Who will win in the ULTIMATE BATTLE of Roundabout VS Diverging Diamond Interchange (With Timed Traffic lights too!). Let me know in a comment below before you watch the video :-)
A proper roundabout always wins over intersections with lights in C:S. 🤷♂️ Should 'of enlarged the DDI a bit, and make the crossing bits go over/under eachother, removing the needs for lights altogether. :)
If it were a 3 level, zero traffic light DDI, i think it would win. However this realistic DDI cannot handle the same amount of traffic as a roundabout.
@@darthkarl99, Its mainly used to replace big intersections where in places you would have to cross traffic in the other lane to enter the motorway. I think they are just cheaper than roundabouts and prevent all lane cuts most the time unlike roundabouts and stupid drivers. (More practical IRL)
@@Ramotttholl yes it does. We have one here in Kansas City, Missouri and it works very well for remediation of traffic when you have a lot of intersections near the primary highway interchange (which we have quite a few of here)
Just wanted to say i have been watching your series and decided to try some of the basics on my current city. Results were pleasing, went from 26% and a death / rubbish issue to 85% and all clear. Thank you so much for doing these vids for everyone to enjoy and learn from
Biffa - all the times I've heard you say "lane mathematics" and you forgot to do that on the diamond... all those trucks end up sandwiched in the one lane, you needed a second through lane and the extra outside lane on/off so that vehicles can keep moving through and pack more in the same space... they sure do look ugly in the game compared to real life... but three lanes leading into it, two lanes through with one lane on/off, helps that backlogged traffic fill the space to address some of your stoplight issues...
I see someone else was a Sim City fan at one point! :) I agree, This is what Maxis should have made, although there are a couple of things that I did love about the Current Sim City. Hope you are having fun in CS.
@@XxMMXIIxX Yeah i can see that. I do miss being able to add to buildings, ie the police, fire, hospital etc. I kinda wish Paradox would have added something similar, guess my simplicity (no pun intended) is showing through. I know that you can add buildings to other buildings, i am just afraid i would screw it up somehow, oh well, at least i am having fun! :)
I wish this game had Regions like Sim City 4 did. I loved being able to make 10 million pop megalopolises in SimCity 4. Of course the new sim cities are all garbage that don't hold a candle to 4.
I don't know if Simcity was challenging (I think it is a bit more challenging, but I didn't play any of the recent ones), but I found Cities:Skylines to have very little challenge. Most of the challenge was just traffic management, and wasn't really required much to have a successful city. I felt like in Simcity you had to deal more with changes in demand and/or pollution and/or other various complaints, or at the least it was harder to make "perfect"/high-value living areas and/or considered more things (such as vegetation or proximity to water)
You haven't seen my double diamond stacked interchange.... no lights, no intersections, only merges, and way better than these generic ones, using both sides of each of the 4 highway roads to merge smoothly
@@ulysseslee9541 ah if you mean the very big one i dont think that's built-in, at least i don't have it... it's very elegant but it doesn't take advantage of using both sides of the same road... i.e. splitting the merging/departing traffic to either side
Seems like the issue with DDI is the traffic lights, in real life it would be super costly, however in the game just do an under and overpass to remove the lights....
@@Mr8lacklp Real life DCMIs look very much like this. In real life, interchanges like this aren't built with everything on their own level all overlapping each other at different heights. Unless you have LOADS of space and tons of money.
@asd which is why in game there is no point in doing anything but roundabouts unless you like the look of things or just want to play. If C:S ever adds in actual accidents and simulates their impact on traffic, roundabouts will no longer the the solution to every traffic problem. game would get significantly harder.
I live in an area where diamonds are popping up a lot more at road-highway interchanges. They work surprisingly well. They also do only have two sets of lights, as the off ramps are yielded. What a diamond actually does, is give direct ramp access to each side of the road while only having to go through one light, where a traditional design has two lights. Light synchronization is also required, which makes two lights, if you're going straight through the road and not onto a highway, feel like one light most of the time. As for design, they're typically two lane roads straight through, with auxiliary lanes for the ramps; some have the inner ramps merge into the two lane road, some have a dedicated u-turn lane for the highway. On the ramps themselves, they typically stay two lane for a good distance before merging into a single lane, though dual lane ramps do exist in some areas. If Cities supports custom roads and intersections, diamonds might have to be a custom mod for them to function like the real-life equivalent.
We have 7 of them in our area now. They work amazingly well. You just have to realize that the primary goal isn't to increase continuous flow of traffic. DDI are about reducing the number of lanes that have to cross over each other to a bare minimum. If you draw out a typical 4 way interchange and map the lanes out and count every time they cross another lane, then do the same for a DDI you'll see the difference. DDI are a tool to solve a specific problem. The traffic lights handle the flow required just fine, but reducing chances of accidents happening which would REALLY back up a super busy interchange is more important. DDI are really cool when you understand what they are and sadly it seems most people haven't got a clue. They aren't meant to be compared to roundabouts. Different tools for different problems.
Now imagine you'd have roundabout 😅 - no necessary crossing, no traffic lights, improved traffic flow and probably also cheaper, thanks to its simplicity.
@@frenchfry1479 if you mean "Diverging diamond interchange" - that's complitaded monstrosity - why you hate simple rhings so much? Are you American (I suppose)? DDI maybe have some uses (when the cloverleaf isn't an optiin), but requires those two roads not to be at the same level and also stops cars more than necessary - at the begging, when you must give a way and in the middle ay traffic lights. On the other hand, the roundabout can be way smaller, is suitable for same level junctions and you give a way only when entering it. It really depends on capacity of the roundabout - the diameter and how many lanes it has.
That's what most of the world does when on the road -_- The US seems to be a big exception apparently. I've seen a ludicrous amount of rule breakers and thus, crashes, in the US. Much more than anywhere else I've been. And wayyyy more than my home country. And alot of it seems to be people just not slowing down at intersections even with the light going red. I don't understand? Are Americans in that much of a rush that they just run through red lights all the time?
@@Arniox Driving by car is the only option for transportation- american mass transportation (trains and busses for example) sucks. Maybe that has something to do with it?
I always go for DDI if I have loads of space and want things to look nice. Roundabouts on motorways just don't look that nice (with an exception of a properly done dumbell).
Here in Poland, you can actually find roundabouts build under or above highways. The government recently built a new highway in my city, sunken below the old roads. All the exits connect to roundabouts above the highway. You can see the donut shape as you drive underneath.
I thought the same thing. Usually you'd want at least 3 lanes over the highway. 2 for straight on and 1 for exit. At least that's the way I've seen every DDI irl. in cities skylines it's always easier to use a round-about, and IMO they look better.
Lollipops on sticks, people! Lollipops on sticks! Half the traffic problems in the cities people send you come not from intersection design, but from not understanding *road hierarchy.* Fifteen parallel roads all connecting to the same avenue, every eight squares, is just insane. You can immediately halve the number of connections (and halve any traffic light timing issues) by turning each pair of roads into a one-way loop. Then you can halve that _again_ by having a connection between loops before joining the central road. And if you make those connections small roundabouts, you can basically get rid of _all_ the traffic lights and make traffic flow continuously. Yeah, some trucks will need to travel twice as far, but they'll still do it in half the time.
THat was what I was screaming - The other issue was turning across traffic at the end of the bridge. You almost need to may your industry into a giant one way loop.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before but it seems like a bit of click bait this one. No real comparison, hardly a vs/vs, also a bit shallow in the analysis. Loved the focus on fixing the current DDI though! worth the thumbs up for that and of course, because of Biffa himself
DDIs only work well if they don't have those traffic light intersections. Make those roads cross over/under each other and the traffic doesn't need to stop.
