Hey Biffa for the next series do you think its possible to make a Dutch style city? Which is full of canals and uses boat transportation, trams and cycling for people to get around.
Or, if you want an easy challenge, an Italian city: make the traffic drop to 1% while periodically removing services and increasing taxes for no reason.
I'm craving a city building series in which the city is fully designed to be mass transit dependant. Everyone walks, or uses buses, trains, trams, metros and such. (or uses bikes, to fit with a Dutch theme)
Or the Oklahoma challenge? Trying to create a city in a way where tornados come past once a while, so having everything in 1 spot isnt very smart cuse it wil get hit all at once, or a japan build wich offcourse got tsunami's to cope with There is a realistic weather mod wich lets you set weather and storm seasons actually
But these aren’t yards? A yard (at least in Britain) is a load of siding next to each other in cities skylines they just have 2 tracks so in this case it may be called “Kensall sidings” due to only having 2
@@ciala51 That's the same in the US as well. A railyard is basically a staging area for outgoing trains or for sorting train cars to the outbound tracks. Then there are Hump Yards which is automated and they use gravity to assemble the trains. Those are all but gone in the US now since we now rely on "Precision Scheduled Railroading". Most of our trains are now miles long and have locos in the middle or on the ends just like they once did in the 30's-40's in the age of steam.
I was hoping you'd bring back the Fix Your City series, but it seems the new builds with the custom roads have become a hybrid anyway :) Super enjoyable as usual!
Fixing cities took soooooo long to find cities that actually needed fixing, would be interesting for the audience and overall just even loaded...! Would love to do more but need to find out a better way of finding cities to fix that fit the criteria :-)
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Maybe you can use your Discord community to vote on which ones they would like you to fix? So you at least weed out the non-loading saves and cities that work well? Just an off-the-cuff idea! :D
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines I have a city that once it hit 55k it actually died because of trucks going to shops, I would 100% send the save on steam, its pretty light on mods, only things to make the city prettier, its on a Custom map but the custom map is pretty light as well.
Hello. The biggest problem in this city is that, you use the dedicated turning lines on roads with bus lane. The mod still use it similar as all other lanes. You should look trough all junctions with bus lanes on it. :)
Exactly what I noticed. Although I saw some cars breaking the law and driving on a bus lane but most of the traffic will not and they'll take the longer route around to get where they need to.
Yes, I noticed that in my own city as well. Cars would constantly be in the bus lane and I was like "but I told you to not drive there, why are you driving there?" Turns out that it's exactly as you say: The only way to leave the roundabout is via the bus lane. So, any roundabout with a bus lane has to be set up manually with turning lanes (and sometimes you'll even need a little bit of Hugo There to tell drivers they can indeed enter the roundabout onto the turning lane and don't need to drive full circle in order to change to the correct lane).
I think the problem is that this bus hub isn't easily reachable by bike or foot so everyone drives to it by car. A bus hub who everyone is driving to by car is kinda not doing it's job. Should be near the train station close to the city center. Edit: lmao just paused the video before he was talking about it.
For me, instead of putting the farm station "perpendicular" to the main railway line, I would have put it parallel to it, much simpler and much room for maneuver
using move-it, grab a node, hold alt and drag the node. the tracks will curve or straighten perfectly. and if you checkmark "straight slopes" then, you don't need to manually slope the land. when done, grab the "smoothify" tool and "sort it".
i think it would be a lot more realistic for the track from cargo station in the farming area is to let it pass under the main train corridor and connect with a far wider circle on the the track.
Perfect, my newest city is about to unlock trains, and I have small towns supporting industries all spread out, and need to make routes to the main town - fun!
Biffa you also need more Local connections across the motorways. Currently pretty much every way to cross the motorways are intersections/interchanges, which just clogs them up.
to stay accurate with it being a smaller british town/city at the moment maybe look to trams, as only some of the biggest cities in the country have underground metros, ie london, glasgow etc
A metro that runs from The Wave to Upper Teahampton Hub to The Wold Bus Station and connects to East Kettling Park might be a good idea. You could even bring it down to St Giles FC and along the motorway for a stretch if you wanted to loop a bit more. Some of it could even be above ground along the motorway and in the countryside, as if it were an old converted train line. It might eventually need to expand into the residential areas, but I think your buses should to a decent job at collecting passengers and moving them around, especially now that you've turned off the unnecessary transfer setting on TMPE.
I never understood why emergency vehicles don't somehow magically get to pass traffic. Like their AI needs to be able to drive outside of the regular AI pathing (like the shoulders or something) so they don't get stuck in traffic lol
Hey Biffa, that farm area cargo train station. Given the slope of that hill, why not send the line under the main line and then have nice connections on the other side?
I was watching overcharged egg and he makes the road connection to his cargo train stations straight like a capital T. The top of the T being a cargo station and the tail a road. The trucks drive in and straight out on the opposite lane…it crushes the traffic even when it gets very busy. Would likely work well on your bus station also.
Biffa in an early video: - We need to make a long slope with archways so the train can rise gently. Biffa now: - Just plop that super sloped rail right there. Why not extend the passenger line along the motorway and make it a railyard kind of thing?
