The secret to minimizing traffic congestion is a well-planned mass transit system that covers every building in your city. You have several options available, though to truly take advantage, at least one city in your region needs to have a department of transportation module attached to the city hall .

Buses are the least expensive option to help minimize traffic. However, unlike previous iterations of the franchise, it's not as simple as plopping a bus stop down in the middle of a neighborhood and leaving the Sims to their own devices. High-wealth Sims don't like them, and will look for other options first, including driving their own cars.

Buses however will help the majority of your low- and medium-wealth Sims. Plopping a shuttle bus depot allows buses to travel around the city at will, and Sims can be picked up and dropped off at any stop at any time. Remember that the depot is also a bus stop itself.

Sims who choose to take the bus don't want to walk around too far, and they dislike crossing the street. As a result, when you place any given bus stop, be sure to place a sister stop across the street in the same location. It may seem like a waste, but remember that bus stops have a very small upkeep fee (only $10/hr), and they only cost $200 initially; if you have a city large enough to support mass transit, then a one-time fee that reduces traffic shouldn't hurt!

When placing bus stops, you'll see the nearby roads covered in green. This is the area that's covered, by a single stop, but it's a little misleading. As mentioned, Sims don't like crossing the street, so if a single bus stop is placed directly in the center of a residential neighborhood, it won't see too many riders, and it certainly won't see riders from the edge of the green area. As long as you alternate which side of the road your stops are placed, you can simply lay them all down as close together as possible along main streets. In the following screenshot, despite the stops being so close together, the buses are smart enough to just drive past any stop that doesn't have passengers. Your Sims are also smart enough to get off at any stop that will help them, and likely won't ask the bus to make a stop only for them.

If that looks a little messy across your entire city, you can build a park and ride. This allows Sims to drive there, park at the parking garage, and take a nearby mass transit vehicle. It's usually best to place a park and ride near but not inside residential neighborhoods, allowing them to be close by without eating up space that could be used for housing. A good rule of thumb is that you can often place a park and ride on the most dense road right at the edge of a commercial neighborhood.

No matter what, you need buses to have a well-used mass transit system. Buses can serve as connections between other forms of mass transit; a Sim could jump in a bus, ride to a different stop, get out and ride a streetcar, which then takes them to their job. Sims will weigh the whole route when they're trying to get to their destination, and remember that the more options they have, the less likely they'll be to take their cars.

Streetcars

Streetcars, also known as trolleys, feature a higher capacity than buses and move along their own tracks in the middle of avenues. They suffer little traffic congestion themselves, but they can only move along properly equipped avenues. They cannot traverse streets.

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Streetcars will significantly reduce traffic congestion, and high-wealth Sims will ride them. However, due to their placement constraints, and a couple strange behaviors that may be bugs, they require more planning. Like buses, they'll stop at any given streetcar stop as necessary.

The strange behaviors are significant, and relate entirely to movement. Streetcars will randomly turn around for no apparent reason, and when a streetcar comes to an intersection, it seems to have no logic in which way it turns. If you're unlucky, a streetcar may bounce back and forth between two stops, or will consistently ignore a turn. You can't control their routes, so if this happens, your streetcar riders will get angry in a hurry because their wait times will shoot up, and they'll take to their cars over your mass transit options.

However, don't dismiss streetcars just because of this! Streetcars do work, and they work very well. You simply need to stick with one rule when placing the tracks: do not place intersections. Either make a large oval like a racetrack, or simply make a solid unbroken line. You can have turns in the line, of course, just as long as the streetcars have only a single option at any intersection.

Because Sims don't mind transferring among mass transit, you should place on bus stop on each side of the road with every streetcar stop, as shown above. This way, your Sims will have several options for any given trip. For example, say you have bus stops in a residential neighborhood and an industrial neighborhood. But say you also have streetcar stops along the main road, and it has bus stops beside it. A given Sim will likely ride the bus from his neighborhood to the nearest streetcar stop, take the streetcar to the other end of the road, then take a different bus from the second streetcar stop to the industrial sector. This way, it lowers the total time the Sim is on a bus, easing the rider count of your bus system, and still allowing the entire mass transit system to be efficient.

Trains



Trains are generally designed to move Sims between cities. Similar to streetcars, they can only move on tracks, but because the light rails are their own path, they take up a large physical footprint. They move a lot faster than cars, and Sims of all wealth levels enjoy them; almost every Sim will prefer a train over driving on the highway if the route is possible and convenient.

Although all cities can add a train station, because of their physical size and general purpose, trains are best to be ignored if your city doesn't have a rail connection to the region. If it does however, you'll want to take advantage. Your best solution to minimize the large physical size of the train station is to place the station as close to the pre-made rail as possible, then ensure that bus stops are nearby so Sims can transfer. If you can place a streetcar stop there as well, so much the better.

Boats

Boats allow two cities that may not otherwise have a connection to interact with each other. The ocean isn't used for anything else and is basically wasted space, so getting an early boat dock can help cities start sharing at least their citizens, if not their resources.

Like with streetcar stops and train stations, place a pair of bus stops (one on each side of the street) right next to a ferry terminal. Sims of all wealth levels enjoy the ferries, but due to their slow speed, they may prefer other methods of travel instead if given the choice.

Note that if you place a ferry, be sure to carefully watch its boats when they launch. If you've built a bridge over the water near the ferry terminal, the ferry may bump into the bridge supports and get stuck. If this happens, simply move your ferry terminal, and the ferry should navigate around it.

Planes

Airports allow all of the cities of a region to be connected. Airports are generally used for cities pursuing the tourism specialization, as they bring in more tourists than any other transportation system. However, due to the large physical footprint of a municipal airport, they are not recommended for cities that aren't working with tourism. If possible, you should pursue an international airport at the great works site instead, especially if you have multiple nearby cities focused on tourism.

As with the other forms of mass transit, airports are best served having bus stops nearby, as well as other stops if possible. This maximizes a given Sim's options for what route to take, and allows incoming tourists to immediately transfer to buses and travel throughout your city's attractions.