learn than to grow.
dang there is a lot of those videos, finely watch em all. love em. Dont have the game myself yet but love those games. And the way that your tea is overrouling everything is wonderful to hear. your defently have me hanging around
I am pretty sure that the only things that matters on roundabout settings is the giving/having priority and "moving on a blocked junction". For example: "Allow/disallow lane changing for vehicles going straight on" does not really affect the way cars swap lanes when inside the roundabout(they do no matter what) or when they are entering the roundabout(because they are not going straight)
I dono the roads aren't straight and the curves aren't smooth biffa. This map isnt done by a long shot. I know you dont want to spend so much time working on one city but beautifying the city roads and simplifying them is so pleasing. Keep it up and I hope you can do more of that in the future.
To be fair with the "bad AI" thing, it would be a bit smarter of an AI if they checked for free lanes running in the same direction as the one they're trying to enter to try and naturally spread out, though I doubt the game's roads are programmed to support that...
Love watching your city fixes Biffa. Very informative. Though I’m sad that my 1st city needs almost double the RAM that I have to run 😭 Was thinking of asking you to help my factory supplies routing
So there is actually a way to use multiple cargo hubs right next to eachother. Cargo hubs don't spawn traffic randomly. Traffic in C:S always chooses the most efficient route when deciding where it wishes to go. That means that, if you have 2-3 hubs set up right next to eachother, you can work your hub so that it's more efficient to use hub A to get to location B and hub B to get to location A, and the traffic will split naturally. The trick is, NOT connecting your cargo hub directly to the highway(or at least not using a junction, if you want one hub to do Southbound traffic and one to do northbound traffic, that's fine), since highways tend to take priority and people tend to design their cities to accommodate highways. Generally speaking, your goal in C:S should always be to give your traffic MORE options, and not to make 2 options functionally equivalent, or to dump all the traffic in one central place.
I recommend for that purpose... The SPIDERABOUT!!! Big two lane roundabout, eight or more off ramps, national roads, no speed limits. Point to point, like an express train service. You might also try its companion... The OUTERABOUT!!! That's a two lane highway around a district c10k peeps, again no speed limits. Not too many on/off ramps. (Watch the dust carts drifting the corners, great sport!)
Rather than use just lane mathematics to shape traffic, I have a rather efficient method based on fluid dynamics. If traffic moves out of an area faster than it can come in, it can never get filled up. To achieve this, I set the speed limit higher on departing lanes than on arriving lanes. A difference of five or ten across the busy area can be enough to keep things moving. I still like to force drivers to stay in their lane when passing junctions but I also like to make the traffic fan out and fill available lanes. Thus, more lanes means more traffic can move through. I merge underused lanes into one and allow a choice of two lanes for busy lanes.
@3:12 never downgrade to 1 lane. All the cars who wanna move out of the city, gets stuck behind all the trucks. The fewest roads on a high way should always be 2.
5:39 there is a cargo train station near the harbor BUT not only can the trucks not drive from that station to the harbor, the railway connection does not allow trains from the left side even going there in the first place. beyond me why the creator of this city did not think about putting the huge cargo traffic from the road network onto the rail.
I've sat through 4 of your videos already and I have no Idea why! I don't play this game, really don't ever intend on playing it but for some reason I find this sort of city planning fascinating to watch. Only thing that bothers me is you say "give way " yet here in the US we say Yield. all in all great videos!
a fast and easy way to build a puffer would also be to (mis)use a 4+ lane roundabout leadig the traffic inwards in a spiral and build an exit from the innermost lane. (or the other way round - however you like it most)
I've found in my cities that lane mathematics on highways should never go to less than 2 lanes or else you'll arbitrarily limit the capability of cars to overtake each other and inevitably cause jams. So every time you did it here I quivered a little inside.