A couple of tips that you might find useful; * Increase the Global Industry Budget in the Budget Panel to the Maximum %150 to give the maximum number of freight trucks to Warehouses and Factories, this looks like it costs money but it infact makes money (huge proffits), doing this also increases your Industrial Traffic considerably so it provides you an additional challenge of getting your transport Network Optimised. * Keep your external and internal train Networks separate and only have 1 freight Terminal for Export per external link, This prevents you from creating Train Gridlock at the border of your map. * If you have a station which recieves a lot of Traffic build a Train Sponge; a loop of 1 way track just before the station long enough to queue the incoming trains out of the way, this prevents your switches and junctions from being Gridlocked by the waiting train traffic. *If you have a high number of trains Gridlocking your Local Network then change the Train Stations at each end of your Line into Terminus Train Stations by adding a length of 1 way Track in front of the station to make it a "goods Inwards" or "goods Outwards" station. This drastically cuts down on un-needed trains on your train line, they will be spawned when they are needed and de-spawned once they reach a Terminus and are emptied.
At 16:40 the dedicated turning lanes on the new edge road means that you have one lane into two on a major road, better to have the left turn lane straight on as well as left. Lane mathematics works at junctions too.
The in and out of cargo to trains is always on the side of the road you drive So imagining a road from left to right => On left hand drive, cars will be on the 'top lane' going from left to right. Placing cargo station on that side 'in' will be on the left (first), out will be on the right (second). On right hand side driving, the ins and out reverse so it's always in first then exit next. The issue always comes in one-way roads. On left hand drive, one way road, you want to place the station on the left hand land. One way road left hand drive from left to right => place train on the top lane (left hand side on the road). One way road right hand drive going same direction => place train on the bottom (right hand lane of the road). You see?
The train tracks to Kensall Station are way way way too steep. Please change the build and put the cargo station down in the valley. And please change the size of the train track corners, they are way too small!
The double right lanes were actually setup by TM:PE when you did the quick setup for the lines. You can see it change them at 23:16 to have both car lanes turn right leaving only the bus lane to go straight. I don't think it accounts for the bus lanes when doing the quick setup which is why it's forcing car lanes to go right. You really didn't need the bus lanes on that road and I'm glad that you replaced it with a 6 lane road at the end of the episode. I think the reason why so many people from outside the city are driving to The Wold instead of using public transit is because it's faster to drive directly there instead of taking the bus to the Upper Teahampton Hub and then taking another bus to The Wold. You'd think they'd take the train as you have a train line setup from Upper Teahampton but for some reason nobody wants to use your train lines.
The cars coming to drop someone near the bus terminal, have to wait behind buses. You can make it a 2 lane road and allow more vehicals to pass quickly. Also not sure how much are dedicated buslanes helping near bus terminal. Maybe try replacing them with general wide roads?
METRO YES! The city is so spread out, you should have a metro. Especially as it becomes more populated, it will be a necessity like any major city. Also, as John Simpson said, try using an "upstairs/downstairs" route for buses & cars. Like at airports for arrivals & departures.
Maybe improve vehicle throughput at the bus depot with separated 'upstairs & downstairs' routes for buses vs cars? Like airport terminals have for departures & arrivals. My 2 cents. Love watching!
Between the bus station and the roundabout you should make it a 3+2 or 6 lane road + bus lanes. It would allow 2 through lanes so people can stack up more= better throughput
Might be a good idea to go for a more visible mouse cursor. Couldn't you have placed the cargo terminal at the farms parallel to the tracks instead of perpendicular? Wouldn't that give you more space to work with? Seems to me like roads with seperate bus lanes are often more hazzle than they are worth. Esp. if you rely on the automatic directions.
Biffa, why didn’t you build the cargo terminal parallel next to the train track at the farm? It now takes up more space and you have a unrealistic bend in the train track. Also the train tracks to the cargo terminal at the industry area take up to much space, they cover the whole field.
At that massive junction @23:24, you do not have a way for the highway traffic to exit to the right around the junction, so they are likely stacking left and then turning around to go back over the junction.
Relative noob still... I'm in the midst of my best ever Cities save... A hybrid of the American styling with British "design". Of course I added a cargo harbour and now half the city is gridlocked with exporting lorries... These videos teach me so much, thanks chap!
As a structural engineer, it’s funny to see those elevated power lines. Someone, at some meeting, suggested to cast a concrete slab 10 meters thick and then build the pylon on top of that 😅
TM:PE now has a setting to allow only certain vehicle types to despawn. So you could have despawn off, but turn it on only for trains to prevent any issues.
Idk if you can do it, but changing the trucks into small lorries or vans for the deliveries in the town itself might help a lot. They're smaller than those big trailer ones anyway
For buses i recommend the Stagecoach E300 buses from the Steam Workshop. Stagecoach operate similar buses in the uk, and have a high capacity (80 iirc). Trams also work well for cities, as tramways can be used like a light railway to go between districts, and then work at street level like buses
Yes to the metro but make it proper "light rail" and not fudge everything underground. Kudos to whomever made the trains too: they look superb (even though some were too long for this city).
I had a similar problem with one of my interchanges (traffic leaving and going right back on). Removing the "trucks prefer inside lane" (or whatever it's labelled) in Traffic Manager did the trick for me (for the most part).
25:19 - I would recommend disabling the bus-only road there, painting a dashed segment for "turning and buses" (in this case, straight and buses) in IMT, then there should be more lanes available for (redone) dedicated turning lanes. Alternatively, (possibly using IMT), move the dedicated bus lanes to the center because they seem to be flowing into a hub and don't stop around that area, at least not on the main road
Heh, the international bus station's main problem, was that people had trouble getting OUT from there, thus creating an internal tailback that looped all the way back outside.
In the US, we're running longer and longer trains simply because it is more efficient to ship great quantities of goods with 2 engines at the front and a third engine about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the way back. Cargo operators have been moving junctions and switches farther and farther apart so as to accommodate trains that are a mile or more (sometimes a lot more) in length.
