Tram traffic scaling

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L. Spooner Inc
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Tram traffic scaling

Post by L. Spooner Inc »

I've been playing around with tram-only games, and I'm running into serious late-game problems.

Trains can be made any length, which means it's possible to make them consistent across the board with the length of platforms. It's also possible to tell trains to always go to the end of the platform if they're shorter than the station. And if you get a traffic jam of trains, you can untangle it by having trains reverse even against signals on a case-by-case basis.

Trams (particularly with mods) can be of various lengths, and you have no control over it, so it's impossible to lay tram stations out to a consistent length to accomodate all possible trams, so they stations must be made to the length of the longest possible trams. The problem is that trans will happily shove themselves into the nearest station, even if it's just a single station in a three-length station series, blocking the track behind it. If it's a busy station, you'll end up with a traffic jam almost instantly, and with trams you can't get them to reverse. I've ended up having to abandon games because it became literally impossible to untangle them. The entire system ground to a halt since you can't alter track underneath trams, and you can't get trams to reverse, and you don't have the level of discrete control you have with trains. The fact that trams have a much smaller cargo capacity than trains of similar length means the problems are exponentially worse as the high volumes of late-game cargo require much, much larger numbers of trams and stations to accomodate them.

I've tried game after game using just trams, and eventually I end up having to abandon every one of them as every station starts to require constant babysitting to keep jams from occuring. And since trams can be replaced over time with trams which are shorter or longer, there's no way to accomodate them without having to send every single tram to a depot and rip up, then re-place every single tram station on the map any time you get new trams with a different length.

Am I doing something wrong, or are trams just a WIP which aren't ready for prime time?
Michpi
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Re: Tram traffic scaling

Post by Michpi »

Well, I never use tram as the main vehicle. But ...

I think you know there is no real need to build longer trams stops. Just for eye-candy.
It may dependent on trams grf, but to me, it looks like the length of the tram is just a matter of graphics.
At least the trams can easily pass through each other.

If you are experiencing traffic jams due to trams waiting for a free station, you can always place a depot there. And make the trams wait in the depot, so as not to block the tram tracks.
Arnoud
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Re: Tram traffic scaling

Post by Arnoud »

Are you using auto separation for your trams?

If you dont all trams on a particular line will after some time drive after one another and that can cause jams.

Auto separation can be achieved by pressing CTRL and then cloning the first vehicle on a line, then enable auto separation in the timetable window.

If the jams occur where 2 or more tramlines meet you may need to improve the layout of your transfer point; put 2 stops beside one another (rather than just making them longer), another option is to make the stop accessible from both directions, the tram will take the fastest route to the stop and if the stop is blocked by another loading tram it will even take a small detour to the other direction of the stop if this is faster.
Coder for the 2cc trams (passenger) and the 2cc cargo trams
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