Can't help but look at that unnecessarily long, winding road next to a harbour called Traffic Maker and think "I'm not sure this was an accident nor was it bad planning, but a very subtle trick (In the same way smashing someone's clackerbag between 2 bricks is subtle) to get their city on Biffa's channel". Can't argue with the results though
Back to 4K \o/ - also be sure to stick around for the Pre & Post Fix montage...this one it pretty good. Enjoy :-)
nice vidéo ;)
That montage was really nice. How did you path the camera?
Biffa Plays Indie Games you would have to have a time lapse macro with a preset map/route right? And then ran it twice?
Biffa what do you think about getting all the dlc's? Is it necessary?
Odd, this video only shows 720p for me? I use latest Chrome on Windows 10...
I don't know why, but seeing you fix traffic makes me so relaxed.
Nice :-)
Didn't play this game but love to see you fix traffic in this game :v
Same. I don't even play this game, but I enjoy watching the videos regardless.
I came here for some tips. Not played the game since and that was a year ago.
Like actually
Biffa do you ever drive down the street and think "Lane Mathematics!" when seeing a poorly built road in real life?
All the time 😋
Where I live there was very poor city planning in a quickly growing area so it's almost impossible to fix the issues without destroying businesses when you click to upgrade roads or add roundabouts.
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines omg what a relief. I was off sick a few days ago and just binged these videos... the next day I was out saying "pick your lane" to everyone!!
Since these videos, every day
@@tls5870 Yup. It's like that on one of the major roads near where I live. A ton of commercial traffic, poorly planned, not at all walkable or bikeable (and of course buses actually drop off pedestrians on gravel shoulders so my disabled partner has to actually walk in the street to get to where we're going cuz he can't walk through the steep ditch). During rush hour, traffic is often at a stand still all along that road.
And of course, that's also where the movie theater is located. There is technically room to fix all of the problems on the road, but the city doesn't really have the funds to do it and none of the businesses care about handicapped ppl that take the bus either. It can be extremely difficult to get around in this town if you're handicapped. I've no idea how a woman I see around town in a wheelchair manages - half of the bus stops don't even have cut curbs (including the new cement pad that was put at a stop right next to Target). And yes, I've seen her riding the bus a lot, so I know this is something she regularly has to deal with.
Biffa going an entire traffic fix episode without building a single roundabout is rare, but it happened today!
That's why he built us a spiralabout. Several connected concentric roundabouts lol
You know it's bad when the poor lad's calling it 'traffic maker' out of frustration!
Oh come on... It wasn't frustration, I just tried to make the job easier for Biffa
@James Walker Have you got concussion?
@James Walker ok I understood this but why did you phrase it like that BVNSHJFNFJG holy hell
@@noiz1762 .... how did you understand that
@@noiz1762 how
One reason one gets a lot of "returning to facility" cargo traffic is that you import a LOT. I had the issue and after adding some industry 4.0 I produced goods so that I don't have to import as much, this balanced import/export and fixed the issue for me without changing much with the infrastructure.
If there is a port near each industrial area they would not all travel to 1 port
Sorta proves a point with regards to Cities Skylines traffic. It's all about three main things, road layout (lanes, junctions, type), passenger routes (bus, tram, metro, monorail, train, etc) and cargo distribution (air, sea, train, etc), get one wrong, particularly badly wrong like relying on a single cargo terminal for a large portion or the entirety of a city, and traffic tanks.
And also you will have an issue if you export lots of things. I have a city with TONS of industry, so I export 45000 & make around 400k money per week, but of course I have backed up port and queuing up trains those go outside the city. I have done all the tips, but still have 60% traffic with despawning turned on. So don't build more industry than the city needs.
17:50. Nope, lane switching is disabled there. Probably why all traffic goes straight through.
13:50 Same thing. The green icon is "continue into intersection". 😁
same with 15:40
People who complain that the "traffic sponge" is unrealistic probably aren't aware of massive transport hubs. First keep in mind that Cities Skylines puts into a relatively tiny freight hub what should be in an area the size of a small town. There should be a dozen cargo ship or cargo train loading bays, and several dozen truck bays. But there aren't. And even if there were, in the real world we still have lines 100s of trucks long backed up waiting to unload and load cargo. They don't use a "traffic sponge" but it's not far different. It's more like a giant truck parking lot / queueing lot. And Cities Skylines doesn't have an option like that.