Nothing like watching Biffa at 6:30 AM with a good cup of coffee. A lot of your traffic seems to be private vehicles. You really should put in a tube system. Lord knows where London would be without it.
5:30 - cars don't get in each other's way Biffa - adds complexity to solve a problem that doesn't exist Edit: 11:40 - I don't think it will have all the carts, you just want to limit the ones called "long" the others can use a variety of the trailers from the list but not necessarily all of them.
Great video as always, on the cargo trains at the bottom of the box it had the cargo capacity set to 15, so wouldn't you be able to lower that number to shorten the length of the train?
The AI in this game annoys me more and more over the years. Not only do they favor the left lane even if it makes their trip 10x longer to reach their destination, but they also NEVER use the right lane to pass. I hope one day this game gets the AI update it deserves. Or, if they make a sequel, all I want from it is much smarter citizens.
20:17 They do that because the pathfinding algorithm seems to favour oneway highway roads much more than speed limit. Road type has a much bigger weight on the pathfinding than changing speed limit. So that why u need to be careful which road type u use as exit lane. There is a mod that allows u to manually change the “weight” of a road. I think if u just search pathfinding on the workshop u’ll find it.
I think you could build a train depot around the Cargo station, add more of a industrial feel to the station and also allows areas for all the locomotives to stay!
At the end of the video now. Instead of normal metro, how about a DLR/ old Liverpool Overhead Railway inspired elevated metro? Could fit in well especially as you have the old market station with a similar vibe
Might be nice to see if there are any small rural cargo stations on the workshop, just because it looks kinda out of place to have a ginormous station with a fully operating crane, essentially in the middle of a field. Sure it’s practical in-game, but realistically, such a set-up would be OTT. Also, Blightea definitely needs an Underground! But maybe save it for the more built up, Downtown area.
You seem to have at least arrived at the conclusion in part (right at the end, with a roundabout and an asymmetrical road), but your bus lanes are killing your traffic! I've made this comment often: bus roads simply don't work well in most scenarios. You're sacrificing far greater bandwidth on the roads for the sake of uninterrupted buses... when the extra bandwidth of having more lanes would mean that the buses don't get stuck anyway, and the rest of the traffic would benefit massively as a result. Also, you've got into a habit of creating little cul-de-sac areas (like your bus hub) with only one in/out road. Tinkering with lanes isn't going to help solve that problem when all the traffic is forced through a single entry/exit; you need more roads (yes, even where you're going!).
When picking and designing industry locations, do you have future cargo rail connections in mind? Would it go too far to build all industries around an envisioned future rail network? So you'll never have to squeeze in connections and waste space? I loved the idea of a central commercial strip between two arteries with residential on both sides. With room for a metro that would even be better. A similar strip could work for industrial zones all over the map, but with a railway at its core. Instead of one long line, either could also be in a circular pattern. Planning these in advance could really make a city efficient in the future.
The roads/intersection before that bus hub just seem cursed. The lane arrows keep changing, busses won't use the bus lanes, all of the cars want to turn in there and then immediately leave. There's no logically reason for that to happen, something is bugged, and hopefully that roundabout fixes whatever that bug was.
Almost certainly something to do with the bus lanes. Traffic Manager understands what a bus lane is, but it doesn't seem to account for them when doing things like allocating turning lanes.
Totally ignoring the fact of this city of Biffa is U.S. inspired: This game - or rather its inevitable sequel - need two things a) actually zoneable, CAR FREE (delivery allowed) pedestrian / bike streets that function without modding. So you can basically build car-free shopping streets that basically every town center in european cities has b) even better: zone- or paintable plaza areas, where pedestrians and cyclists can move freely without fixed paths. But also p.t. stops for busses, metro, tram etc can be build anyway.
The bus station has just one single lane circular round it, so cars dropping off hold all buses up plus any other vehicles. Needs a second lane at least or drop off area and second lane.
Haven't played the game myself in a while now. The mods for advanced terraforming, slopes, moving of already placed objects and optimising road nodes look really useful. Guess I'll look through your mod list and give it another go as well.
About all the private vehicles going to the same bus station at around 33:00 , could it be because it is the only bus station to allow intercity busses? So everyone is trying to get to it to leave the city by bus?
I think “Kensal Railfreight Terminal” sounds more British, You could always stick “National” or “International” before Railfreight if desired, there are certainly many cargo train sidings in the UK that are named similarly. I’d say Yard is more of a Canadian term, although “Sidings” might be a good term for the slightly smaller farm terminal.
22:19 I think the problem with the Kettling junctions is that they are too close. If you lane maths are working normally, the cars would be forced to go into the first junction in order to get to the second one
I don’t know about anyone else, but I love the adjusting mass transit. Seeing how many passengers on each line/route and the raising or lowering the numbers of vehicles. Could you show more off that, rather than offscreen? Ta
Once I looked up what an allotment was, I thought it was very cool too. Would love to see some more little british villages centered around allotments and a church.
This ep has great timing Biffa, I'm working on the map Southshire by DustVixen which is an awesome map but unfortunately lacks ship connections. So I'm having to get creative to have enough cargo train terminals.
Kensal Station: If you put the station on the other side of the loop (opposite of the highway), the road coming from Upper Teahamption would not have to cross the the track at all. Also, you could later extend the track without crossing the road that goes under the highway to the industrial park.
