It's true. Sims really DO walk to work.

 

Is it just me or does it seem to take sims an extraordinary long time just to drive just few blocks?  Yeah, I thought so...  So, I decided to run a simple test to find out just how fast these sims "drive".

Test #1


All Homes and and jobs placed exactly 20 tiles apart, connected by streets. Arrows point to street pieces placed every 5 tiles. Pop: 11; Commute time: 17-18 minutes; Date: 3/13/01

Here, all homes and jobs are exactly 20 tiles apart.  Arrows point to street pieces that are placed 5 tiles apart.  Notice the commute time; somewhere between 17 and 18 mintues.  Seems a little high, don't you think?  Well, lets do the math.

A small city is exactly 1 kilometer X 1 kilometer ( 1000 meters X 1000 meters ) and is 64x64 tiles long.  Therefore, one tile must equal 1000/64 or 15.625 meters. ( That's 51.2656 feet for us Americans. )

For comparsion, I live in a trailer that's 75 feet long and 14 feet wide, and our lot size is about 85 feet long and 35 feet wide.  That could comfortably fit in a 2x1 lot in Simcity 4. So, tile sizes, for the most part, are pretty close to real life dimensions.

That means that the jobs and homes in the above screenshot are exactly 312.5 meters ( 1025.3 feet, almost 3 1/2 football fields.) apart.  Now, suppose a car was driving 50kph ( 31mph ) down this street. How long do you think it will take?  Lets find out...

The distance formula is: speed X time = distance.  Simple algebra math states that you can divide distance by speed to get time, or divide distance by time to get speed.  Since we know speed and distance, then we will use the equation: D/S = T ( Distance/Speed = Time )

So, .3125 kilometer/50 kph = .00625 hours.  Times that by 60 ( 60 minutes in an hour. ) equals .375 minutes.

Whoa, that's a big difference from the 17-18 minutes commmute time, isn't it?  I think it's safe to say sims aren't driving at 50kph.  Then, just how fast are they driving? Hmmm...

For this equation we'll use D/T = S ( Distance/Time = Speed )
So, .3125 kilometer/17 minutes = .0183823... Times that by 60 ( 60 minutes in an hour. ) and you get 1.1... Now, I know what your saying, "1.1 kilometers AN HOUR?!"  Yes... yes it is.  That's exactly right.  1.1kph ( .67mph )  For comparsion, the average human walks at 3.22kph ( 2mph ).

Conclusion?  Not only do sims walk to work, but they must be a bunch of old sims with walkers, and those nice roads and streets are acutally big sidewalks.  

Don't believe me?  Want more proof?

Test #2


All Homes and and jobs placed exactly 40 tiles apart, connected by streets. Arrows point to street pieces placed every 5 tiles. Pop: 10; Commute time: 34 minutes; Date: 7/10/12

Twice the distance this time.
.625 Kilometer/34 minutes = .0183823... I didn't even need to do that calculation.  Atfer all, 17x2 is 34
Totally screwed up, isn't it?

"Wait! What about roads? You only used streets!"

Test #3


All Homes and and jobs placed exactly 20 tiles apart, connected by roads. Arrows point to street pieces placed every 5 tiles. Pop: 12; Commute time: 11 minutes; Date: 11/21/13

Well, gee, look at that... 11 minutes to drive 312.5 meters...
.3125 kilometers/11 minutes = .0284090... Times 60 equals 1.7 kph ( 1mph )

Need I say more?

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