I think what you're doing is perfectly fine, and is a great solution for what the game developers have presented us with. Good Job! And "Lane Mathematics" is always a classic.
Basically, they'd use something like a truckyard, where the trucks park and wait their turn to be unloaded, usually paired with or very near a truck stop, where they get refueled. Even those, typically have a parking lot just for queuing up waiting their turn if they are willing, (especially if it's the end of their shift, and are about to shut down for the night). So, the traffic "sponge" is basically a low tech version of that.
At our local port, the truck doesn't even stay with the trailer (the most of the time). They arrive and unhook the trailer, and the truck leaves, leaving the trailer in, like what you said, a huge carpark (think the size of airport parking when you see them during take-off and landing) and a similar sized area for the trucks to use when waiting for their pick-up/drop offs. Plus everything is split to the various different ports/companies within our "Harbour Estate" depending on which ship is arriving (dropping off the last of the trailers) or departing (collecting some trailers), but also, to my knowledge, a lot of the work is done overnight (in preparation for the 7am departure, trailers are dropped off before 5am, so they are on the motorways long before commuter/school traffic).
If actual transport hubs/ports were "turning over" at the rate of the vehicles going in and out of "Traffic Maker", the entire world would have ground to a halt, not just a few highways around the port! haha
I mean my one factory has dozens of trailer loading and unloading bays.
The port at Umm Qasr Iraq had trucks lined up for miles waiting to enter the port
The moment you realized you had no destination in mind. XD
Lol :-)
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Lol, the line of vehicles are just a mirage. We all know what you wanted.
that spiral road hurts my soul
Nokia 3310 : "I don't think anybody can make a more complicated snake than me."
Biffa : "Hold my Roundabout."
😁
Lol 😀👍
Kids these days have no idea what a Nokia 3310 is... 😭
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Looks like the small intestine, mate!
I like it best when you try to work with the existing infrastructure to solve the traffic problems by optimizing what's already there, especially in heavily developed areas. It just feels more realistic and organic. IRL nobody would bulldoze big buildings or move skyscrapers to add in a roundabout or relocate an intersection to a smarter place. IRL they'd look at how to optimize what's already there as best as possible.
Some tools i'd like to see you work with in these are the custom traffic lights in the TMPE mod which can fix a lot of problems in an intersection that a roundabout would fix, but without having to resort to bulldozing stuff, just creating better traffic flow and I think that would be fun to see you have to use more of the options available with the TMPE mod and vanilla tools to fix problems. It would also help those of us who like to avoid demolishing buildings unless it's an absolute last resort.
Easily one of my favorite youtubers and I barely play vanilla minecr- i mean cities skylines
Thank you Euge Groove :-)
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines you used to make minecraft video before making cities skylines in 2015
11:10 The moment Biffas brain said: I don't want to do math I just want to play Minecraft!
When you didn't actually set the pick your lane option on three different junctions I just died inside XD
Oh my god yes, him saying "set the junction to pick your lane, as you can see" had me questionning myself on wether he might actually be right the third time he made the mistake.
Biffa you get a bit loopy when you haven't put down a round about in a long time !! Love ya anyway :D
He definitely needs more sip of tea. So he can concentrate more.
He also forces traffic to go certain ways by removing all options for them. He does that very very very often, almost every video. Case in point at 18:30, where traffic that came off the highway is forced to then make a right afterwards.
@@hkr667 I have no idea which highway you mean, there are like 15 roads intersecting everywhere, most of them highway segments, post a link to a picture explaining what you mean if you can please
THIS. This is what I came down here to say after the third time Biffa says the "pick your lane" is set correctly. "NO. No it isn't, you're looking at the 'enter blocked junction' symbol you twit!" I screamed at the computer screen. Clearly, both he and I need a couple more cups of tea.
