Topic: How do you make use of low speed roads?

[HyperSim]

There are many kinds of road in simutrans, but I think some of them, of which speed limit are under 50km/h(= speed limit of city road), are not used effectively because roads in a city area will gradually be replaced with city road.
So, I want to know how you make use of low speed(30 to 50km/h) roads in simutrans.

[Ters]

I've used them because early in the timeline, they are the only type of way available. I think I may have used such a road for a route served by very slow (but high capacity) dump trucks. That was far from a city, so no risk of it being upgraded. And even if it was, I would not have to pay for a more expensive road than needed anyway.

And I use them to do adjustments to city roads. When drawing one kind of road over another, the faster will be the result. If I use faster roads for that, the city road will be upgraded to that kind of road, only to get downgraded some time later. Using a slower road that city roads means that the city roads remain city roads.

City roads are not fixed at 50 km/h either. Early in the timeline, 50 km/h city roads are not yet available, only even slower roads.

[Leartin]

The question is somewhat flawed, since it's not a matter of speed, but money. If a 200km/h road had the same price/cost as a 20km/h road, there would never be a reason to use the 20km/h road. But since roads have different price/cost, the most efficient choice is to use the road that accomplishes what you want to do for the lowest price. Usually, whatever the vehicle that will use the road can do - in early game with horses and oxen, this might well be under 50km/h. Later, it could be used in loading bays (since the vehicles slow down anyway) or whenever a way is not intended to be used often (eg. the connection to a depot).

Though it makes me wonder which road speeds are actually useful. As an Austrian, the most common speed limitations I see on roads are 30, 50, 70, 100 and 130 km/h. However, in this game it's mostly trucks and busses. I know of the former to be restricted to 80km/h in most of Europe, including the German Autobahn. Busses are the same at least in Germany and Austria, so I tend to think other countries count them as trucks as well. Hence 30, 50, 70, 100 and 130 km/h seems to be pretty good - 30 as the cheap choice when speed does not matter, 50 for city vehicles, 70 and 100 as a choice for trucks, whether you need full 80km/h speed or not. 130 as max allowed speed anywhere (except German Autobahn... but that's silly). If there was an 80-speed road, 70 and 100 would become pretty useless. If there was something slower than 30, 30 might become useless, etc. - that means 6 is the max number of different useful roads IF you split up 50 to 40&60, and the vehicles use their 'legal' max speed.

[Ters]

Norway uses the speed limits:

• 30: Used for minor roads in residential areas. Also used for some very sharp curves.
• 40: A rather recent invention becoming more common for major roads through urban centers or past rural schools.
• 50: The classic speed limit for roads in urban areas. May or may not be signed.
• 60: Used in near-urban areas, and perhaps a few low quality roads. Up to and including this speed, other vehicles have to yield to buses departing bus stops.
• 70: Typically old major roads, whether still in use or not. Narrowness of the road is probably an issue (cars and trucks have gotten quite a bit wider since the 1970s), but I think it is mostly and issue of still having quite a few driveways and pedestrian traffic, although not as much as above.
• 80: The default for major roads outside urban areas. I don't think there is any sign for this, just signs ending the previous speed limit.
• 90: High quality major roads. Mostly only used for dual carriageways there days, but was more common on then high-quality single carriageways a few years ago.
• 100/110: A recent invention used more or less only on the remote parts of the major highways connecting Oslo to the surrounding airports and near-by commuter towns.

Speed limits are dictated on how safe the roads are, which in turn has some relation to how expensive the road is. It is not a direct relationship, though, as the presence of pedestrians or dangerous terrain can dictate a low speed limit even for rather expensive roads. In Simutrans, traffic accidents simply don't exist, so these concerns disappear, making speed limit simply a balancing factor for deciding how much money to put into a road.

30 km/h roads are generally not used by the kind of vehicles played with in Simutrans. A few school busses perhaps. If they actually are used for the last few hundred meters to a shop, like the one just outside my window, the speed limit is not obeyed. So "realistically", trucks in Simutrans should treat these roads as 40 or 50 km/h. On the other end of the scale, buses and trucks are capped at 80 or 90 km/h. The only speed limits in Norway that affects the kind of vehicles played with in Simutrans are therefore 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and perhaps 90. Of these, some may be skipped as the real life difference is in safety, not cost. In addition, Simutrans may need a slow dirt road for the pre-automobile era. Although such roads are still around in real life, they are not used by typical Simutrans vehicles, except on a scale too small to be represented in Simutrans (inside stops and factories).

[Leartin]

Speed limits are dictated on how safe the roads are, which in turn has some relation to how expensive the road is. It is not a direct relationship, though, as the presence of pedestrians or dangerous terrain can dictate a low speed limit even for rather expensive roads. In Simutrans, traffic accidents simply don't exist, so these concerns disappear, making speed limit simply a balancing factor for deciding how much money to put into a road.

In Austria, there are many roads without any signed speed limit, meaning it would be 100km/h - yet tight curves make it impossible to reach such speed (and of course it wouldn't be safe). There are also speed limits in place because of noise and because of pollution, which have nothing to do with the roads condition or safety.
When I think of the speed limit of roads in Simutrans, I think of it as the limit you can reasonable drive on that road due to how it is buildt, I didn't think there were artificial limitations.

[Ters]

There are also speed limits in place because of noise and because of pollution, which have nothing to do with the roads condition or safety.

There are polution related speed limits in some Norwegian cities, but they are quite new and I don't think they will last. One reason is that studies show that they have little effect, the other is the increasing number of electric cars is those cities.

When I think of the speed limit of roads in Simutrans, I think of it as the limit you can reasonable drive on that road due to how it is buildt, I didn't think there were artificial limitations.

That might be the (intended) illusion, but technically speaking, any road in Simutrans is safe to drive on in any speed. The speed limit is only to force you to pay more money to move faster, perhaps mixed with a bit of visual realism in that traffic does move slower in city streets than on highways.

[DrSuperGood]

Low speed roads are usually used for goods that average speed does not matter much but the road maintenance of faster roads would eat away all the profits. An example of this in pak64 is Waste. This is especially important with pak128 where maintenance costs of roads are much higher with regard to road convoy income.

[ROCAMBOLER529]

Well, the lowest route are very efficient with vehicles that transport loads without bonus of speed, if you transport 40 tons of coal from a mine to a central with a truck that goes to 100km / h will earn the same if it goes on a highway of 130 that on a highway of 25. Its the same for garbage, concrete and other goods without speed bonus.

[gauthier]

There is still a major drawback of low speed: you need many more convoys to achieve the same flow. That means your road is much easier to saturate, and you potentially loose more money buying so many convoys.

[Ters]

As long as the vehicle is the same in both cases, yes. I used slower, but bigger, trucks when I used a slower road than normal.