In my opinion the cargo train station is just badly designed. In my city, the trucks stopped clogging the highways but then they queue ridiculously long lines to cargo train stations, rendering industrial areas gridlocked. So for me what works is with the EDS mod, you can set all the trucks from the industrial to a collection warehouse, in which the warehouse would then send it to a distribution warehouse servicing the local district only. With this trucks won't go from industry to commercial area directly and you can assign the size of the trucks which service locally and those who transport from warehouse to warehouse.
a big issue is your inter city bus station, a major traffic generator, is in a cul de sac. So all that traffic is saturated on a single underbuilt junction. Give them another way to get into there.
I love them camera jumps I just find them so funny also question When I place a cargo station should it always be next to the industrial area or just a random spot to reduce traffic?
Some truly strange things... the game has some quirks form time to time. My one comment this time is on the road at Kensai Caro train station. I understand you want a road to slope down, but I think that making it an S road and having it connect far away from the traffic circle makes the route to get their longer, which may make it a less desirable choice. So instead of the 180 degree turn and all the way back, it might be better to have it slope down and join the big road closer to the roundabout, maybe just on the other side of that tree line. As a side effect, it might also encourage some through traffic to use this as a route to get from the industrial area to the roundabout without having to go through the interchange.
Also, there might be a mod to manage how much each one of those trucks carries, the figure they use in the game might be wildly unrealistic. Those big shipping container trailers will haul 50,000lbs of cargo irl
The need is to make the train connection better not move on to Metro. Put the local passenger service on its own line and loop them. Move the cargo yards to a parallel position with the main line connection them from the opposite sides. (see Amin Richards suggestion). Rearrange the farming section to give more room for the station in the middle. Make room for those BIG TRAINS on the outside connections.
For anyone wondering: I think the thumbnail is from the German A3 next to the Cologne-Frankfurt high speed rail (first German 300km/h rail line I think)
I think that you should use the square space between the The Kettlings and St Giles for the city centre, using the Moterway Box as a ring Road, A boundary for the dense city centre, you could build indoor shopping centres in the city centre (examples, Buchanan Galleries Glasgow, Arndale Manchester, Bullring Birmingham)
3:30 - I would have elected to make a fork at the existing intersection to the left instead of having two intersections close to each other on the rail. A short rail stub can sometimes result in train deadlocks. Same at the other side of the station.
I've seen quite a few assets that model the kind of long trains seen in the real world - full-length 16-car shinkansen, or kilometre-long freight trains. But whenever I've tried to use them, I've run into the problem that they're incompatible with stations, and just end up blocking traffic in and out. Anyone seen any station assets or mods that cope with that?
Something I've never understood about games is why don't they have real companies that pay them a flat fee to have their brand in the game forever? Especially if it's a real world game like Cities Skylines? The mod of the FedEx and Amazon made me think of it. Why wouldn't a company pay a few thousand bucks to have product placement in a game for a lifetime? It would probably be better than TV commercials and cheaper per view. You have to think not only would it be the people who bought the game but also anyone who watches a TH-cam video on the game or a live stream on Twitch.
Hey Biffa for the next series do you think its possible to make a Dutch style city? Which is full of canals and uses boat transportation, trams and cycling for people to get around.
Would love that! Might want to check out JeremyThunder for such build. I'm particularly loving his Carribbean themed build.
Or, if you want an easy challenge, an Italian city: make the traffic drop to 1% while periodically removing services and increasing taxes for no reason.
I'm craving a city building series in which the city is fully designed to be mass transit dependant.
Everyone walks, or uses buses, trains, trams, metros and such. (or uses bikes, to fit with a Dutch theme)
Or the Oklahoma challenge? Trying to create a city in a way where tornados come past once a while, so having everything in 1 spot isnt very smart cuse it wil get hit all at once, or a japan build wich offcourse got tsunami's to cope with
There is a realistic weather mod wich lets you set weather and storm seasons actually
@@Dutch_Chucky Not all Oklahoma things are in Moore.
To be more "british" about it, you could call the cargo stations " Yard", so "Kensall Yard"
But these aren’t yards? A yard (at least in Britain) is a load of siding next to each other in cities skylines they just have 2 tracks so in this case it may be called “Kensall sidings” due to only having 2
@@ciala51 That's the same in the US as well. A railyard is basically a staging area for outgoing trains or for sorting train cars to the outbound tracks. Then there are Hump Yards which is automated and they use gravity to assemble the trains. Those are all but gone in the US now since we now rely on "Precision Scheduled Railroading". Most of our trains are now miles long and have locos in the middle or on the ends just like they once did in the 30's-40's in the age of steam.
@@NCXDesigns well toton is gone as well I think it was the largest hump yard in Britain
If he wanted to even be MOAR British, he would include the word "Tea" in the station names, like "Kensall TEA Yard" ;)
I was hoping you'd bring back the Fix Your City series, but it seems the new builds with the custom roads have become a hybrid anyway :) Super enjoyable as usual!
Fixing cities took soooooo long to find cities that actually needed fixing, would be interesting for the audience and overall just even loaded...! Would love to do more but need to find out a better way of finding cities to fix that fit the criteria :-)
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Maybe you can use your Discord community to vote on which ones they would like you to fix? So you at least weed out the non-loading saves and cities that work well? Just an off-the-cuff idea! :D
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines I have a city that once it hit 55k it actually died because of trucks going to shops, I would 100% send the save on steam, its pretty light on mods, only things to make the city prettier, its on a Custom map but the custom map is pretty light as well.