I get a kick out of how you are technically removing road with your lane math and yet improve traffic. So satisfying!
The interchange you didn't like was a DCMI, and are one of the smallest continuous flow interchanges that don't add a lane to take it away. As long as you use lane mathematics and give a bit of space between to get in to the right lane, they are fantastic.
Curse you Biffa, I am now unable to look at my cities without getting disgusted with how bad I made them, I am now painstakingly fix each and everyone of them! Consequentially 2 of my cities I thought lost causes were saved thanks to your tips and tricks! ;)
Biffa's videos just made me want to only fix traffic and nothing else haha
18:17 the traffic coming in from the left hand slip road (orange lane management) can't get across to the first right exit (dark purple lane management), there's no node in between. Apart from that, bloody good show sir.
I love how the fly through at end of video shows how much growth and upgrading is done after traffic is fixed to above 75% .
Great job Biffa. Looking forward to more.
Thanks! Ray Toney :-)
The city was at 130k when the traffic maker hits with all its rage. Then it drops to 60-70 during hopeless attemps to solve this problem. It just back on tracks
"this is how the AI is set up to work"
I'm pretty sure if RL cities used lane mathematics it would actually work pretty well too.
Thinking of one particular exit on I-95 South in Philly (Girard)... What actually happens is that people use the "empty" exit lane to dive around a few hundred feet of backed up traffic.
The big difference between the game and real life is that people naturally try to get into the lane with the least traffic in real life, while the sims are more than happy to queue up forever in 1 lane if it cuts 10 ft off of their trips. In other words, real people value their time, and sims only value total distance traveled.
@@JCPRuckus honestly wished the ai in the game behaved like that.
@@RavensEagle Too CPU heavy.
@@JCPRuckus we're actually a living sims in ShangHai, no one dares to cut the queue because it would get your driver's license point deducted.
So yeah, traffic isn't so bad in here
Unfortunately humans drive the cars, not AIs. Otherwise, I'd agree.
Hey Biffa. I love your videos. It's so satisfying to see the traffic flow freely after you fix it.
Hello big mathis I love your besiege videos really satisfying
At 13:46 "You can see there we've got the junction switching automatically on." Junction switching is off. Come on, Biffa, you're better than that!
I mean really....simple mistake...
Lol happened a few times in the video. Biffa just needed more tea on that day
I had to pause the video and look again at that time stamp because I noticed the same thing XD
I can't tell when is he trolling after the two way roundabout thing
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines If you want to be judged to a lower standard, you shouldn't do such a good job all the time ;-P Also, as @Tsz Fung Li said, I can never tell when you're trolling after the roundabout debacle!
I've half a mind to get this game, build my irl city, and then send it to Biffa to see how he fixes the ridiculous traffic
This video is calming for me almost terapeuthic. There is something that just makes this so satisfying and calming to watch so you watch more and more. This happened to me and i was just recommended a video of Biffa fixing traffic out of nowhere (UA-cam algorythm is wierd. I know.) and i just wanted to watch more!
👍😁
That time lapse was gorgeous. Showing not only the traffic fixing, but how the city grows as well. 💜
"Which I hate to do............", rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation!
By now I'm totally sitting at home playing skylines and thinking to myself: "let's do some lane mathematics".
CarlosBeo when my traffic gets bad I say out loud “what would biffa do”. My husband just replies with “add a roundabout” ☺️
Whenever you fix the roads with lane mathematics & traffic goes from a standstill to moving is so satisfying to see. Also every time Biffa says horky borky take a drink 😜
Another great job in clearing the traffic, Biffa. Those snake roads going to the cargo terminal were hilarious! 😆 My favorite shots in these videos are the Before and After ones... 😌
The AI is interesting at least. I have seen a car (A tourist) diving from the right most lane down an off ramp on the left side and I have lane mathematics, three lane highway going into two lane highway (right and middle lane) and the offramp (left lane), there were nodes allowing lane switching, but no management, due to my PC being barely able to handle the game as it is.