@@BandidoDescalzo eh? It still diverges, it's still a diamond, it's still an interchange. The point of a proper DDI is to remove traffic crossing over each other. My way does that without stopping traffic.
The DDI with timed lights is only needed in real life because of budget constraints. In game you can very easily put the lanes at different heights, completely eliminating the need for the lights. By elevating one lane, you eliminate all the need for traffic lights, as traffic never meets any crossing traffic - but this is insanely expensive to do in real life, so it doesn't happen. In game though? Should be a piece of piss.
I love the idea of exploring new traffic patterns and trying to deal with them! It adds a new flavor to Biffa videos, seeing how to deal with situations that can't always become roundabouts (for example, not displacing farms etc. because of the asthetics or what you'd see in real life.) Pretty cool!
The sections between the crossings on the DDI are way to short for it to work with that amount of traffic :) With longer sections (for aesthetics, mainly), the two main bits don't even need to cross eachother at all either. ^^
@@TheVergile Yes? But with the elimination of another two crossings, the potential for accidents go down even further, right? ;) Also, accidents aren't really a thing in C:S. ;p
That huge expanse of farmland industry was really pretty though. the endless orchards and fields made factory farming look nice! lol! great job to the builder for creating such a big and beautiful city, and great job Biffa for trying something different with the DDI. Sidenote, i had never seen a DDI in real life until i drove through a town in the state of Utah, and that thing didn't make a DAMN bit of sense! I was scared driving through because i had no idea how anyone knew where their lanes were. Sooo many lights and median dividers. it was gross... and it still spilled out into a roundabout and my stress immediately fell away once i got on that roundabout.
The classic real world DDI isn't the best solution for Cities Skylines since there is no need for the safety part of its concept. But without the crossing intersection it can be really handy ingame because they have no need of giving any priority.With a proper lane management and two additional little bridges, they are better than a classic roundabout. But because of the bridges it can be that they need more space than the roundabout.
The roads on the DDI going over the highway should be 6 lane one ways. Then use lane mathmatics for the crossing parts and on/off ramps from there. You simply don't have enough lanes on this DDI.
Sorry. my mistake. 6 lanes leading up allowing 2 to turn and 4 straight. then 4 over the highway splitting into two 2's. Works well on console as I can't tell lanes not to turn into certain roads ie U turns which uses up a lane.
I've been playing with timed traffic lights for a while and the #1 advice I would give is to set up your lanes based on throughput first and then change the settings for the lights to match the lights. Easiest way to do it: have three lanes and set the light controls for separate right, left, and straight through. Now you can have a step for left turns from the main road and right turns from the side roads. Then steps for straight and right on the main road, then one or two two more steps flipping to the side roads as needed.
A DDI kinda reminds me of the magic roundabout in swindon! Biffa you should try to make a magic roundabout haha. After a brief look at IRL DDIs I can say the DDI in the video is laid out incorrectly according to how they work, they slip lanes to the highway need to happen before the diamond so traffic flows away from it :P
Great, now I'm gonna have nightmares again. The wretched theme song from the Magic Roundabout nearly scared me to death as a kid 20 years ago, and I still hate seeing these two words together, haha.
People did it and they looked amazing, but I think, you need way more mods then biffa usually uses to get this into something nice looking. ruclips.net/video/AForeRzOCqA/видео.html
Cargo depots/hubs really need more entrance/exit stuff as part of base game. What cargo hub in any place in the world has one lane of entrance and relies on all their trucks being in a line? It'd be neat if there was a hub with multiple despawn sort of points and the trucks would systematically assign themself to a different end location in the depot to despawn.
It doesn't help that in a lot of the US, new drivers aren't even taught about how to use a roundabout. There are a number of 6way intersections in Chicago that are controlled by traffic lights that would almost certainly work better if they were roundabouts if people knew how to drive in those.
Over in New Jersey, we have a couple roundabouts. It always makes me nervous driving 'round one. No one yields correctly, some people cut across both lanes to get off, etc.
I love diverging diamonds. I’ve found that pedestrians generally can cross one much faster than a conventional intersection in my personal experience being on a bike crossing a diverging diamond feels much safer than a typical crossing. Nice video.
the last roundabout,instead of a sliplane,couldve been forced to use 2 lanes to exit. road from the left would have to use the inside lane and middle lane to exit, and the bottom one use the outter lane,and make that one quarter of the circle a 3lane for one or 2 segments
You biggest issue I think with the Diverging Diamond was the lack of dedicated merge off and merge on lanes. That would have helped immensely. Plus keeping it 2 lanes straight on each side through it, also. Perhaps even taking it to 3 lanes in each direction.
Usually you approach a DDI on three lanes: One for turning right, one for keeping straight and one for turning left. And you leave it in a similar design: Three lanes, one for those joining from the left, one for those who came from straight and one for those who joined from the right. As soon as you understand that and lead your traffic exactly in that way, it works.
I don't know who thinks DDI's are the best junction in C:S, DCMI's are vastly better in literally every way. Plus they are vanilla friendly and then better again with TM:PE. The only caveat is that they are frequently done wrong. The easy way to make them causes traffic to cross, the right way prevents any traffic clash at all, meaning no giveway (roundabouts) no merging/crossing (DDI), no lights (DDI, Junction), nothing. It's free-flow from any point to any other point, so the only limit to a properly done DCMI is whatever is on each end of it. It's not possible for a DCMI with TM:PE to back up. This is a good example of one done wrong because it violates the split-before-merge rule: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1649120148 This is one done right but it's ultra compact size can cause some issues vs. spacing it out better: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=845168945 And of course, one that is just lovely to use: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373497508
I think ddI needs 6 steps. But I’m thinking like a programmer. You basically want to stagger the greens so thet the lights turn green as the traffic gets there. You also close them progressively red the same way. You can start the greens going the other way as soon as the lights turn red in the middle. You’ll effectively have a bit of an overlap where both sides are crossing st the same time but one side is starting while the other is stopping and they don’t conflict. That said - I’d still use a rounds bout.
This is seriously one of the most beautifully designed cities I've seen show up in the series. I'm in awe of the detail and care put into the design of the city aesthetic and layout. Traffic problems aside, just amazing!
From using it in my own cities, I've realized that DDIs are better suited as highway exits rather than an overpass. With that I mean that they aren't optimal for when most of the traffic wants to go over the motorway instead of getting onto it. For crossing traffic I prefer to use a double inverted trumpet. In fact, just like roundabouts, DITs are great for all directions of main traffic flow. Also, that traffic light setup you did on both the DDI and the intersection before it were rather odd in my opinion. Usually when I build DDIs I separate the traffic into sets of "leaving" and "entering", that is, I make the traffic from both ends go at the same time, then the traffic in the middle. And about the intersection, isn't it better to separate a left turn from traffic going forwards, so traffic never has to cross each other in a single step of the timed traffic lights? My usual setup for busy 4-way traffic lights is: main road left turn, then main road forwards and right, then repeat the same pattern but with less time for the secondary road, and a five second time at the end where no traffic goes so pedestrians can cross, and, apart from the " all pedestrians go at once" part, that´s how most 4-way traffic light work IRL, at least where I live. Also, while in the topic of traffic not crossing itself, in intersections where I have give way signs, I usually prevent all roads from turning left, and make so that if they want to turn left the have to make a u-turn on a roundabout. But then again, this is just how i usually do things, and I have no real life experience in the field, I´m just throwing my two-cents in.
After two months of binge watching your channel, I finally have my pc set up and Skyline installed. Excited to finally put all this knowledge into practice!
