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6-Way Intersesctions Measured and Compared
By RichAntDav
In this guide I look at the Traffic Flow performance of 15 different 6-Way Intersections from the Steam workshop
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Created by
RichAntDav
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Category: Workshop
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
17 Oct, 2020 @ 4:18am
1 Jan, 2021 @ 2:54am
3,167 Unique Visitors
60 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Introduction 
1. "Timed Traffic Lights" 
2. "Large Roundabout" 
3. "6-way Clover Interchange (non-DLC)" by "Lime" 
4. "6 Way Raised Roundabout Intersection" by "RichAntDav" 
5. "6-Way Intersection" by "Erazaa" 
6. "6-way Wheel INTC v4" by "Lime" 
7. "6 way highway intersection" by "siam895" 
8. "6-way Snowflake INTC v2" by "Lime" 
9. "6-way Turbine JCT-5" by "e_motch" 
10. "6-Way Noodle Interchange" by "picklemebetty" 
11. "Way Web Interchange" by "RichAntDav" 
12. "EXTREME Full 6-Way Highway Intersection" by "ZaXaZ" 
13. "6-Way Interchange" by "picklemebetty" 
14. "6way stack interchange" by "Saladin ad-Dīn Yūsuf Osas" 
15. "Snowfractal 6 way interchange" by "General Grievous" 
See Also... 
Conclusion 
Comments
Introduction
In this guide and the accompanying video:
I measure and rank the traffic flow of 15 different 6-way intersection designs to see how they perform compared to each other. I used 3 different traffic condition scenarios, namely, "light", "Moderate" and "Heavy".

Setup
To make the video I used Cities: Skylines from Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive. I also needed the Mass Transit mod, the Network Extensions 2 DLC, Traffic Manager President Edition (TMPE), and a small custom mod I wrote to count vehicle numbers over time.
The first 8 intersections were recorded at the Light and Moderate traffic Levels, the last 7 were recorded at the Moderate and High traffic levels.
I used TMPE to manage the lane merging of all of the intersections. With some of the intersections, the lane merging choices were obvious, with others it took multiple attempts to balance the merging requirements.

Notes
You can see from the graphs that the intersections are are built for 4-Lane (and wider) highways have an advantage when it comes to traffic flow, they can simply handle more traffic. I couldn't just restrict those intersection to 3-lane highways at their entrances/exits as they were not designed to have additional bottlenecks in those areas. So, the traffic flow scenarios are slightly different between the 3-lane highway roads and the 4-lane highway roads. They are as similar as I could make them, but not directly comparable.
1. "Timed Traffic Lights"
  • Video: 0:09
  • Size: 20 x 20
  • Cost: 4800
  • Levels: 1
  • Road: 6 lane city
  • Peak vpm: 351 vpm (Light Traffic), 430 vpm (Moderate Traffic)
2. "Large Roundabout"
  • Video: 0:41
  • Size: 60 x 60
  • Cost: 23760
  • Levels: 1
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 351 vpm (Light Traffic), 430 vpm (Moderate Traffic)
3. "6-way Clover Interchange (non-DLC)" by "Lime"
  • Video: 1:15
  • Creator: Lime
  • Size: 78 x 78
  • Cost: 76110
  • Levels: 2
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 449 vpm (Light Traffic), 546 vpm (Moderate Traffic)

4. "6 Way Raised Roundabout Intersection" by "RichAntDav"
  • Video: 1:49
  • Creator: RichAntDav
  • Size: 60 x 60
  • Cost: 51660
  • Levels: 2
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 340 vpm (Light Traffic), 709 vpm (Moderate Traffic)

5. "6-Way Intersection" by "Erazaa"
  • Video: 2:28
  • Creator: Erazaa
  • Size: 64 x 64
  • Cost: 163260
  • Levels: 6
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 448 vpm (Light Traffic), 751 vpm (Moderate Traffic)

6. "6-way Wheel INTC v4" by "Lime"
  • Video: 3:07
  • Creator: Lime
  • Size: 142 x 162
  • Cost: 130370
  • Levels: 2
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 518 (Light Traffic), 920 (Moderate Traffic)

7. "6 way highway intersection" by "siam895"
  • Video: 3:45
  • Creator: siam895
  • Size: 90 x 104
  • Cost: 147176
  • Levels: 4
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 529 vpm (Light Traffic), 922 vpm (Moderate Traffic)
8. "6-way Snowflake INTC v2" by "Lime"
  • Video: 4:22
  • Creator: Lime
  • Size:163 x 163
  • Cost: 171850
  • Levels: 3
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 532 vpm (Light Traffic), 925 vpm (Moderate Traffic)


9. "6-way Turbine JCT-5" by "e_motch"
  • Video: 5:00
  • Creator: e_motch
  • Size: 126 x 126
  • Cost: 90708
  • Levels: 3
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 963 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 753 vpm (HeavyTraffic)


10. "6-Way Noodle Interchange" by "picklemebetty"
  • Video: 5:38
  • Creator: picklemebetty
  • Size: 64 x 64
  • Cost: 90708
  • Levels: 3
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 981 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 864 vpm (HeavyTraffic)


