How to Fix Traffic in Cities Skylines

Cities Skylines Fix Traffic Guide

This is a guide on how to detect and resolve traffic issues in Cities Skylines. For traffic and road layout tips please visit this article.

So your city became slower, commercial and industrial zones don’t get enough goods and workers, service vehicles can get to residential areas in time and you see a lot of traffic jams. To fix traffic Cities Skylines provides you with several tools. That’s what you should do to resolve the issue.

Find the Root Cause of the Traffic Issues

There are two UI modes that are to be used when diagnosing traffic issues.

The first is The Traffic overlay. The red areas will show you the places with the heaviest Cities Skylines industry traffic. It is important to realize that not necessarily the root cause is somewhere in this place. That may be just a traffic bottleneck triggered by incorrect decisions elsewhere.

The second is the Routes overlay. Thanks to it you can find out who exactly is using your heavily overloaded roads and intersections. Use filters to detect the overuse of the road or intersection by different kinds of vehicles. For example, the issue could be triggered by Cities Skylines trucks constantly moving goods from some industrial area to a unique factory through your city center. This would mean you need to create another route for them.

Kinds of Cities Skylines Traffic Problems

I’ve tried to create a structure of traffic issues by kinds along with solutions

Cities Skylines truck traffic moving goods between industrial objects through residential areas. 

In Cities Skylines too many trucks are generated by your industries. That’s why you need to provide industrial areas with good wide roads. Also, keep in mind the necessity of having access to cargo railway stations and ports. It’s better to avoid building unrelated districts between these kinds of objects. 

How to solve: 

• remember that in Cities Skylines truck routes go via the fastest ways? Yep, that’s the best solution. If possible, provide trucks with access to the highway and they will prefer it.
• Use the Cities Skylines no trucks policy in your residential areas and those heavy vehicles will be forced to look for alternative ways. Be cautious because this may cut off supply for commercial zones which require access to trucks
• Not the best solution but as an idea – expand the roads used by trucks. That’s a bad solution and is to be used only if the previous two didn’t help
  
  Heavy trucks importing/exporting goods through residential areas

When your industries don’t produce enough goods of some kind, these products get imported. If your industry produces too much of some goods, these products get exported. Basically, this means trucks will be using the highways outside of the map to import/export goods to/from buildings in your city. And sure they will be looking for the fastest route.

How to solve:

• First of all, use the Imports and Exports tab to identify the issue. You will see the buildings and the vehicles which are involved in these processes
• Don’t forget that trucks aren’t the only ways of import and export. Goods may be imported and exported by cargo trains, ships, and cargo planes. Such buildings also produce additional traffic but using them you can fix the truck issue.
• Use the “no trucks” policy but remember about keeping access to trucks for your commercial zones
• Either move buildings involved into import/export or create an alternative road network

Too many personal cars moving between residential and commercial zones

Your citizens want to get to work. And they will go by car when they don’t have an alternative. In Cities Skylines too much traffic is generated when each citizen is going to work by car.

How to solve:

• Obviously, develop your public transport system. That’s a good Cities Skylines traffic fix.
• Don’t neglect low-density housing and commercial zones. In Cities Skylines high-density zones look cool but produce more traffic. Reduce it by choosing low-density zones for some areas of the city.
• Encourage your citizens to use Cities Skylines bikes and crosswalks by applying policies and building the related infrastructure.

Cities Skylines too many buses issue

Mismanaging your public transportation system may get you in trouble. It’s not always the more the better. Your skylines bus system may be overloaded with empty buses going via the same streets.

How to solve:

• Track how full your buses are. Reduce the number of vehicles if there are empty ones. The same goes for your bus touristic.
• Try to avoid placing your bus lines on the same streets. Sure there will be crossings but they are to be on the wide streets and when it’s necessary.
• Where possible replace bus lines with trams and metro.

Too many service vehicles go through some of your streets

Service buildings produce a significant amount of traffic. Sometimes you may notice that there are a lot of garbage trucks standing in your traffic jam.

How to solve:

• Happily, you can easily move your service buildings. Find a better place for them in your city.
• Review the necessity of having so many service buildings. Sometimes you can just remove one.
• Use helicopter options for some of them such as hospitals.

A Very Important Cities Skylines Traffic Tip. Don’t Be Afraid of Reworking!

In this game, you can easily rework some parts of your city. If not the real life where someone will be left without a home. Be open-minded and adjust things when it’s time to. Expand roads, add highways and move service buildings.