I mean I'm sure someone could take the time to explain a diverging diamond interchanges optimal setup, but since roundabouts take 0 thought whatsoever it would just be dismissed as to complicated and not worth it
I have a DDI at a interstate junction in the town I live in. Before they built the DDI, there was at least 2 or 3 accidents on the overpass per week at the minimum. When they built the DDI, the accident rate dropped from 2 or 3 a week to around 2 per month. DDI's aren't made to enhance traffic flow (while it may be a by product of its construction). They're designed to be more safe than a traditional overpass interchange.
DDI is so much better if you use elevated roads. So that, for example right lane is higher than left, and you dont need to have trafic light at all, they just flow...
I have been working on a city for a while now. I designed my own DDI for one of my superdistricts as an accent piece. I have five of them in the area. It took a bit tweaking but I got them all flowing pretty well. Between public transit and just down right over engineered infrastructure they aren't too over loaded. Speaking of public transit, mine also include a tram line through the middle. That said, there are probably a dozen roundabouts in the area too.
It is possible to make a diamond interchange that does not have any level crossings. That works very well, without requiring timed traffic lights. Also, applying lane mathematics to a diamond intersection helps a lot. That said, I have found that a timed traffic light work better than a roundabout in high traffic intersections, as long as the timing is correctly configured. This takes some experimentation to do, and is harder than a roundabout, which is pretty much "set and forget".
Timed traffic lights can work well, but I've yet to see them beat out properly set-up roundabouts in a situation (this includes using TMPE to assign lanes so that no traffic is ever blocked by other traffic whilst on the roundabout). They're more compact and thus may be the only option in some situations, but I've not seen them be better for traffic flow. Plus having a 6-lane road with evenly distributed traffic flows and timed traffic lights can be a pretty glorious thing to just watch. Also, lets not forget that traffic lights and roundabouts are not mutually exclusive. There's no shame in using traffic-lighted roundabouts if the situation calls for it (pretty much will only work with timed traffic lights though, default behaviour includes too much start-stopping and blocking).
@@Person01234 _but I've yet to see them beat out properly set-up roundabouts in a situation_ I have. It takes a while to get right, and any changes you make to other intersections can invalidate your carefully crafted timing schedule, meaning you need to go back and do it again, but then, tinkering with these things is what makes the game fun!
One thing I always do in my city builds is to spread out the industrial areas throughout the whole city (except downtown area) with close access to the highway. Then you´ll make the traffic spread a bit better. Nearly all industrial areas with more than two blocks need some type of cofiguration of the road layout to make the traffic flow above 75 - 80%. I'm not talking about roundabouts. Rather specific lanes for trucks and a good planning of communications so there's mostly commercial and industrial traffic that fill up the roads. The speed limit is also important because if you have to high speed limits, the higher the risk to get congestions on smaller roads/avenues. And more lanes does'nt help particulary well if the lanes have the same destination. I usually have huge avenues just because it looks cool.
For traffic sponges I like to use 8 lane (any number works) highway roundabouts, make one entrance on the inside of the roundabout and one exit on the outside. Then use TMPE to force trucks coming in in the middle to go in a spiral around 8 times, shifting one lane to the outside per revolution, before finally exiting on the outside. This soaks up a lot of traffic and is very compact en subtle compared to miles of winding roads. Also very satisfying to watch. You can start with a very small one and as it gets overloaded, you can add concentric roundabouts around it and just connect the exit from the first to the entrance of the second. The bigger you make it, the more space you win over long winding roads.
I would love if one of the city skylines RUclipsrs call out the devs to ask them to make the cargo train hub editable so we can modify the time it takes to intake and release cars from it. I have been watching Biffa's fixes and got my entire city running at 80% with the ONLY bad spots being my cargo areas. If they would intake and release faster that would be awesome. Biffa, call them out let them know this is something we need! Please 😁I'll send ya some tea lol
I love this series! I'm a big fan of the diverging diamond irl, as they added one at a high accident interchange in my area and have greatly decreased the number of collisions, and improved traffic flow as well. In game, I thing the issues with traffic backing up could have easily been solved with more lane management and mathematics. Many of the cars are attempting to turn onto the highway, but getting stuck behind traffic going straight. Adding a third dedicated turning lane in each direction would have completely solved this problem imo
The diverging diamonds I've run into are all in commercial areas. Industrial are usually straight shoot here at least. I also know the game logic is funky: the only place where no traffic lights and all yields equates to actual flow lol.
Come to Jersey and PA, we have some yield only roundabouts and intersections for minor interstates and state roads and they're lovely with no traffic, UNLESS THERE'S A TRAFFIC LIGHT.
The DDI looks like an excellent driver's nightmare. Super confusing to have to get through IRL. Also about those traffic lights... As far as I've noticed, traffic lights in busy areas respond to the amount of traffic. They are not oftenly timed. At least that's how it is in The Netherlands. In Japan I've noticed they seem to be always timed. But I've also noticed C:S doesn't have Japanese intersections with the "wait here" line for folks taking a right turn... But I digress. Roundabouts are the best, and even as a driver, I love them.
Important thing to remember: In game, a roundabout is quick and easy to build and replace an existing interchange. You can disregard the existing properties if they are in the way and get what you want in. In real life, converting an existing interchange into a roundabout is extremely costly, especially over highways like in this video. It is far more cost effective to convert an existing interchange into a Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI), since you can simply reuse the existing structure, but change the lane configuration, shift traffic lights, and add barriers to guide drivers. So, yes, DDI's are great IRL, but making them work in game requires a lot of knowledge in interchange design, timing traffic lights, etc. as you pointed out in the video.
A bigger cargo sponge helps, but what that station really needs is another track heading out the other end, so it can be a big one-way loop. Look how many trucks are queued up to enter vs how few are leaving - they're waiting for trains. Something people also forget is that cargo stations aren't just for import/export. In a big city, they can be a good way to move goods from industry to shops.
DDI is just a roundabout going in a wrong direction when you think about it. Compared to roundabout it replaces three traffic merges with two crossing and one merging, which makes traffic stop in two places. One thing that it does, it eases left turns (right if left hand drive) by reducing throughput across the highway. Due to the complicated nature it would not be worth while if you only care about traffic throughput (which we do in CS). In real life you have safety concerns and when you account for pedestrians and possibility for driver errors, then the DDI shines. If you look at real life DDIs, most are in areas with substantial pedestrian traffic.
I've made a discovery, If you raise one direction and lower the other passing over the freeway, you can modify the DDI to eliminate the intersections. It works much better yet it also still will back up if the surrounding city doesnt efficiently deliver your traffic. Like in the example in the video, just too many intersections too close together. A bit of road heirarchy there would go a long way.
The 'problem' with traffic circles, is that irl they're only more effective than trafic light intersection till traffic density reaches 30%, after that the traffic lights win. CS apparently doesn't model this, and the drivers don't object to a miles out of the way loop-about.
As someone who lives near the city of the FIRST DDI in the entire USA, in reality it is an AMAZINGLY proficient intersection for through traffic AND safety. Statistics showed a 60% reduction in accidents, and intersection wait times dropped from nearly 30 minutes to about 5 minutes. Where C:S may not relay that accurately, the city is about 175 to 200k with the regional area nearing 1 million people. It is also a college town with multiple public and private universities. It is also a strong tourism area.