What about taking REAL LIFE cities, making them better? Like add in more mass transit, and alternatives to cars
@@Kafj302 I have to second this.. would be interesting to see a fix.. like NYC or such
Hello.
The biggest problem in this city is that, you use the dedicated turning lines on roads with bus lane. The mod still use it similar as all other lanes. You should look trough all junctions with bus lanes on it.
:)
Exactly what I noticed. Although I saw some cars breaking the law and driving on a bus lane but most of the traffic will not and they'll take the longer route around to get where they need to.
Yes, I noticed that in my own city as well. Cars would constantly be in the bus lane and I was like "but I told you to not drive there, why are you driving there?"
Turns out that it's exactly as you say: The only way to leave the roundabout is via the bus lane. So, any roundabout with a bus lane has to be set up manually with turning lanes (and sometimes you'll even need a little bit of Hugo There to tell drivers they can indeed enter the roundabout onto the turning lane and don't need to drive full circle in order to change to the correct lane).
I think the problem is that this bus hub isn't easily reachable by bike or foot so everyone drives to it by car. A bus hub who everyone is driving to by car is kinda not doing it's job. Should be near the train station close to the city center.
Edit: lmao just paused the video before he was talking about it.
@@danonck good. IRL this discourages car driving, which is VERY GOOD.
For me, instead of putting the farm station "perpendicular" to the main railway line, I would have put it parallel to it, much simpler and much room for maneuver
Same.
Build a the station parallel to the main tracks so the cargo station can be connected as a mainline through station.
Also, I would had put it on the other side of the rails since if he expand a bit the farm area there will be a lot of traffic heading there
using move-it, grab a node, hold alt and drag the node. the tracks will curve or straighten perfectly. and if you checkmark "straight slopes" then, you don't need to manually slope the land. when done, grab the "smoothify" tool and "sort it".
i think it would be a lot more realistic for the track from cargo station in the farming area is to let it pass under the main train corridor and connect with a far wider circle on the the track.
A flyover as they're called is exactly what I was thinking as well.
Perfect, my newest city is about to unlock trains, and I have small towns supporting industries all spread out, and need to make routes to the main town - fun!
Biffa you also need more Local connections across the motorways.
Currently pretty much every way to cross the motorways are intersections/interchanges, which just clogs them up.
Yep, yep, yep!
It's also bad for pedestrian and cycle accessibility - no way to cross those motorways - so that drives traffic up too.
to stay accurate with it being a smaller british town/city at the moment maybe look to trams, as only some of the biggest cities in the country have underground metros, ie london, glasgow etc
Maybe some roads that go over/under the highway so they don't have to go through the round-a-bouts?
He doesn't like to use tunnels because he likes to see everything. But I agree, tunnels are useful
sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2427028663 this is a really nice asset for roundabout bypasses, clean and compact
A metro that runs from The Wave to Upper Teahampton Hub to The Wold Bus Station and connects to East Kettling Park might be a good idea. You could even bring it down to St Giles FC and along the motorway for a stretch if you wanted to loop a bit more. Some of it could even be above ground along the motorway and in the countryside, as if it were an old converted train line. It might eventually need to expand into the residential areas, but I think your buses should to a decent job at collecting passengers and moving them around, especially now that you've turned off the unnecessary transfer setting on TMPE.
Great idea, thanks :-)
Hi Bus driver here. Most double-deckers in UK have 90 capacity.
I never understood why emergency vehicles don't somehow magically get to pass traffic. Like their AI needs to be able to drive outside of the regular AI pathing (like the shoulders or something) so they don't get stuck in traffic lol
Love how you put in the effort to make the road have a smooth descent from the kensall station but the trains can just climb that mountain.
Yeah, the cargo station needs to be sunk down or the rail needs to be raised up sooner
Hey Biffa, that farm area cargo train station. Given the slope of that hill, why not send the line under the main line and then have nice connections on the other side?
That was my first thought as well. Or build a new road to have the station parallel to the tracks.
Build a the station parallel to the main tracks so the cargo station can be connected as a mainline through station.
@@kaltaron1284 Build a the station parallel to the main tracks so the cargo station can be connected as a mainline through station.
I was watching overcharged egg and he makes the road connection to his cargo train stations straight like a capital T. The top of the T being a cargo station and the tail a road. The trucks drive in and straight out on the opposite lane…it crushes the traffic even when it gets very busy. Would likely work well on your bus station also.
I think a small RAF base would be a good fit.
Biffa in an early video:
- We need to make a long slope with archways so the train can rise gently.
Biffa now:
- Just plop that super sloped rail right there.
Why not extend the passenger line along the motorway and make it a railyard kind of thing?
@11:50 you disallowed spawning of container trains 4 and 5, they both aren’t called long and probably can spawn and fit.
A couple of tips that you might find useful;
* Increase the Global Industry Budget in the Budget Panel to the Maximum %150 to give the maximum number of freight trucks to Warehouses and Factories, this looks like it costs money but it infact makes money (huge proffits), doing this also increases your Industrial Traffic considerably so it provides you an additional challenge of getting your transport Network Optimised.
* Keep your external and internal train Networks separate and only have 1 freight Terminal for Export per external link, This prevents you from creating Train Gridlock at the border of your map.
* If you have a station which recieves a lot of Traffic build a Train Sponge; a loop of 1 way track just before the station long enough to queue the incoming trains out of the way, this prevents your switches and junctions from being Gridlocked by the waiting train traffic.