11. "Way Web Interchange" by "RichAntDav"
  • Video: 6:15
  • Creator: RichAntDav
  • Size: 64 x 64
  • Cost: 75500
  • Levels: 3
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 976 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 945 vpm (HeavyTraffic)


12. "EXTREME Full 6-Way Highway Intersection" by "ZaXaZ"
  • Video: 6:57
  • Creator: ZaXaZ
  • Original Name: Fully connected 6-Way Interchange
  • Original Creator: euvier
  • Size: 64 x 64
  • Cost: 79020
  • Levels: 5
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Original Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 3 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 1036 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 965 vpm (Heavy Traffic)


13. "6-Way Interchange" by "picklemebetty"
  • Video: 7:38
  • Creator: picklemebetty
  • Size: 64 x 64
  • Cost: 83368
  • Levels: 4
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 4 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 1071 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 1177 vpm (Heavy Traffic)


14. "6way stack interchange" by "Saladin ad-Dīn Yūsuf Osas"


15. "Snowfractal 6 way interchange" by "General Grievous"
  • Video: 9:02
  • Creator: General Grievous
  • Size: 80 x 80
  • Cost: 128830
  • Levels: 2
  • Asset: Asset on Steam
  • Road: 4 Lane Highway
  • Peak vpm: 1089 vpm (Moderate Traffic), 1319 vpm (Heavy Traffic)

See Also...
Before I get to the conclusion, please feel free to check out my other similar guides:


.
Conclusion
The Best Intersection:
The "Snowfractal 6 way interchange" from "General Grevious" has delivered the highest performance 6-way interchange overall.
Best Small Intersection:
The "6-Way Interchange" from "picklemebetty" was the best performing standard sized (64 x 64) intersection.
Best 3-lane Highway Intersection:
The "EXTREME Full 6-Way Highway Intersection" by "ZaXaZ" was the best Intersection for connecting to 3-lane highways.

Thanks:
To the various intersection creators, credit and links to their creations are above (Add a comment to this guide if I missed anything).
I used this map: Interchange Testing Map as a starting point for my own intersection testing map:
12 Comments
< >
k9vision 20 Sep, 2024 @ 4:16am 
This is wild! It made may Skylines day :)
boog.retard 28 Oct, 2022 @ 10:55am 
also making most of the 700+ vpm interchanges would take more concrete than the entire soviet union used in a year lmao
battlezoby 18 May, 2022 @ 12:50pm 
Wanted to joke about why they don't build the good one in real life, but fact is trying to follow all the damn signs to the right road slow people down. At least for new-comers, regular commuters actually get the hang of it.
74091796519793665 15 Dec, 2020 @ 3:04am 
Hello @ichAntDav thanks a lot for the reply. I did read your reply on youtube, very informative.

I'll wait until you publish the code and guide. So I will follow you to stay informed.

Thanks a lot. I appreciate your effort.
RichAntDav  [author] 15 Dec, 2020 @ 2:25am 
Hi Kottur, see my reply to Xernical on this page
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HOWaFOPNlc
for some more details about the mod
RichAntDav  [author] 15 Dec, 2020 @ 12:27am 
Hi Kottur, yes, I've had some interest in the mod lately, so I'll publish the code in the next week or two, it's not very user friendly so I'll need to put out a new Steam guide or something so I can help people use it
74091796519793665 14 Dec, 2020 @ 7:17am 
Interesting work, very helpful.

Do you plan to publish the vehicles counting mod?
cstoneburner 22 Nov, 2020 @ 7:47pm 
I'm glad you're continuing the series with 5-ways. This guide and the 8-way one are both very interesting, but I tend toward smaller cities so don't have much practical use for them. 5-way and smaller I definitely would.
RichAntDav  [author] 27 Oct, 2020 @ 1:04pm 
Thanks General G. :-) and thank you for sharing those excellent intersections with us, the work you put into them clearly shows. I've had a go at a few large intersection myself now, so I can appreciate how hard it is to balance size, cost, performance and particularly realism.

I haven't started looking at 4-way intersections yet, but I have started looking at 5-way intersections, but it's going to take a while. I'm having to change my approach, mainly because there are a lot more intersections to get through, so it's a probably a good idea for when I get around to 4-way intersections. And yes, I've had a look at your 5-way intersections and they do look good, not sure if they're going to take the crown this time though as there's a lot more competition ;-)
Admiral Electron 26 Oct, 2020 @ 12:25pm 
Hey Man, Nice work. I made both the winning interchange in your series so far. Apart from making the interchange conflict free (without any merging or weaving conflicts), I did put a lot of work ensuring that they're realistic without drastic slopes, sharp turn angles and extreme road curvature. Glad to see it translates well into the practice.

Let me know if you are making 4 way junction, I'll refine some interchanges I made long time ago, put some intersection markings with the new mod. It'll be a lot more relevant series considering requirement of 6-way and 8-way is very rare and doesn't occur so symmetrically.