Diverging Diamonds are more efficient on 4-way right-angle freeway-to-street intersections because time isn't wasted going 3/4 AROUND the circle just to make a left turn - The cars go immediately where they need to go with more direct paths - But they take up more space, which is why I recommend using on freeway-to-street connections Roundabouts are more efficient on intersections with roads coming together at weird angles or MORE than 4 roads coming together Continous-Flow Intersections are better at 4-way right-angle street-to-street intersections because the right AND left turns are handled by slip-lanes, leaving only straight-on traffic to reach the main intersection - This helps with load-balancing
if im not mistaken (wich i probably am) Divergin diamonds where mainly developed as a way to slow down trafic and increase safety while still keeping it flowing and while that has plently of realworld uses, in a game where safety is no issue and trafic speed is king, they just are subpar.
I think DDI can work but they need a little more space, so that the parts before the actual diverging is a bit longer. and then, like you said, no crossings close by. In tighter spaces like in this spot, roundabouts are probably the better alternative. but thanks for trying ut and fiddeling with timed traffic lights, i have still to try those.
One aspect of observation is-- the loded trucks or tractors are emerging from the fields like magic, but empties are not comming down the roads for loading. (I don't see any entry points) Actually this results in less traffic. If the empty trucks will come by the same roads then the traffic will be even more. And the GAME will be more challenging.
Thank you for trying a DDI! I like them simply because they look really cool, and I'm sure they have a slightly lower max throughput than roundabouts, but I just like interesting, geometric intersections and you use roundabouts nearly everywhere so sometimes it's nice to switch it up :)
a diverging diamond is pointless when the vast majority of traffic just wants to go straight ... especialy when the jam is after the diamond so everything backs up into the crossing roads of the diamond
A DCMI is basically a DDI setup but without the intersections, as they are instead crossovers. With proper lane mathematics, it makes it so that there is no lane-switching needed. It is more difficult as it requires the roads to be able to change elevation before the crossovers as about 3 layers.
The DDI needed a lot of lane management, you had people coming off the highway not giving way and interrupting flow of traffic which is a big problem, and usually only 1 lane was being used at the lights which basically halves the flow. That's the problem with using them of course, they need a lot of fiddling to make them run smoothly.
DDI's use two traffic lights on either side if i recall correctly. 1 for the traffic coming off the "highway" and making a left, and one where the lights were already in that ddi, for a total of 4 lights per ddi.
The thing with the DDI just like the regular diamond is that it has high throughput for the bottom lanes and between the bottom highway and the top ones, but lower throughput for vehicles across the bridge. If you need to build an bridge across the highway, just build a bridge across the highway, without making it a diamond.
Minor overlooking of lane mathematics; should have had three lanes each way coming into the DDI overpass from the intersections to either side of the overpass, outermost lanes dedicated via TrafficManager to act as extended slip lanes for entering/leaving the expressway, and to clear a path for the traffic proceeding across the overpass. DDI's do solve some real-world problems, but they are not a panacea, any more than roundabouts are ;)
The diverging diamond is particularly helpful when you have a lot of cars (especially 18 wheelers) coming off the highway. Since most of your traffic is from the city you’re just clogging up that flow with an unnecessary amount of stoplights.
Hey Biffa, a tip I've not seen you use yet: You can increase truck flow at cargo train stations by placing the train station, removing the road, placing it again a few units away from the station, and make it turn right into the station. Same for the exit with a road turning out of the station. Because of the curve in the road trucks have to take less sharp of a turn, which makes them enter and leave the station more quickly. Hope that makes sense! The more perpendicular the road reaches the station the quicker the trucks go, though there's a limit without using the anarchy mods.
The diverging diamond was meant to reduce crashes not to have good traffic flow. Obviously roundabouts are better for flow but they are a little more dangerous. There are no crashes in cities skylines so the roundabout would win.
I started playing CS intending not to use many roundabouts. Promptly realized that traffic in the real world only really works because traffic lights are very carefully timed, and I can't be bothered to change every light in my city every time I build a new neighborhood and traffic shifts, aside from the fact that you can't tinker with lights in vanilla.
Who will win in the ULTIMATE BATTLE of Roundabout VS Diverging Diamond Interchange (With Timed Traffic lights too!). Let me know in a comment below before you watch the video :-)
Biffa Plays Indie Games well, do a diverging diamond with only 2 light stops. 1 on each end with safe traffic crossing
Roundabout!
Which ones better roundabout or diverging diamond interchange, there's only one way to find out FIGHT!
A proper roundabout always wins over intersections with lights in C:S. 🤷♂️ Should 'of enlarged the DDI a bit, and make the crossing bits go over/under eachother, removing the needs for lights altogether. :)
If it were a 3 level, zero traffic light DDI, i think it would win. However this realistic DDI cannot handle the same amount of traffic as a roundabout.
Nearly 20 minutes without building a roundabout .... im impressed. Really :p
😋
yeah, but i do like his way of dealing. lol
Bonus points for the first roundabout not even solving the problem ;P
BTW didn't Malibrew have a DDI as the first interchange?
Biffa's therapist is crying proudly over a very well deserved glass of red wine..."no roundabouts for 20minutes..."
When Biffa adds traffic lights instead of a roundabout 😱🤯
MY BRAIN!!!!!!
My first thought was that he was trying to make a point...
HOW ARE THEY MEANT TO GO 'ROUND THE OUTSIDE???
@@KnightRanger38 He did make a point, too!
This is madness... madness? THESE ARE TRAFIC LIGHTS
People don't understand the diverging diamond is mainly just to keep traffic from colliding not to keep it moving
In a game where car pass through each other what do we need more?
The turn/merge lanes should make it have higher traffic throughput anyway, compared to a regular diamond.
I really don't understand how it does that honestly. And especially not any better than a properly setup roundabout.
You realize what you just said goes hand in hand, right? Less chance of collisions = better traffic flow. You only understood half of it.
@@darthkarl99, Its mainly used to replace big intersections where in places you would have to cross traffic in the other lane to enter the motorway. I think they are just cheaper than roundabouts and prevent all lane cuts most the time unlike roundabouts and stupid drivers.
(More practical IRL)
"There's only one way to find out. Make a diverging round-diamond-about"
-interchange
Are you a wizard? 😯
Challenge accepted
@@Ramotttholl yes it does. We have one here in Kansas City, Missouri and it works very well for remediation of traffic when you have a lot of intersections near the primary highway interchange (which we have quite a few of here)
@@Alfadragon17 i live in Missouri south of i-70 and it makes driving in KC compared to STL and MOO (ozarks) a breeze.
Just wanted to say i have been watching your series and decided to try some of the basics on my current city. Results were pleasing, went from 26% and a death / rubbish issue to 85% and all clear.
Thank you so much for doing these vids for everyone to enjoy and learn from
Biffa - all the times I've heard you say "lane mathematics" and you forgot to do that on the diamond... all those trucks end up sandwiched in the one lane, you needed a second through lane and the extra outside lane on/off so that vehicles can keep moving through and pack more in the same space... they sure do look ugly in the game compared to real life... but three lanes leading into it, two lanes through with one lane on/off, helps that backlogged traffic fill the space to address some of your stoplight issues...
He also forgot to block a lane turn on the opposite sid of it
@@enkiimuto1041 so, entirly negating the purpose of a DDI?
Can we just appreciate this game? This is a game Maxis wished it made.
I see someone else was a Sim City fan at one point! :) I agree, This is what Maxis should have made, although there are a couple of things that I did love about the Current Sim City. Hope you are having fun in CS.
@@Minister_Of_Wolves the one thing I miss about SimCity is the ability to zone before building roads... And the volcanoes.
@@XxMMXIIxX Yeah i can see that. I do miss being able to add to buildings, ie the police, fire, hospital etc. I kinda wish Paradox would have added something similar, guess my simplicity (no pun intended) is showing through. I know that you can add buildings to other buildings, i am just afraid i would screw it up somehow, oh well, at least i am having fun! :)
I wish this game had Regions like Sim City 4 did. I loved being able to make 10 million pop megalopolises in SimCity 4. Of course the new sim cities are all garbage that don't hold a candle to 4.