*If you have a high number of trains Gridlocking your Local Network then change the Train Stations at each end of your Line into Terminus Train Stations by adding a length of 1 way Track in front of the station to make it a "goods Inwards" or "goods Outwards" station. This drastically cuts down on un-needed trains on your train line, they will be spawned when they are needed and de-spawned once they reach a Terminus and are emptied.
A metro??? OOOOOOOO!!! Time to lay the foundation for the Blightea Underground!! ^w^
At 16:40 the dedicated turning lanes on the new edge road means that you have one lane into two on a major road, better to have the left turn lane straight on as well as left. Lane mathematics works at junctions too.
0:12 That Amazon Prime truck. Accurate. So damned accurate.
The in and out of cargo to trains is always on the side of the road you drive
So imagining a road from left to right =>
On left hand drive, cars will be on the 'top lane' going from left to right. Placing cargo station on that side 'in' will be on the left (first), out will be on the right (second).
On right hand side driving, the ins and out reverse so it's always in first then exit next.
The issue always comes in one-way roads.
On left hand drive, one way road, you want to place the station on the left hand land.
One way road left hand drive from left to right => place train on the top lane (left hand side on the road).
One way road right hand drive going same direction => place train on the bottom (right hand lane of the road).
You see?
The train tracks to Kensall Station are way way way too steep. Please change the build and put the cargo station down in the valley. And please change the size of the train track corners, they are way too small!
The double right lanes were actually setup by TM:PE when you did the quick setup for the lines. You can see it change them at 23:16 to have both car lanes turn right leaving only the bus lane to go straight. I don't think it accounts for the bus lanes when doing the quick setup which is why it's forcing car lanes to go right. You really didn't need the bus lanes on that road and I'm glad that you replaced it with a 6 lane road at the end of the episode.
I think the reason why so many people from outside the city are driving to The Wold instead of using public transit is because it's faster to drive directly there instead of taking the bus to the Upper Teahampton Hub and then taking another bus to The Wold. You'd think they'd take the train as you have a train line setup from Upper Teahampton but for some reason nobody wants to use your train lines.
from what i remember theres a setting in the node controller options to automatically make every junction sloped by default
The cars coming to drop someone near the bus terminal, have to wait behind buses. You can make it a 2 lane road and allow more vehicals to pass quickly. Also not sure how much are dedicated buslanes helping near bus terminal. Maybe try replacing them with general wide roads?
There’s an asset called ‘Kansas City Freighthouse’ by Lightfooted which I think would fit perfectly as a small cargo station for St Maurice
METRO YES! The city is so spread out, you should have a metro. Especially as it becomes more populated, it will be a necessity like any major city.
Also, as John Simpson said, try using an "upstairs/downstairs" route for buses & cars. Like at airports for arrivals & departures.
Maybe improve vehicle throughput at the bus depot with separated 'upstairs & downstairs' routes for buses vs cars? Like airport terminals have for departures & arrivals. My 2 cents. Love watching!
That's a great idea!
Between the bus station and the roundabout you should make it a 3+2 or 6 lane road + bus lanes. It would allow 2 through lanes so people can stack up more= better throughput
Might be a good idea to go for a more visible mouse cursor.
Couldn't you have placed the cargo terminal at the farms parallel to the tracks instead of perpendicular? Wouldn't that give you more space to work with?
Seems to me like roads with seperate bus lanes are often more hazzle than they are worth. Esp. if you rely on the automatic directions.
Biffa, why didn’t you build the cargo terminal parallel next to the train track at the farm? It now takes up more space and you have a unrealistic bend in the train track. Also the train tracks to the cargo terminal at the industry area take up to much space, they cover the whole field.
At that massive junction @23:24, you do not have a way for the highway traffic to exit to the right around the junction, so they are likely stacking left and then turning around to go back over the junction.
You should create a music festival site in one of the areas near the farming and call it ‘Glasteabury’
Relative noob still... I'm in the midst of my best ever Cities save... A hybrid of the American styling with British "design". Of course I added a cargo harbour and now half the city is gridlocked with exporting lorries... These videos teach me so much, thanks chap!
As a structural engineer, it’s funny to see those elevated power lines. Someone, at some meeting, suggested to cast a concrete slab 10 meters thick and then build the pylon on top of that 😅
I think a tram system would suit Blightea more as more UK cities have tram\light rail lines than metros (only in London,Glasgow and Newcastle i think)
TM:PE now has a setting to allow only certain vehicle types to despawn. So you could have despawn off, but turn it on only for trains to prevent any issues.
👍
Idk if you can do it, but changing the trucks into small lorries or vans for the deliveries in the town itself might help a lot. They're smaller than those big trailer ones anyway
I think what I'd like to see along with the metro addition is more detailing.
Maybe you need more places for them to cross from one side to the other without having to get on the highway
For buses i recommend the Stagecoach E300 buses from the Steam Workshop. Stagecoach operate similar buses in the uk, and have a high capacity (80 iirc). Trams also work well for cities, as tramways can be used like a light railway to go between districts, and then work at street level like buses
Yes! Any visible transit it super preferable! I love seeing all the busses go by and modern busses can easily hold 80.
Yes to the metro but make it proper "light rail" and not fudge everything underground. Kudos to whomever made the trains too: they look superb (even though some were too long for this city).
In terms of a metro you could have something similar to the Tyne and wear metro.
Or you could have a tram system like in Manchester
I had a similar problem with one of my interchanges (traffic leaving and going right back on). Removing the "trucks prefer inside lane" (or whatever it's labelled) in Traffic Manager did the trick for me (for the most part).
