Been playing for a short while, working my way through the Campaign missions for the first time and I'm beginning to notice more frequently the traffic problem. I dont have any of the DLC's just vanilla Tropico so It's something i have to work through or around.

Is there a way to avoid these jams? I have tried using lots of garages, but thats kinda catch 22, getting vehicles off the road quicker but also putting them back on just as quick. I have also tried spreading things out with a lattice of roads but space is a bit of a premium on some of the islands and i still end up with jams.

Is there a way around this problem or is it all something we have to live with?

If you haven't read this, it's a must:

http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/showthread.php?tid=2786

It's for T3, but it still applies. Handling traffic is one of the central tasks. Mastering it will make your Tropican life easier. Ultimately, I can say that I end up with about 1 Garage per 50 people in the Residential area, coupled with one Garage in each Industrial destination. Basically, use them as endpoints. Still read FP's guide at the link above, it is absolutley priceless.

PS: try to avoid building 4-way intersections. It helps. Also, avoid right-angle turns, try to provide curves wherever possible. Hard turns slow cars down considerably more.

J

Epic guide indeed. A bit complicated at first but it really works even if you can follow it roughly. Like driscojs mentioned try to avoid intersections and corners. A less complicated thing to do if you just want to get through the campaign mission is a circle and then connect intersections on it.

To make a circle follow the pictures V

First make a cross with roads


The connect all the sides with roads so you can make a circle like this


Now remove the internal roads and in you want to external too in case the intersection is not meant to be a cross


Use it to connect your roads on it.


This is nothing compared to FPs awesome guide but ever since i picked it up in the forums here it has helped a lot with traffic jams in intersections.

Also this is the reason why droscojs said NO corners and as many curved lines as possible.

I just put a corner in a perfect straight line that never had traffic and see what happened :

The car in the middle the has a red circle stopped for some reason making the one that was coming behind it stop too


Here you see on the bottom with the arrow the one that had an arrow above and its stopped. Why its stopped? But because for some reason the one on the picture above decided to stop for a bit even after passing the corner. And yes the other 2 cars are stopped too. .


And just another randomly stopped car here


Why all these cars stop though? Maybe its because the pedestrians pass the crosswalk.. maybe because the chcken tried to cross the road.. maybe they are badly programmed.. who knows the sure is corners are bad and you should avoid as much as possible. >.<!

It appears to me that cars simply pause at intersections. That causes a minor cascade in all the other cars behind it. Remember, the roads are serial interfaces, not parallel. If one car gets delayed, that delay is tranmitted in decreasing increments backwards through travel flow. I try to make long runs out to my Industry whenever possible. Car transit, when unimpeded, I consider 'instantaneous', certainly versus walking. So I never sweat having a fairly long road way out to a resource, etc. I'd rather the cars spread themselves out and give what few intersections I do have time to process the cars through. I only have 16 intersections for my ~550 pop islands. They are all 3-way intersections.

Also, don't put intersections too close to one another. I leave about the length of 3 apartments between my closest ones. When speaking of intersections, that includes any from a building, like a Garage or Dock, etc.

J

I actually enjoy creating massive, epic traffic jams on my islands, and then I sometimes strive to repair the damage. I know, my wife says I'm nuts considering how mental I get when I'm caught in a real life traffic jam. I like to think that I'm taking out my frustrations on virtual people rather then the real thing.

Yeah. I really am nuts.

oh man, thank you folks, thats just what i needed