I don't know if Simcity was challenging (I think it is a bit more challenging, but I didn't play any of the recent ones), but I found Cities:Skylines to have very little challenge. Most of the challenge was just traffic management, and wasn't really required much to have a successful city.
I felt like in Simcity you had to deal more with changes in demand and/or pollution and/or other various complaints, or at the least it was harder to make "perfect"/high-value living areas and/or considered more things (such as vegetation or proximity to water)
You haven't seen my double diamond stacked interchange.... no lights, no intersections, only merges, and way better than these generic ones, using both sides of each of the 4 highway roads to merge smoothly
Open the game -> move your screen to your DDSI -> record it -> upload it to RUclips -> Send it to us. I wanna see it and maybe use it.
@@TheProkonover I use one called "Diamond Interchange" form Harjawalder that is a beast of intersection.
I could say: Y not just plop the built-in stack interchange XDD
@@ulysseslee9541 ah if you mean the very big one i dont think that's built-in, at least i don't have it... it's very elegant but it doesn't take advantage of using both sides of the same road... i.e. splitting the merging/departing traffic to either side
I'll have to try that one
Seems like the issue with DDI is the traffic lights, in real life it would be super costly, however in the game just do an under and overpass to remove the lights....
That would be called a DCMI (double crossover merging interchange) it I'm not mistaken.
@@Mr8lacklp Real life DCMIs look very much like this. In real life, interchanges like this aren't built with everything on their own level all overlapping each other at different heights.
Unless you have LOADS of space and tons of money.
@@Mr8lacklp Or could be a "diverging windmill interchange"
coz DDI is from US's traditional Diamond interchange, not a roundabout
a roundabout always changed into a complex interchange
They build quite a few of those (DDIs) in the US and apparently they have solved alot of traffic and accident problems; it's definitely worth it.
In fact DDI are made to reduce to the maximum the chance of an hazard ^^ Even if it's reduce the traffic, it's not the main goal of it
@asd Obviously! When C:S drivers about to rear end someone they can wormholed thru the front car. Hell, they even have pocketed vehicle!
@asd which is why in game there is no point in doing anything but roundabouts unless you like the look of things or just want to play. If C:S ever adds in actual accidents and simulates their impact on traffic, roundabouts will no longer the the solution to every traffic problem. game would get significantly harder.
There's only one way to find out - FIGHT!
Damn I really miss that show. First thing that popped up into my head when he said that, too.
We shall never forget, one of the best shows
Well, you've got to have a system, mmm.
And now it’s time for...
🎵 complicated junctions on city skylines of the weeeeeek 🎵
None of us have yet mentioned the name of the show which we are talking about. I wonder how many people are scrolling past confused
I live in an area where diamonds are popping up a lot more at road-highway interchanges. They work surprisingly well. They also do only have two sets of lights, as the off ramps are yielded. What a diamond actually does, is give direct ramp access to each side of the road while only having to go through one light, where a traditional design has two lights. Light synchronization is also required, which makes two lights, if you're going straight through the road and not onto a highway, feel like one light most of the time.
As for design, they're typically two lane roads straight through, with auxiliary lanes for the ramps; some have the inner ramps merge into the two lane road, some have a dedicated u-turn lane for the highway. On the ramps themselves, they typically stay two lane for a good distance before merging into a single lane, though dual lane ramps do exist in some areas.
If Cities supports custom roads and intersections, diamonds might have to be a custom mod for them to function like the real-life equivalent.
Im still waiting on draw bridges.
We have 7 of them in our area now. They work amazingly well. You just have to realize that the primary goal isn't to increase continuous flow of traffic. DDI are about reducing the number of lanes that have to cross over each other to a bare minimum. If you draw out a typical 4 way interchange and map the lanes out and count every time they cross another lane, then do the same for a DDI you'll see the difference. DDI are a tool to solve a specific problem. The traffic lights handle the flow required just fine, but reducing chances of accidents happening which would REALLY back up a super busy interchange is more important. DDI are really cool when you understand what they are and sadly it seems most people haven't got a clue. They aren't meant to be compared to roundabouts. Different tools for different problems.
Now imagine you'd have roundabout 😅 - no necessary crossing, no traffic lights, improved traffic flow and probably also cheaper, thanks to its simplicity.
@@Forseti2 now put a roundabout over a highway and make THAT cheaper than a DDI
@@frenchfry1479 if you mean "Diverging diamond interchange" - that's complitaded monstrosity - why you hate simple rhings so much? Are you American (I suppose)?
DDI maybe have some uses (when the cloverleaf isn't an optiin), but requires those two roads not to be at the same level and also stops cars more than necessary - at the begging, when you must give a way and in the middle ay traffic lights.
On the other hand, the roundabout can be way smaller, is suitable for same level junctions and you give a way only when entering it. It really depends on capacity of the roundabout - the diameter and how many lanes it has.
I love how optimistic city skylines is about driver behaviour. Everyone just merges as they are told and sticks to the rules xD.
That's what most of the world does when on the road -_-
The US seems to be a big exception apparently. I've seen a ludicrous amount of rule breakers and thus, crashes, in the US. Much more than anywhere else I've been. And wayyyy more than my home country. And alot of it seems to be people just not slowing down at intersections even with the light going red. I don't understand? Are Americans in that much of a rush that they just run through red lights all the time?
@@Arniox U.S.=main character syndrome. They really think everyone else is an NPC and only where they are going matters
The traffic mod allows even 10% of drivers to be massive idiots in an option
@@Arniox Driving by car is the only option for transportation- american mass transportation (trains and busses for example) sucks. Maybe that has something to do with it?
15:45 "Dont pay attention to me, I'm just a hovering car passing by... Nothing to see here. Move along"
That is one inefficent DDI tbf. The timed traffic lights are all wrong, the lane management is horrible, why even have intersections.
There were cars doing U turns everywhere!
I only do DDI if I have space if it is like this I make multiple bridges for a single in-out lane side of the highway
I always go for DDI if I have loads of space and want things to look nice. Roundabouts on motorways just don't look that nice (with an exception of a properly done dumbell).
Here in Poland, you can actually find roundabouts build under or above highways. The government recently built a new highway in my city, sunken below the old roads. All the exits connect to roundabouts above the highway. You can see the donut shape as you drive underneath.
I thought the same thing. Usually you'd want at least 3 lanes over the highway. 2 for straight on and 1 for exit. At least that's the way I've seen every DDI irl. in cities skylines it's always easier to use a round-about, and IMO they look better.
Lollipops on sticks, people! Lollipops on sticks! Half the traffic problems in the cities people send you come not from intersection design, but from not understanding *road hierarchy.*
Fifteen parallel roads all connecting to the same avenue, every eight squares, is just insane. You can immediately halve the number of connections (and halve any traffic light timing issues) by turning each pair of roads into a one-way loop. Then you can halve that _again_ by having a connection between loops before joining the central road.
And if you make those connections small roundabouts, you can basically get rid of _all_ the traffic lights and make traffic flow continuously. Yeah, some trucks will need to travel twice as far, but they'll still do it in half the time.
THat was what I was screaming - The other issue was turning across traffic at the end of the bridge. You almost need to may your industry into a giant one way loop.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before but it seems like a bit of click bait this one. No real comparison, hardly a vs/vs, also a bit shallow in the analysis. Loved the focus on fixing the current DDI though! worth the thumbs up for that and of course, because of Biffa himself
DDIs only work well if they don't have those traffic light intersections. Make those roads cross over/under each other and the traffic doesn't need to stop.