The biggest problem I have is trains unable to despawn at the end of the map, as Biffa has shown previously in a TeaVille episode, but that is only a problem because litterally every train goes that direction, despite a second route on the other side being available.
And you misstook Enter blocked junction with Pick your lane.
Simple mistake but they switch lanes at nodes anyway ;-)
Oh that before/after time-lapse was incredible!!! In time with the music and everything. It’s amazing also to see how the buildings upgrade with better traffic
😁
So ready to watch some lane management, fixing round-a-bouts and as well as lane mathematics 🤓
Thanks, enjoy :-)
Horky Borky… a phrase I'll probably never use... but never get tired of hearing you say it :) I've watched about 20 of your vids after finding your channel about 1.5 weeks ago... love it. Looking forward to more Teaville and Surviving the Aftermath. Thanks for putting out content for city builder lovers.
The cargo harbor with the train seems to handle trucks much faster than the other cargo harbor
It looked a bit suspicious, yes. With the harbor having the name it did, I'd have checked for speed restrictions. :)
@@Tfin Well, you also have the fact that only so much can be stored inside, and having very slow(but consistent) ships that are not relyable on emptying it at all, meaning that the only other way is cars, and if they get stuck in a traffic jam, you only have the ships. Adding trains to it, means that there always is an option for a train to lower the storage at all times. Which, on its own, allows for the average speed to be faster.
well, you see in the timelapse that there is a traffic jam on the railway now, so now there have to be more railways.
Because :
1. More distribution
2. The train itself acting as moving warehouse. Virtually adding more cargo storage in any place but road way
For more compact traffic sponges, you can use a six lane one way road in a circle, with an input and output on opposite sides (one on the inside, one on the outside) of the same node, and set all other nodes to stay in lane. It acts like a spiral and is far more compact than single lane roads, and if you need less of a sponge later on you only need to change one node in traffic manager.
Biffa's tips help me a lot in managing my traffic but I also found some nuggets of wisdom on the steam support boards.
1) Do not mix cargo and passenger trains. This stops cargo trains from clogging your passenger network (forcing people back into their cars).
2) Passenger trains should have a few dedicated train stations connected to the outside, and a separate internal system.This prevents your passenger trains from getting blocked by intercity trains.
3) Try to keep your imports of goods down. Raw materials is so far fine. The internal transport of your own produced raw materials is much heavier traffic (lorries, not small trucks).
4) If you do create train (t-)junctions, keep a train length between crossings. This gives them a place to stop without blocking a junction.
thx mate
I did not pay to much attention to import quantities
I played cities again after watching your videos for a while and thanks to the things I learned by watching I have absolutely no traffic issues anymore. Thank you!
18:15 again forced people not to use the junction.
I know you're probably doing so many of these, it makes sense to miss a few, but YT comments are here to always point that out :p
(p.s. I think you may have missed some lane management on the swindon randabout)
I would connect the merging lane to the previous node and the original node become a lane switching point
Pretty sure just about every time Biffa "fixed" a junction with pick your lane, the option was actually disabled.
Yeah, only looks at one junction further, completely ignores the four-lane junction right in the face.
Got me back into Cities Skylines. You do make traffic management look easier than it is though!
Most of my playtime in CS was in this map (Islands)... I love seeing what ppl do with this map. and I really loved the looks of this author.
Good job to you both for a great looking, traffic free, city !
me: *says nothing*
biffa: “yEs ONE baCk To TWOoo. bACK Too THreEee”
Absolutely stunned by the timelapse switching to the beat, very slick editing, love it!
Thankyou 👍😁
He did not build one roundabout, he didn't even fixed one. This is a episode to remember. :-)
As a fellow brit who loves tea I love the usage of the words "hawky bawky"
7:06 that looks like one of those freaking curves from Zuma's Revenge 😂😂
The ultimate DLC: An update that actually makes the freight hubs process at a reasonable speed, and load balances between them and lanes on highways
Watching Biffa take these jammed up roads and making the traffic flow nicely is the most satisfying thing ever. Can you please do this for my city??