25:19 - I would recommend disabling the bus-only road there, painting a dashed segment for "turning and buses" (in this case, straight and buses) in IMT, then there should be more lanes available for (redone) dedicated turning lanes. Alternatively, (possibly using IMT), move the dedicated bus lanes to the center because they seem to be flowing into a hub and don't stop around that area, at least not on the main road
Heh, the international bus station's main problem, was that people had trouble getting OUT from there, thus creating an internal tailback that looped all the way back outside.
In the US, we're running longer and longer trains simply because it is more efficient to ship great quantities of goods with 2 engines at the front and a third engine about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the way back. Cargo operators have been moving junctions and switches farther and farther apart so as to accommodate trains that are a mile or more (sometimes a lot more) in length.
Love to see more trains and metros in the city
Notification squad! Love the videos Biffa! Keep up the amazing work
Thanks! Will do!
Nothing like watching Biffa at 6:30 AM with a good cup of coffee. A lot of your traffic seems to be private vehicles. You really should put in a tube system. Lord knows where London would be without it.
5:30 - cars don't get in each other's way
Biffa - adds complexity to solve a problem that doesn't exist
Edit: 11:40 - I don't think it will have all the carts, you just want to limit the ones called "long" the others can use a variety of the trailers from the list but not necessarily all of them.
i was afraid Blightea on the Wold was done because there was no new episode for several weeks. i´m glad it´s back. Love it
I've been alternating Blightea and my US city every other video, every week for months. Someone's not been watching my videos have they 😉
Great video as always, on the cargo trains at the bottom of the box it had the cargo capacity set to 15, so wouldn't you be able to lower that number to shorten the length of the train?
The AI in this game annoys me more and more over the years. Not only do they favor the left lane even if it makes their trip 10x longer to reach their destination, but they also NEVER use the right lane to pass. I hope one day this game gets the AI update it deserves. Or, if they make a sequel, all I want from it is much smarter citizens.
Biffa you could have changed the in out spawn on the cargo train station instead of the 1 way road to avoid cross over traffic.
My favorite part of your videos is you stirring your tea
20:17 They do that because the pathfinding algorithm seems to favour oneway highway roads much more than speed limit. Road type has a much bigger weight on the pathfinding than changing speed limit. So that why u need to be careful which road type u use as exit lane. There is a mod that allows u to manually change the “weight” of a road. I think if u just search pathfinding on the workshop u’ll find it.
I think you could build a train depot around the Cargo station, add more of a industrial feel to the station and also allows areas for all the locomotives to stay!
So the honest truth about cargo, trains, and traffic is that...you can use/manage them how you've always used/managed them?
Hurray!! Finally sorted out that speed limit issue on that bloody roundabout. Been bugging me for many episodes. Thanx Biffa. Peace All
At the end of the video now. Instead of normal metro, how about a DLR/ old Liverpool Overhead Railway inspired elevated metro? Could fit in well especially as you have the old market station with a similar vibe
Might be nice to see if there are any small rural cargo stations on the workshop, just because it looks kinda out of place to have a ginormous station with a fully operating crane, essentially in the middle of a field. Sure it’s practical in-game, but realistically, such a set-up would be OTT.
Also, Blightea definitely needs an Underground! But maybe save it for the more built up, Downtown area.
For the farm cargo, tunnel under the current line and loop back
You seem to have at least arrived at the conclusion in part (right at the end, with a roundabout and an asymmetrical road), but your bus lanes are killing your traffic!
I've made this comment often: bus roads simply don't work well in most scenarios. You're sacrificing far greater bandwidth on the roads for the sake of uninterrupted buses... when the extra bandwidth of having more lanes would mean that the buses don't get stuck anyway, and the rest of the traffic would benefit massively as a result.
Also, you've got into a habit of creating little cul-de-sac areas (like your bus hub) with only one in/out road. Tinkering with lanes isn't going to help solve that problem when all the traffic is forced through a single entry/exit; you need more roads (yes, even where you're going!).
I like the Back to the Future reference lol but yes I agree, especially that cul-de-sacs in high traffic areas worsens the problem
ehhh higher bus throughput moves more people
When picking and designing industry locations, do you have future cargo rail connections in mind?
Would it go too far to build all industries around an envisioned future rail network? So you'll never have to squeeze in connections and waste space?
I loved the idea of a central commercial strip between two arteries with residential on both sides. With room for a metro that would even be better. A similar strip could work for industrial zones all over the map, but with a railway at its core.
Instead of one long line, either could also be in a circular pattern. Planning these in advance could really make a city efficient in the future.
The roads/intersection before that bus hub just seem cursed. The lane arrows keep changing, busses won't use the bus lanes, all of the cars want to turn in there and then immediately leave. There's no logically reason for that to happen, something is bugged, and hopefully that roundabout fixes whatever that bug was.
Almost certainly something to do with the bus lanes. Traffic Manager understands what a bus lane is, but it doesn't seem to account for them when doing things like allocating turning lanes.
Totally ignoring the fact of this city of Biffa is U.S. inspired: This game - or rather its inevitable sequel - need two things
a) actually zoneable, CAR FREE (delivery allowed) pedestrian / bike streets that function without modding. So you can basically build car-free shopping streets that basically every town center in european cities has
b) even better: zone- or paintable plaza areas, where pedestrians and cyclists can move freely without fixed paths. But also p.t. stops for busses, metro, tram etc can be build anyway.
Great idea 👍
The bus station has just one single lane circular round it, so cars dropping off hold all buses up plus any other vehicles. Needs a second lane at least or drop off area and second lane.