If you do that it's not a DDI.....
Isn't that just a roundabout?
@@BandidoDescalzo eh? It still diverges, it's still a diamond, it's still an interchange. The point of a proper DDI is to remove traffic crossing over each other. My way does that without stopping traffic.
this is the best way to make it!
@@JohnWatkinsUK no because you can't turnaround on the "bridging" crossing.
The DDI with timed lights is only needed in real life because of budget constraints. In game you can very easily put the lanes at different heights, completely eliminating the need for the lights.
By elevating one lane, you eliminate all the need for traffic lights, as traffic never meets any crossing traffic - but this is insanely expensive to do in real life, so it doesn't happen. In game though? Should be a piece of piss.
15:51 Are you using flying cars addon to fix the traffic Biffa? lol
I love the idea of exploring new traffic patterns and trying to deal with them! It adds a new flavor to Biffa videos, seeing how to deal with situations that can't always become roundabouts (for example, not displacing farms etc. because of the asthetics or what you'd see in real life.)
Pretty cool!
The sections between the crossings on the DDI are way to short for it to work with that amount of traffic :) With longer sections (for aesthetics, mainly), the two main bits don't even need to cross eachother at all either. ^^
the crossing is an essential part of the design to reduce accidents
@@TheVergile Yes? But with the elimination of another two crossings, the potential for accidents go down even further, right? ;) Also, accidents aren't really a thing in C:S. ;p
@@Rallarberg Jesus Christ your use of emoticons is irritating
“There’s only one way to find out... FIIIIIGHT!”
BIFFA is the king of
ROUNDABOUT
OVALABOUT
and now, he is the king of
RECTANGLEABOUT
That huge expanse of farmland industry was really pretty though. the endless orchards and fields made factory farming look nice! lol! great job to the builder for creating such a big and beautiful city, and great job Biffa for trying something different with the DDI.
Sidenote, i had never seen a DDI in real life until i drove through a town in the state of Utah, and that thing didn't make a DAMN bit of sense! I was scared driving through because i had no idea how anyone knew where their lanes were. Sooo many lights and median dividers. it was gross... and it still spilled out into a roundabout and my stress immediately fell away once i got on that
roundabout.
Never use your onramps as a way across the highway, have separate roads for through traffic
The classic real world DDI isn't the best solution for Cities Skylines since there is no need for the safety part of its concept. But without the crossing intersection it can be really handy ingame because they have no need of giving any priority.With a proper lane management and two additional little bridges, they are better than a classic roundabout. But because of the bridges it can be that they need more space than the roundabout.
The roads on the DDI going over the highway should be 6 lane one ways. Then use lane mathmatics for the crossing parts and on/off ramps from there. You simply don't have enough lanes on this DDI.
Exactly the lane maths was off
only need a 3 lane one way, to make the lane mathematics work, for each direction... may be what you met by 6 lane one ways.
Also the speed limits look too low. And the lane rules are bad; shouldnt be forcing lanes to go right instead of right or forward.
Sorry. my mistake. 6 lanes leading up allowing 2 to turn and 4 straight. then 4 over the highway splitting into two 2's. Works well on console as I can't tell lanes not to turn into certain roads ie U turns which uses up a lane.
I've been playing with timed traffic lights for a while and the #1 advice I would give is to set up your lanes based on throughput first and then change the settings for the lights to match the lights. Easiest way to do it: have three lanes and set the light controls for separate right, left, and straight through. Now you can have a step for left turns from the main road and right turns from the side roads. Then steps for straight and right on the main road, then one or two two more steps flipping to the side roads as needed.
A DDI kinda reminds me of the magic roundabout in swindon! Biffa you should try to make a magic roundabout haha.
After a brief look at IRL DDIs I can say the DDI in the video is laid out incorrectly according to how they work, they slip lanes to the highway need to happen before the diamond so traffic flows away from it :P
I just know a magic roundabout wouldn't end well in game because people can barely use it irl!
Great, now I'm gonna have nightmares again. The wretched theme song from the Magic Roundabout nearly scared me to death as a kid 20 years ago, and I still hate seeing these two words together, haha.
People did it and they looked amazing, but I think, you need way more mods then biffa usually uses to get this into something nice looking.
ruclips.net/video/AForeRzOCqA/видео.html
Cargo depots/hubs really need more entrance/exit stuff as part of base game. What cargo hub in any place in the world has one lane of entrance and relies on all their trucks being in a line? It'd be neat if there was a hub with multiple despawn sort of points and the trucks would systematically assign themself to a different end location in the depot to despawn.
Me: Diverging Diamond.. what?
Biffa: Roundabout.
Me: Phew!
Lol 👍
It doesn't help that in a lot of the US, new drivers aren't even taught about how to use a roundabout. There are a number of 6way intersections in Chicago that are controlled by traffic lights that would almost certainly work better if they were roundabouts if people knew how to drive in those.
Both are becoming more common every year in the USA
Over in New Jersey, we have a couple roundabouts.
It always makes me nervous driving 'round one.
No one yields correctly, some people cut across both lanes to get off, etc.
You could also try a segregated DDI (The cross intersections go above and below rather than being hit with a light)
I love diverging diamonds. I’ve found that pedestrians generally can cross one much faster than a conventional intersection in my personal experience being on a bike crossing a diverging diamond feels much safer than a typical crossing. Nice video.
the last roundabout,instead of a sliplane,couldve been forced to use 2 lanes to exit. road from the left would have to use the inside lane and middle lane to exit, and the bottom one use the outter lane,and make that one quarter of the circle a 3lane for one or 2 segments
You biggest issue I think with the Diverging Diamond was the lack of dedicated merge off and merge on lanes. That would have helped immensely. Plus keeping it 2 lanes straight on each side through it, also. Perhaps even taking it to 3 lanes in each direction.
@15:42 is it just me or is there a car straight up thinking its in a Harry Potter movie and floating over the traffic?
Usually you approach a DDI on three lanes: One for turning right, one for keeping straight and one for turning left. And you leave it in a similar design: Three lanes, one for those joining from the left, one for those who came from straight and one for those who joined from the right. As soon as you understand that and lead your traffic exactly in that way, it works.
I don't know who thinks DDI's are the best junction in C:S, DCMI's are vastly better in literally every way. Plus they are vanilla friendly and then better again with TM:PE.
The only caveat is that they are frequently done wrong. The easy way to make them causes traffic to cross, the right way prevents any traffic clash at all, meaning no giveway (roundabouts) no merging/crossing (DDI), no lights (DDI, Junction), nothing. It's free-flow from any point to any other point, so the only limit to a properly done DCMI is whatever is on each end of it. It's not possible for a DCMI with TM:PE to back up.
This is a good example of one done wrong because it violates the split-before-merge rule: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1649120148
This is one done right but it's ultra compact size can cause some issues vs. spacing it out better: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=845168945
And of course, one that is just lovely to use: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373497508
Thanks for sharing those assets!
The last one is just perfect!
I think ddI needs 6 steps. But I’m thinking like a programmer. You basically want to stagger the greens so thet the lights turn green as the traffic gets there. You also close them progressively red the same way. You can start the greens going the other way as soon as the lights turn red in the middle. You’ll effectively have a bit of an overlap where both sides are crossing st the same time but one side is starting while the other is stopping and they don’t conflict.
That said - I’d still use a rounds bout.
Reminds me of an interesting video...
"Traffic flow measured on 30 different 4-way junctions" by euverus
This is seriously one of the most beautifully designed cities I've seen show up in the series. I'm in awe of the detail and care put into the design of the city aesthetic and layout. Traffic problems aside, just amazing!
