Priority Signs - CitiesSkylinesMods/TMPE GitHub Wiki

Verified: December 2021 - TM:PE 11.5.2

Use priority signs to define who has right of way at junctions of roads, tracks, and level crossings.

This allows you improve traffic flow on a busy route, at the expense of increased congestion/disruption to the other routes at the junction. For more information, see Priority Routes.

Choose Priority Signs on the Toolbar:

Button missing? Enable Priority Signs in Maintenance settings.

You can set a keyboard shortcut to activate the tool in the Keybinds settings.

Select a Junction to customise. You'll see a spot over each road entering the junction:

If the icons don't appear, try moving/zooming the camera closer to selected junction

Icon	Purpose
	Placeholder for a priority sign. Click to cycle through the signs (Priority > Yield > Stop > back to Priority...)
	Priority - traffic on this route has right of way when entering the junction.
	Yield / Give Way - traffic must slow down and only enter the junction if there are no priority vehicles waiting to enter.
	Stop - similar to Yield, but traffic must always come to a complete stop even if the junction is clear.
(todo: icon)	Reset - clears all the priority signs at the junction.

ProTip: Start by setting a side road to Yield; all empty spots will get Priority signs

The following shortcuts are applicable when the Priority Signs tool is active...

Selection:

• Click a junction - select the junction
  • Any previously selected junction will be deselected
  • You can now apply basic applicators
• Esc or Right mouse click - exit Priority Signs tool
  • This returns focus to the Toolbar and enables its Adjust Roads mode.

Applicators:

These apply to a selected or previously customised junction.

• Click a priority sign icon - cycle through priority signs (Priority > Yield > Stop > back to Priority...)

Overlays:

Note: If you click with Shift and/or Control pressed, bulk applicators (see next section) will be applied.

• Shift - highlight route the mouse is over
  • It will try going "straight ahead" at junctions
  • On one-way roads, it will try and find roundabouts / semi-roundabouts
  • If no suitable ongoing route is found, the route will terminate at that junction
• Control - show persistent summary overlays for Junction Restrictions and Speed Limits

Bulk applicatators:

These apply customisations along the highlighted route, which is shown as soon as you press Shift key (so you can check the route before clicking).

• Shift+Click a segment - apply priority signs to junctions along the route
  • Repeat the shortcut to cycle through various configurations of priority signs
• Ctrl+Click a junction - apply High Priority Roads policies to that junction
  • Use the shortcut a second time to remove the customisations
• Ctrl+Shift+Click a segment - depends on the route:
  • If route is a roundabout (loop of one-way roads) or semi-roundabout:
    • Applies Roundabout Policies
  • If not a roundabout:
    • Applies High Priority Roads policies
    • If a junction on roundabout is encountered, that junction will have Roundabout Policies applied
  • Use the shortcut a second time to remove the customisations

Camera:

• Mouse wheel - zoom in or out
  • If you zoom out too far, icons may disappear
• PageDown - underground view
• PageUp - overground view

While the tool is active, summary overlays show which junctions have been customised:

To see customisations for more distant roads and tracks, move the camera towards them. Depending on camera position, you might need to zoom in a little. You can set the Overlay Transparency in General settings.

When the tool is deactivated, overlays will be removed. You can enable a persistent summary overlay, which is visible whenever the Toolbar is visible, in Overlays settings.

Depending on your languge settings (see General settings), TM:PE can show locaised signs.

Currently available localisations:

• American (en / us) - these signs are shown by default should localised signs not be available
• Chinese (zh)
• English (gb) - pending Issue #1251
• Welsh (cy) - pending Issue #1251

When you make changes, only vehicles spawned after that point will be aware of them.

To make existing vehicles aware of changes, enable Customisations come in to effect immediately in General settings. This may add some momentary lag on old potato computers or on big cities.

Alternatively, use the Clear Traffic tool to delete all existing vehicles; it puts less strain on CPU so it's faster than the option above if you have old computer or big city.

Confusion causes hesitation. Hesitation causes delays. Delays cause traffic jams.

When traffic from multiple roads is entering a junction, there can be confusion over who gets to enter the junction first. On low-volume junctions, it's usually not a problem. But as junctions get busier, that uncertainty starts to cause traffic jams.

To overcome this issue, there is a general priority rule even when no priority signs are used. It depends on which side of the road traffic drives on:

• Vehicles drive on Left? Traffic approaching from the right has priority.
• Vehicles drive on the Right? Traffic approaching from the left has priority.

However, these basic traffic rules aren't always sufficient. For exmaple, consider this junction:

(todo: image)

If there's vehiles waiting to enter from each road at the same time, who gets to go first? If Jim Street is a busier route than Bob Street, how do we ensure that Jim gets priority over Bob? Priority signs remove the confusion:

(todo: image)

Now, taffic can flow much more freely along Jim Street because it knows it has priority. Although Bob Street has to wait a bit longer, we've improved overall traffic flow for the majority of vehicles in the area.

Yes, especially on large cities or old computers. Managing traffic at junctions is computationally expensive.

If the tool can't determine which is the main road vs. side roads, it won't do anything.

If traffic on a Yield or Stop road is sat waiting too long, they'll eventually get annoyed and just drive in to the junction. If you notice this happening a lot, first try reconfiguring your priority signs to see if that hepls. If it's still not working, it's time to invest in some Traffic Lights!

If you make changes to your roads, it's difficult for TM:PE to determine what to do, so it does nothing. It's why we highlight junctions and routes when using the tools - you're actually deciding what to do and the highligts are just visual encouragement for you to do that work ;)

• Reckless Drivers ignore priority rules
• Emergency vehicles, while responding to emergencies, can ignore the rules
• Evacuation busses can ignore priority signs if Evacuation busses may ignore traffic rules is enabled in Policies settings
• Traffic lights cause priority signs to be ignored unless Vehicles follow priority rules at junctions with timed traffic lights is enabled in Policies settings
• If a road or rail segment entering the junction is too short, there isn't enough room for vehicles to slow down properly and they will drive in to the junction before AI has time to stop them

Toolbar:

• Adjust Roads - has similar bulk applicators
• Traffic Lights
• Junction Restrictions

Settings:

• Policies
• Overlays
• Global Configuration - contains fine-tuning parameters for priority signs

Guides:

• Roads:
  • Priority Routes
  • High Priority Roads
  • Roundabouts

Contributing:

• Priority Signs Icon Themes - localise icons for priority signs

Issue Tracker:

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