18:25 The problem I see many people "solving" is the one featured at this particular moment in the video. The different connectors are so close to each other than even with line math you can't solve. In this particular example, you have a 2 and a 1 line joining into a 3 line on the right and setting it to go each to one line, and without any node in the middle, you'll get to the next junction in which you force the rightmost line to go away to the right exit. Similarly, the ones joining from the left can never go right in the next junction. The traffic flows, yes, but there are impossible routes.
I must say as well... I love that you didn't need to touch every single junction in this city to get stuff working. Interesting to see something that wasn't just all correcting lanes & roundabouts.
Well that being said, he didn't need to touch any junction. Just delete all that messy lane management and get rid of truck traffic either by setting more cargo terminals or by fixing import problems (or both). Also that 4 way highway junctionts are not designed well in general and can't hold much traffic.
NIce to hear that. Before harbour problem it was at 83% traffic ratio.
I dont even play this game, i have never played it, but somehow watching you fix fictitious traffic problems is very relaxing. Would you be able to get a hold of a real city in the future?
"A biffa a day keeps the hypertension away"
😁
@ 23:38 did you notice the boat sank in the river on the left?
I was fighting my city ..... traffic was absolutely great like 90% (I like heavy industy load) and all of a sudden there was traffic on all the highways coming into the grids I had purchased from off grid and about a zillion cars just packed my city to a standstill. ... my laptop I think is the culprit. ... 100% CPU usage, 100% RAM usage and the dual GPU set up was reported as 410% usage with 4 FPR.... new computer supposed to be here tomorrow, wish me luck!
And Biffa.... you got me into this mess getting me hooked on Cities Skylines, thanks for the tutorials and the addiction! Lol
I saw this city in on the workshop yesterday and loaded it up. Yeah, I fully expected this to become an episode after looking at it! Great job. I did some fixing myself for fun, but I learn so much from your videos as I'd never of thought of moving cargo by rail. I clearly need to continue building my own cities and learning the ins and outs of the game, but I am glad you make these videos so I can learn ahead of time.
Whoever authored that U interchange that is common in this city needs to fix their asset. Every one of them that was plopped in this city had a hidden stop sign!?
That moment you find yourself mumbling in Biffa's tone while playing Cities Skylines...
Thanks for the helpful video's Biffa, My Cities crashed from 105k people to 35k because off trafic, your helpful tips saved the citie!
That was satisfying, I especially like these ones that are fixed with something other than roads.
a whole vid with mostly lane mathematics and turning signs or whatever they're called.. most satisfying thing i've ever seen
Someone sends a city with 2% traffic Biffa's brain: oh shoot here i go again
Biffas videos have helped me so much, I've never had a problem with city traffic since following his videos except for the new one I'm building, gonna have to dig deep and find the root of the problem (it's only 50% traffic)
I enjoyed seeing the changes to the buildings as the montage played, maybe showing some of the cities growth as traffic and shipping is fixed would allow for us watching to understand how that helps. Love the videos, always watch with my Aunt now, she waits to hear it and is disappointed when you don't make her giddy.
Poor aunt! 😋
4:50 Biffa ! Please ! Observe before acting GRRRRRRR !
"Mamma mia" this guy will never change xD
Wow that dynamic before and after compilation at the end was amazing! good job!
👍
In France, we have a song about a caterpillar. It says it:
"C'est la chenille qui se prépare
En voiture les voyageurs
La chenille part toujours à l'heure"
In english, it says something like this:
"It is the caterpillar who prepare
In cars, travellers
The caterpillar go always on time!"
The first picture of the video remind me this. :)
I had a ton of traffic "returning to the facility", so I built a one-way loop with two harbours in it and restricted trucks to go past the first harbour of the loop. Automatically, the first harbour only exports and the second one only imports with no returning traffic on either. Traffic went down a lot and the industry kept doing its thing. (Traffic manager mod required)
The traffic probably disappeared because most of it was owned by the Cargo Hub, so once the Cargo Hub didn't exist, the trucks it owned didn't exist either.