I personally use diverging diamonds in my 80K people city... they work well, but lane management is a MUST
From using it in my own cities, I've realized that DDIs are better suited as highway exits rather than an overpass. With that I mean that they aren't optimal for when most of the traffic wants to go over the motorway instead of getting onto it. For crossing traffic I prefer to use a double inverted trumpet. In fact, just like roundabouts, DITs are great for all directions of main traffic flow.
Also, that traffic light setup you did on both the DDI and the intersection before it were rather odd in my opinion. Usually when I build DDIs I separate the traffic into sets of "leaving" and "entering", that is, I make the traffic from both ends go at the same time, then the traffic in the middle. And about the intersection, isn't it better to separate a left turn from traffic going forwards, so traffic never has to cross each other in a single step of the timed traffic lights? My usual setup for busy 4-way traffic lights is: main road left turn, then main road forwards and right, then repeat the same pattern but with less time for the secondary road, and a five second time at the end where no traffic goes so pedestrians can cross, and, apart from the " all pedestrians go at once" part, that´s how most 4-way traffic light work IRL, at least where I live. Also, while in the topic of traffic not crossing itself, in intersections where I have give way signs, I usually prevent all roads from turning left, and make so that if they want to turn left the have to make a u-turn on a roundabout.
But then again, this is just how i usually do things, and I have no real life experience in the field, I´m just throwing my two-cents in.
Whee! When you build a city, then Biffa plays it, likes it and improves it. Now that makes my day! Thanks :D
After two months of binge watching your channel, I finally have my pc set up and Skyline installed. Excited to finally put all this knowledge into practice!
I've seen bowls of noodles less jumbled than that interchange!
4:48 Blue car in the right lane just casually clipping through the road into the building underneath
love the random flying car 15:43
Doc & Marty 😉
you sure? I thought it got destroyed.
Diverging diamond: Needs timed traffic lights, tons of lane management, wonky U-turns, still backs up. Our Glorious Roundabouts: Better
I love how everyone in the comments complain that you're doing Diamonds wrong, then don't give any instruction to fix it.
because they are simpleton retards
I mean I'm sure someone could take the time to explain a diverging diamond interchanges optimal setup, but since roundabouts take 0 thought whatsoever it would just be dismissed as to complicated and not worth it
ruclips.net/video/yITr127KZtQ/видео.html
Fairly comprehensive video on interchanges
I have a DDI at a interstate junction in the town I live in. Before they built the DDI, there was at least 2 or 3 accidents on the overpass per week at the minimum. When they built the DDI, the accident rate dropped from 2 or 3 a week to around 2 per month. DDI's aren't made to enhance traffic flow (while it may be a by product of its construction). They're designed to be more safe than a traditional overpass interchange.
Could avoid the lighhts by passing traffic over or under the other lane.
That would make a DCMI, not a DDI.
It's nice to know that I'm not the only "Yes" fan that plays this game! Oh, THAT sort of roundabout...darn it.
And you didn't say "FIGHT!"
I feel like the diverging diamond would work better IRL then in the game; kind of true of a lot of things, really
they do, In game the way traffic works is kinda not true to a real DDI, even with TMPE
@@frenchfry1479 I tend to use either SPUI or SinglePointParClo at this point if a normal diamond is insufficient
DDI is so much better if you use elevated roads. So that, for example right lane is higher than left, and you dont need to have trafic light at all, they just flow...
Biffa's roads take me home to the place I belong...
West Virginia??
Mountain mama, take me home, Biffa’s roads...
I have been working on a city for a while now. I designed my own DDI for one of my superdistricts as an accent piece. I have five of them in the area. It took a bit tweaking but I got them all flowing pretty well. Between public transit and just down right over engineered infrastructure they aren't too over loaded. Speaking of public transit, mine also include a tram line through the middle. That said, there are probably a dozen roundabouts in the area too.
IRL DDI’s work very well imho.
It is possible to make a diamond interchange that does not have any level crossings. That works very well, without requiring timed traffic lights. Also, applying lane mathematics to a diamond intersection helps a lot.
That said, I have found that a timed traffic light work better than a roundabout in high traffic intersections, as long as the timing is correctly configured. This takes some experimentation to do, and is harder than a roundabout, which is pretty much "set and forget".
Timed traffic lights can work well, but I've yet to see them beat out properly set-up roundabouts in a situation (this includes using TMPE to assign lanes so that no traffic is ever blocked by other traffic whilst on the roundabout). They're more compact and thus may be the only option in some situations, but I've not seen them be better for traffic flow. Plus having a 6-lane road with evenly distributed traffic flows and timed traffic lights can be a pretty glorious thing to just watch.
Also, lets not forget that traffic lights and roundabouts are not mutually exclusive. There's no shame in using traffic-lighted roundabouts if the situation calls for it (pretty much will only work with timed traffic lights though, default behaviour includes too much start-stopping and blocking).
@@Person01234 _but I've yet to see them beat out properly set-up roundabouts in a situation_
I have. It takes a while to get right, and any changes you make to other intersections can invalidate your carefully crafted timing schedule, meaning you need to go back and do it again, but then, tinkering with these things is what makes the game fun!
Can you please change your pre-fix and post fix links for this one. It actually links to last videos town :P Thanks again good sir!
One thing I always do in my city builds is to spread out the industrial areas throughout the whole city (except downtown area) with close access to the highway. Then you´ll make the traffic spread a bit better. Nearly all industrial areas with more than two blocks need some type of cofiguration of the road layout to make the traffic flow above 75 - 80%. I'm not talking about roundabouts. Rather specific lanes for trucks and a good planning of communications so there's mostly commercial and industrial traffic that fill up the roads. The speed limit is also important because if you have to high speed limits, the higher the risk to get congestions on smaller roads/avenues.
And more lanes does'nt help particulary well if the lanes have the same destination. I usually have huge avenues just because it looks cool.
these are so satisfying to watch =D
For traffic sponges I like to use 8 lane (any number works) highway roundabouts, make one entrance on the inside of the roundabout and one exit on the outside. Then use TMPE to force trucks coming in in the middle to go in a spiral around 8 times, shifting one lane to the outside per revolution, before finally exiting on the outside. This soaks up a lot of traffic and is very compact en subtle compared to miles of winding roads. Also very satisfying to watch. You can start with a very small one and as it gets overloaded, you can add concentric roundabouts around it and just connect the exit from the first to the entrance of the second. The bigger you make it, the more space you win over long winding roads.
Dude the Stack interchange is the best thing ever with 1099 cars per minute
you watched euverus right?
I would love if one of the city skylines RUclipsrs call out the devs to ask them to make the cargo train hub editable so we can modify the time it takes to intake and release cars from it. I have been watching Biffa's fixes and got my entire city running at 80% with the ONLY bad spots being my cargo areas. If they would intake and release faster that would be awesome. Biffa, call them out let them know this is something we need! Please 😁I'll send ya some tea lol
Whaaaat.. I only just got a notification. Dang it RUclips. Hope you're having a horky borky day, mr biffa.
Edit: I meant that in a nice way! ♡
So that's how you spell it. I thought it would be something like hawkey bawkey😆
I love this series! I'm a big fan of the diverging diamond irl, as they added one at a high accident interchange in my area and have greatly decreased the number of collisions, and improved traffic flow as well. In game, I thing the issues with traffic backing up could have easily been solved with more lane management and mathematics. Many of the cars are attempting to turn onto the highway, but getting stuck behind traffic going straight. Adding a third dedicated turning lane in each direction would have completely solved this problem imo
Hey would love to see you need to use the mad roundabout. One giant center with loads of planatery mini roundabouts.
