Automatic upgrade of city road

[whoami]

Pak128.Britain has (at least) two city roads: 35 km/h in 1900 and 50 km/h in 1929 (and earlier). First, the slower one is built, but it does not seem to be replaced by the better one once the time has come (using up to ST r7005).  If upgrading happens slowly, then it is possibly too slow.
I suggest to upgrade city roads automatically, but not all at the same time. Upgrading should happen earlier (be more probable) for busy streets.

[Ters]

Although I haven't checked, I think it's a safe bet that street upgrades happens at the same rate the buildings are upgraded. That does at least drive construction of city streets, and if present, conversion of normal roads to city streets. If surrounding buildings are already maxed out, nothing will happen.

[kierongreen]

Or if city growth is disabled. In ordinary circumstances within a few years the roads should upgrade though - not least because the maximum building level slowly increases.

[ӔO]

city roads can be a major pain to fully upgrade manually, if not only due to their sheer number of tiles, but also because you need to upgrade the bridges along with it.

There are also some configurations in which the road will not upgrade, because there are no surrounding city buildings and instead are surrounded by roads, monuments or attractions.

some ideas: one button to upgrade all roads inside the city limits or a worker that runs around the whole map randomly upgrading roads along its path.

[walsjona]

The worker sounds interesting. You could expand it by linking it to a use-based maintenance system, the more convoys that pass the more frequently a worker (or worker convoy) has to maintain the way and if the way doesn't receive regular maintained it becomes broken and unusable. Then if during maintenance the current way has become redundant, then the way is automatically updated to a similar way --> this would then also steadily update intercity roads.

Added annoyance for players: speed restriction on way that is being maintained/upgraded just a thought
(i think speed restriction might be used in OpenTTD when doing road works)

[whoami]

Vast parts of the inner cities in my game have not received (relevant numbers of) upgrades in a decade (the large suburbs have the 50 km/h roads, they also have different buildings). The upgrade may be inhibited because (I guess:) many buildings already had the highest possible level when the new road became available.

[Ters]

To some extent, it is actually natural that such districts retain slower roads. The streets would in real life be too narrow, and perhaps a bit too curvy, to allow 50 km/h. To upgrade the streets, the buildings would have to be replaced.

Now that I think of it, wasn't Simutrans better at urban renewal earlier, but someone wanted to preserve the old city centers?

[whoami]

So, is there an intended function behind it? It seems very much like the impossible upgrades (many buildings in the centres have reached the highest level) prohibit the road upgrades.
The resulting problem (with Pak128.Britain in e.g. 1930) is mostly that all the busses and mail trucks are deeply in loss because they cannot fulfill the speed bonus requirements, the speed limit on the city roads plays an important part. Well, I have to switch to trams anyway in the larger cities.

[Ters]

I have that problem even with a city speed limit of 50 km/h. Not in the 1930s, though.

[prissi]

As soon as a city grows, it will replace the roads. Even if there is no matching building, the road replacement will be done before.

[boriselperro]

You think that's a problem? Try 128 German. There, as cities expand, they convert tarmacked roads to dirt roads! In other words, you are going backwards. I am going to ask the German fórum people why that is (I cannot believe that is  what happens in real life in Germany.) Just as soon as I look up in my German dictionary words like tarmac, upgrade, development, etc etc.) Unless of course anyone in this thread can enlighten me? And even more importantly, how to stop it doing that. Thanks in advance, and apologies for what is on the face of it a question in the wrong place.

[boriselperro]

I have just been to the German fórum to ask them and found that "Das deutsche Simutrans Forum antwortet nicht mehr." Or, in English, there´s no-one there. And so ... danke schon und gute nacht.

[prissi]

The upgrade only happens when you play without timeline. And pak128.german is a pre-beta version and far from finished. It contains also unfinished industry chains and other stuff. It is under heavy development, so thing improve with each release.

[boriselperro]

Never occurred to me. I will go and try that. Many thanks for your quick reply.

[whoami]

You think that's a problem? Try 128 German. There, as cities expand, they convert tarmacked roads to dirt roads! In other words, you are going backwards. I am going to ask the German fórum people why that is (I cannot believe that is  what happens in real life in Germany.)

With nearly all municipalities lacking resources, the least important city roads may only be patched and thus decay over time.

The upgrade only happens when you play without timeline.

Does this mean that my observation is correct (for my game with timeline)?
See the centers of Springstead, Pollingcross, Baringfield, Pinewell, Heppchester and Oakham in this savegame: http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/PC184G3_132_ST-r7005_SJ1930-05_Pak128.Britain-r1382.sve (needs Pak128.Britain nightly ~ r1382)
Springstead chose to extend only beyond the first ("old") station, so the areas with the old road now encloses this station.
For all cities, I think that nearly all (or all) isolated tiles of new city road in the old areas (there are a few) are replacements of tiles that I had built or deleted. Thus I came to the conclusion that upgrading does not happen. Graphically, it is nice to have vintage city centers, but the speed bonus does not care about that.

[Ters]

With nearly all municipalities lacking resources, the least important city roads may only be patched and thus decay over time.

For Norway, you can strike out "least important". This also makes me think of the proposal (probably years ago now) to let roads in Simutrans decay due to lack of maintenance.

In the end, this discussion is all about the complexity of Simutrans' simulation of municipal governance. As it is, it seems to me that it is limited to upgrading the city hall, building monuments and some attractions, building or taking over roads whenever new buildings are built, and arguably the construction of other city buildings.