I bought this after finding you,
watch the whole series from start to now,some more than once
Keep it going
1:40 what you pointed at that is enabled was enter the node even if they cant leave it in one go. the other one thats DISABLED is the lane switching. either enable lane switching or connect the lines to both that go forward which gives the same result but can prevent the cars from switching to a wrong lane if only some of the available are supposed to be used so the way you did it was not only the opposite from what you said on video but also terrible wrong.
Doesn't matter, they lane switch on nodes anyway 😉
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines actually no because you got it disabled so they wont do it. they only automatically do it on nodes where the symbol is not visible because that means it can only be enabled there but in this case it can be enabled or disabled and you got it disabled so they will never do it at all
@8:45 What can we do?
We shall dig!
A massive underground corkscrew that goes from the surface down to 0 with built-in rest areas so they don't die before they drop off the cargo.
The city was actually well designed. Basically all he needed is a cargo hub. After that, the traffic probably would solve themselves.
They forgot that cargo also needs a good travel network as well as passengers!
Not really, giant blocks of single use zoning is not good for traffic. It means everyone has to drive to work or to the shop and all industry has to drive to and from commercial areas. Mixed use zoning is super beneficial in decreasing traffic.
thx mate
@@spxdersen Only problem with traffic was this harbour.
Before harbour traffic starts adding up I had 83% traffic ratio
Tip for the long snakes by cargo hubs just build them under ground. Doesn’t look that bad
13:47 Biffa: You can see here we've got the junction switching automatically on there.
TM:PE: Lane switching is forbidden here.
6:05 There is an asset in the workshop for traffic soaking, called "Cargo Traffic Sponge v2", can't even make a city without that! 😂😂😂
I'd just like to say, thank you for getting me interested in this game (and consequently spending a ton of time with it) and worrying about traffic more than I have ever done in my life XD I get worried if I see my traffic dip under 80% lol But you'd be disgusted by my underground roads :P
You're welcome :-)
I try to not use underground roads in case I will have to send it to Biffa :D
@@petrgrebenicek1067 My first "well done" city has a HUGE number of underground roads...it's horribly messy BUT it keeps my 1 highway main access working fine XD
@@sweetchik460 I placed cargo trains to edge of map. City is separated to districs. Did over 15 metro lines connecting districs and others running around in the district. Tree industry is separated circuit, ppl travel there through metro. It is my first city and going fine. Traffic is just busy, but flowing giving me 75% after fixing some issues with one cargo station that was spaming trucks.
It is rather small city with 40K ppl now, but also provides like avg. 30-60K weekly income. However I am more focusing to learn than to grow.
dang there is a lot of those videos, finely watch em all. love em. Dont have the game myself yet but love those games. And the way that your tea is overrouling everything is wonderful to hear. your defently have me hanging around
The editing for the timelapse at the end was fantastic!
I am pretty sure that the only things that matters on roundabout settings is the giving/having priority and "moving on a blocked junction". For example: "Allow/disallow lane changing for vehicles going straight on" does not really affect the way cars swap lanes when inside the roundabout(they do no matter what)
or when they are entering the roundabout(because they are not going straight)
It was so satisfying watching all the building come up after the traffic cleared by at the end
I dono the roads aren't straight and the curves aren't smooth biffa. This map isnt done by a long shot. I know you dont want to spend so much time working on one city but beautifying the city roads and simplifying them is so pleasing. Keep it up and I hope you can do more of that in the future.
Oh god... I would have liked gone nuts and destroy all those terrible junctions... Really good job at fixing it!
Nobody: Biffa: bit of Horkey Borkey lane switching
To be fair with the "bad AI" thing, it would be a bit smarter of an AI if they checked for free lanes running in the same direction as the one they're trying to enter to try and naturally spread out, though I doubt the game's roads are programmed to support that...
Love watching your city fixes Biffa. Very informative. Though I’m sad that my 1st city needs almost double the RAM that I have to run 😭
Was thinking of asking you to help my factory supplies routing
Watching the lines of traffic drain is good asmr.