The diverging diamonds I've run into are all in commercial areas. Industrial are usually straight shoot here at least. I also know the game logic is funky: the only place where no traffic lights and all yields equates to actual flow lol.
Come to Jersey and PA, we have some yield only roundabouts and intersections for minor interstates and state roads and they're lovely with no traffic, UNLESS THERE'S A TRAFFIC LIGHT.
DVI has 2 stopping intersections. Roundabout has 0. Case Closed.
The DDI looks like an excellent driver's nightmare. Super confusing to have to get through IRL.
Also about those traffic lights... As far as I've noticed, traffic lights in busy areas respond to the amount of traffic. They are not oftenly timed. At least that's how it is in The Netherlands. In Japan I've noticed they seem to be always timed. But I've also noticed C:S doesn't have Japanese intersections with the "wait here" line for folks taking a right turn... But I digress. Roundabouts are the best, and even as a driver, I love them.
FIIIIIIGHT
Important thing to remember: In game, a roundabout is quick and easy to build and replace an existing interchange. You can disregard the existing properties if they are in the way and get what you want in. In real life, converting an existing interchange into a roundabout is extremely costly, especially over highways like in this video. It is far more cost effective to convert an existing interchange into a Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI), since you can simply reuse the existing structure, but change the lane configuration, shift traffic lights, and add barriers to guide drivers. So, yes, DDI's are great IRL, but making them work in game requires a lot of knowledge in interchange design, timing traffic lights, etc. as you pointed out in the video.
A bigger cargo sponge helps, but what that station really needs is another track heading out the other end, so it can be a big one-way loop. Look how many trucks are queued up to enter vs how few are leaving - they're waiting for trains.
Something people also forget is that cargo stations aren't just for import/export. In a big city, they can be a good way to move goods from industry to shops.
DDI is just a roundabout going in a wrong direction when you think about it. Compared to roundabout it replaces three traffic merges with two crossing and one merging, which makes traffic stop in two places. One thing that it does, it eases left turns (right if left hand drive) by reducing throughput across the highway. Due to the complicated nature it would not be worth while if you only care about traffic throughput (which we do in CS). In real life you have safety concerns and when you account for pedestrians and possibility for driver errors, then the DDI shines. If you look at real life DDIs, most are in areas with substantial pedestrian traffic.
I've made a discovery, If you raise one direction and lower the other passing over the freeway, you can modify the DDI to eliminate the intersections. It works much better yet it also still will back up if the surrounding city doesnt efficiently deliver your traffic. Like in the example in the video, just too many intersections too close together. A bit of road heirarchy there would go a long way.
15:45
“Ron, I should tell you, most Muggles aren’t accustomed to seeing a flying car.”
The 'problem' with traffic circles, is that irl they're only more effective than trafic light intersection till traffic density reaches 30%, after that the traffic lights win. CS apparently doesn't model this, and the drivers don't object to a miles out of the way loop-about.
As someone who lives near the city of the FIRST DDI in the entire USA, in reality it is an AMAZINGLY proficient intersection for through traffic AND safety. Statistics showed a 60% reduction in accidents, and intersection wait times dropped from nearly 30 minutes to about 5 minutes. Where C:S may not relay that accurately, the city is about 175 to 200k with the regional area nearing 1 million people. It is also a college town with multiple public and private universities. It is also a strong tourism area.
Diverging Diamonds are more efficient on 4-way right-angle freeway-to-street intersections because time isn't wasted going 3/4 AROUND the circle just to make a left turn - The cars go immediately where they need to go with more direct paths - But they take up more space, which is why I recommend using on freeway-to-street connections
Roundabouts are more efficient on intersections with roads coming together at weird angles or MORE than 4 roads coming together
Continous-Flow Intersections are better at 4-way right-angle street-to-street intersections because the right AND left turns are handled by slip-lanes, leaving only straight-on traffic to reach the main intersection - This helps with load-balancing
if im not mistaken (wich i probably am) Divergin diamonds where mainly developed as a way to slow down trafic and increase safety while still keeping it flowing and while that has plently of realworld uses, in a game where safety is no issue and trafic speed is king, they just are subpar.
I think DDI can work but they need a little more space, so that the parts before the actual diverging is a bit longer. and then, like you said, no crossings close by. In tighter spaces like in this spot, roundabouts are probably the better alternative. but thanks for trying ut and fiddeling with timed traffic lights, i have still to try those.
One aspect of observation is-- the loded trucks or tractors are emerging from the fields like magic, but empties are not comming down the roads for loading. (I don't see any entry points) Actually this results in less traffic. If the empty trucks will come by the same roads then the traffic will be even more. And the GAME will be more challenging.
Thank you for trying a DDI! I like them simply because they look really cool, and I'm sure they have a slightly lower max throughput than roundabouts, but I just like interesting, geometric intersections and you use roundabouts nearly everywhere so sometimes it's nice to switch it up :)
a diverging diamond is pointless when the vast majority of traffic just wants to go straight ... especialy when the jam is after the diamond so everything backs up into the crossing roads of the diamond
A DCMI is basically a DDI setup but without the intersections, as they are instead crossovers. With proper lane mathematics, it makes it so that there is no lane-switching needed. It is more difficult as it requires the roads to be able to change elevation before the crossovers as about 3 layers.
The DDI needed a lot of lane management, you had people coming off the highway not giving way and interrupting flow of traffic which is a big problem, and usually only 1 lane was being used at the lights which basically halves the flow. That's the problem with using them of course, they need a lot of fiddling to make them run smoothly.
DDI's use two traffic lights on either side if i recall correctly. 1 for the traffic coming off the "highway" and making a left, and one where the lights were already in that ddi, for a total of 4 lights per ddi.
The thing with the DDI just like the regular diamond is that it has high throughput for the bottom lanes and between the bottom highway and the top ones, but lower throughput for vehicles across the bridge. If you need to build an bridge across the highway, just build a bridge across the highway, without making it a diamond.
Minor overlooking of lane mathematics; should have had three lanes each way coming into the DDI overpass from the intersections to either side of the overpass, outermost lanes dedicated via TrafficManager to act as extended slip lanes for entering/leaving the expressway, and to clear a path for the traffic proceeding across the overpass. DDI's do solve some real-world problems, but they are not a panacea, any more than roundabouts are ;)
22:30 Biffa invents the "Mermaid's Purse Interchange".
The diverging diamond is particularly helpful when you have a lot of cars (especially 18 wheelers) coming off the highway. Since most of your traffic is from the city you’re just clogging up that flow with an unnecessary amount of stoplights.
Thanks Biffa.. you just taught me how to create and use timed traffic lights! Never could get the hang of the creation tool before this video.
Hey Biffa, a tip I've not seen you use yet:
You can increase truck flow at cargo train stations by placing the train station, removing the road, placing it again a few units away from the station, and make it turn right into the station. Same for the exit with a road turning out of the station. Because of the curve in the road trucks have to take less sharp of a turn, which makes them enter and leave the station more quickly. Hope that makes sense! The more perpendicular the road reaches the station the quicker the trucks go, though there's a limit without using the anarchy mods.
The diverging diamond was meant to reduce crashes not to have good traffic flow. Obviously roundabouts are better for flow but they are a little more dangerous. There are no crashes in cities skylines so the roundabout would win.
Listen to Biffa and I get visions of Dune... "Traffic must flow..."
I started playing CS intending not to use many roundabouts. Promptly realized that traffic in the real world only really works because traffic lights are very carefully timed, and I can't be bothered to change every light in my city every time I build a new neighborhood and traffic shifts, aside from the fact that you can't tinker with lights in vanilla.