Indeed - or better split the lanes at that junction to a bus-only loop and a lot/drop off loop.
Biffa, that single lane road around the Bushub needs a dedicated buslane (1 + buslane, both oneway). It's bottlenecking the whole thing.
Haven't played the game myself in a while now. The mods for advanced terraforming, slopes, moving of already placed objects and optimising road nodes look really useful. Guess I'll look through your mod list and give it another go as well.
About all the private vehicles going to the same bus station at around 33:00 , could it be because it is the only bus station to allow intercity busses? So everyone is trying to get to it to leave the city by bus?
At 20:17, somebody comes driving out of the back of the College dorms and goes straight onto that slip road 😅
I think “Kensal Railfreight Terminal” sounds more British, You could always stick “National” or “International” before Railfreight if desired, there are certainly many cargo train sidings in the UK that are named similarly.
I’d say Yard is more of a Canadian term, although “Sidings” might be a good term for the slightly smaller farm terminal.
Very helpful once again and great video Biffa!
*Was just about to get a cuppa and your new video pops up! coincidence? I think not! lol* 👍💪
Perfect!
Why would you orient the cargo station parallel to the main line when you could orient the track towards it?
Don’t forget to like the video!!
Love waking up to a new Biffa video, I know I’m going to enjoy my morning coffee extra good that day!!
22:19 I think the problem with the Kettling junctions is that they are too close. If you lane maths are working normally, the cars would be forced to go into the first junction in order to get to the second one
Cities Skylines is not a city builder.
It's a traffic simulator.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I love the adjusting mass transit. Seeing how many passengers on each line/route and the raising or lowering the numbers of vehicles. Could you show more off that, rather than offscreen? Ta
Again always fun to watch you solve things! I just love the alotment yard!!! Becoming such a thing more and more across the world :)
Once I looked up what an allotment was, I thought it was very cool too. Would love to see some more little british villages centered around allotments and a church.
OMG biffa used a tunnel!
Shhhh, don't tell everyone or they'll want them all the time 🤣
This ep has great timing Biffa, I'm working on the map Southshire by DustVixen which is an awesome map but unfortunately lacks ship connections. So I'm having to get creative to have enough cargo train terminals.
Kensal Station: If you put the station on the other side of the loop (opposite of the highway), the road coming from Upper Teahamption would not have to cross the the track at all. Also, you could later extend the track without crossing the road that goes under the highway to the industrial park.
In my opinion the cargo train station is just badly designed. In my city, the trucks stopped clogging the highways but then they queue ridiculously long lines to cargo train stations, rendering industrial areas gridlocked. So for me what works is with the EDS mod, you can set all the trucks from the industrial to a collection warehouse, in which the warehouse would then send it to a distribution warehouse servicing the local district only. With this trucks won't go from industry to commercial area directly and you can assign the size of the trucks which service locally and those who transport from warehouse to warehouse.
a big issue is your inter city bus station, a major traffic generator, is in a cul de sac. So all that traffic is saturated on a single underbuilt junction. Give them another way to get into there.
I love them camera jumps I just find them so funny also question
When I place a cargo station should it always be next to the industrial area or just a random spot to reduce traffic?
Some truly strange things... the game has some quirks form time to time.
My one comment this time is on the road at Kensai Caro train station. I understand you want a road to slope down, but I think that making it an S road and having it connect far away from the traffic circle makes the route to get their longer, which may make it a less desirable choice. So instead of the 180 degree turn and all the way back, it might be better to have it slope down and join the big road closer to the roundabout, maybe just on the other side of that tree line. As a side effect, it might also encourage some through traffic to use this as a route to get from the industrial area to the roundabout without having to go through the interchange.
20:32 POV Bracknell Junc M3 Southbound
Also, there might be a mod to manage how much each one of those trucks carries, the figure they use in the game might be wildly unrealistic. Those big shipping container trailers will haul 50,000lbs of cargo irl
The need is to make the train connection better not move on to Metro. Put the local passenger service on its own line and loop them. Move the cargo yards to a parallel position with the main line connection them from the opposite sides. (see Amin Richards suggestion). Rearrange the farming section to give more room for the station in the middle. Make room for those BIG TRAINS on the outside connections.
For anyone wondering: I think the thumbnail is from the German A3 next to the Cologne-Frankfurt high speed rail (first German 300km/h rail line I think)
I think that you should use the square space between the The Kettlings and St Giles for the city centre, using the Moterway Box as a ring Road, A boundary for the dense city centre, you could build indoor shopping centres in the city centre (examples, Buchanan Galleries Glasgow, Arndale Manchester, Bullring Birmingham)
3:30 - I would have elected to make a fork at the existing intersection to the left instead of having two intersections close to each other on the rail. A short rail stub can sometimes result in train deadlocks. Same at the other side of the station.
I've seen quite a few assets that model the kind of long trains seen in the real world - full-length 16-car shinkansen, or kilometre-long freight trains. But whenever I've tried to use them, I've run into the problem that they're incompatible with stations, and just end up blocking traffic in and out. Anyone seen any station assets or mods that cope with that?
Something I've never understood about games is why don't they have real companies that pay them a flat fee to have their brand in the game forever? Especially if it's a real world game like Cities Skylines? The mod of the FedEx and Amazon made me think of it. Why wouldn't a company pay a few thousand bucks to have product placement in a game for a lifetime? It would probably be better than TV commercials and cheaper per view. You have to think not only would it be the people who bought the game but also anyone who watches a TH-cam video on the game or a live stream on Twitch.