Do you know what asmr is? This is incredibly relaxing but definitely not asmr.
Basically: Lane Management (and a bit of tea)
So there is actually a way to use multiple cargo hubs right next to eachother. Cargo hubs don't spawn traffic randomly. Traffic in C:S always chooses the most efficient route when deciding where it wishes to go. That means that, if you have 2-3 hubs set up right next to eachother, you can work your hub so that it's more efficient to use hub A to get to location B and hub B to get to location A, and the traffic will split naturally. The trick is, NOT connecting your cargo hub directly to the highway(or at least not using a junction, if you want one hub to do Southbound traffic and one to do northbound traffic, that's fine), since highways tend to take priority and people tend to design their cities to accommodate highways. Generally speaking, your goal in C:S should always be to give your traffic MORE options, and not to make 2 options functionally equivalent, or to dump all the traffic in one central place.
I recommend for that purpose...
The SPIDERABOUT!!!
Big two lane roundabout, eight or more off ramps, national roads, no speed limits. Point to point, like an express train service.
You might also try its companion...
The OUTERABOUT!!!
That's a two lane highway around a district c10k peeps, again no speed limits. Not too many on/off ramps.
(Watch the dust carts drifting the corners, great sport!)
Why do I like watching these videos so much? I don't even play this game. but I can't wait for the next one.
:-)
Rather than use just lane mathematics to shape traffic, I have a rather efficient method based on fluid dynamics. If traffic moves out of an area faster than it can come in, it can never get filled up. To achieve this, I set the speed limit higher on departing lanes than on arriving lanes. A difference of five or ten across the busy area can be enough to keep things moving. I still like to force drivers to stay in their lane when passing junctions but I also like to make the traffic fan out and fill available lanes. Thus, more lanes means more traffic can move through. I merge underused lanes into one and allow a choice of two lanes for busy lanes.
Why I enjoy watching your fixing videos to bed. Relaxes me and I can then sleep 🤣👌🏼
@3:12 never downgrade to 1 lane. All the cars who wanna move out of the city, gets stuck behind all the trucks. The fewest roads on a high way should always be 2.
5:39 there is a cargo train station near the harbor BUT not only can the trucks not drive from that station to the harbor, the railway connection does not allow trains from the left side even going there in the first place. beyond me why the creator of this city did not think about putting the huge cargo traffic from the road network onto the rail.
I've sat through 4 of your videos already and I have no Idea why! I don't play this game, really don't ever intend on playing it but for some reason I find this sort of city planning fascinating to watch. Only thing that bothers me is you say "give way " yet here in the US we say Yield. all in all great videos!
23:09 wtf ! Look at left.. parking XD cars with vertical position 🤣🤣
Wonderful end timelapse. I greatly appreciate the production value!
Thankyou 👍
23:08 that parking lot though... Lol
Wauw that ending was cool, must have taken a while. Good job.
a fast and easy way to build a puffer would also be to (mis)use a 4+ lane roundabout leadig the traffic inwards in a spiral and build an exit from the innermost lane. (or the other way round - however you like it most)
I've found in my cities that lane mathematics on highways should never go to less than 2 lanes or else you'll arbitrarily limit the capability of cars to overtake each other and inevitably cause jams. So every time you did it here I quivered a little inside.
Can't help but look at that unnecessarily long, winding road next to a harbour called Traffic Maker and think "I'm not sure this was an accident nor was it bad planning, but a very subtle trick (In the same way smashing someone's clackerbag between 2 bricks is subtle) to get their city on Biffa's channel".
Can't argue with the results though
13:46 "you can see there we've got The Junction switching *off* ..." you really need to pay better attention to some of these things 👀
19:22 it might work better with 1 lane coming out and have that one lane split into 2 on the highway (ie letting the driver decide which lane to take)
Why do I find these videos so satisfying?
It feels weird to watch old video's, but still, there is so much to watch from back in the day xD