Cities Skylines 2’s New Traffic AI Should Stop Me Killing My Own People

Since the last Cities: Skylines 2 gameplay trailer, the team at Colossal Order has been shipping weekly feature highlights and breakdowns to reveal almost every addition and improvement to each section in the game. I’ve been waiting for this sequel for quite some time, hoping it could erase some of the last one’s technical troubles, chief among the dire traffic AI.

The amount of times that I deleted big cities I had built just because of poor traffic conditions is inexpressible. In some cities of mine, the traffic conditions became so bad that I ended up losing a significant portion of the population because of the excessive accumulation of garbage; not because I don’t have the capacity to serve these citizens but because the garbage trucks were stuck in a traffic jam for two months. These cities were not free of public transportation.

These cities didn’t have bad road hierarchy. I just misplaced a vital intersection. My poor foresight, combined with the absolute disaster of a navigation system, destroyed a prosperous city. There are lessons to be learned here, of course—never underestimate the ability of a misplaced intersection to ruin the lives of thousands.

In the original game, cars in your city know how to get from one place to another, but it would always be based purely around distance, completely disregarding any traffic conditions. Not only that, but even on the most spacious of roads, cars will pile into one lane. For example, on a three-lane road or highway, the AI isn’t utilizing all available lanes, resulting in clumsy traffic jams. This predicament could be worked around by mods like Traffic Manager, which forced the NPCs to drive on specific lanes, but putting guidelines for how the AI should behave on each road is a tedious task.

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Thankfully, in the Traffic AI for Cities: Skylines 2, Colossal Order provided some insight into how it will improve traffic. Now, cars will choose their route based on cost-effectiveness, which is determined by four factors: time, behavior, comfort, and money. Time now factors in how busy roads are, not just distance. Behavior is the likelihood of the driver making unusual decisions like u-turns or running traffic lights. Comfort is a factor that favors straighter and more convenient routes that require less driving through intersections. And, finally money, which prefers the least resource-consuming path and the cheapest parking fees.

Each demographic of NPC will behave differently according to their age group. For example, teens opt for the cheapest path to their destination because they’re short on money. Adults will prefer time, and Seniors will desire comfort. And finally, cars will start using all the available lanes just to avoid creating traffic jams or accidents. Oh, also, traffic accidents—they exist now—which adds to the immersion I guess?

Public and cargo transport is also getting its fair share of improvements: capacity changes to all transport options, more price control over transport lines, supposedly functioning taxis, better infoviews, and more. I’ve always favored building my cities around public transportation. Having more control over public transportation makes me feel exponentially better about traffic, as it shoves a good amount of personal cars from the roads, meaning fewer traffic jams.

The traffic on highways, roads, and streets of Cities Skylines 2 is getting a makeover that enhances its realism and functionality. From small towns and rural areas to sprawling metropolitan landscapes, it’s gonna be different. And since most of the time I spend in Cities: Skylines goes into planning layouts tailored to the old traffic system, I’m eager to see the impact of these new changes on this way of design.

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