Lane Connectors

Overview

Use this tool to customize the allowed routes traffic can take at junctions and nodes.

Usage

This tool can be applied to nodes and junctions on:

Roads
Tram tracks
Metro tracks
Rail tracks
Monorail tracks
Level crossings

Activate

Choose Lane Arrows on the Toolbar:

Button missing? Enable Lane Connectors in Maintenance Settings in Settings.

You can set a keyboard shortcut to activate the tool in the Key Bindings in Settings.

Overlays

While the tool is active, detailed overlays will show all nodes customized with lane connectors:

(todo: image)

To see the lane connectors for more distant nodes, scroll the camera towards them. Depending on camera position, you might need to zoom in a little.

Unlike most other overlays, lane connectors don't currently support transparency settings.

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

customize

(todo - see Shortcuts for now as it summarizes it)

Shortcuts

The following shortcuts are applicable when the Lane Arrows tool is active...

Camera / Overlays:

Mouse wheel - zoom in or out
- If you zoom out too far, overlays may disappear
PageDown - underground view
- This also activates a simplified version of the Traffic Info View!
PageUp - overground view

Selection:

Click a node - select node to customize
- Any previously selected node will be deselected
- You can now use basic and bulk applicators
Right click anywhere - deselects currently selected lane or node
Esc - exit Lane Connectors tool

Basic applicators:

Click an incoming lane - select the incoming lane
- You can now click outgoing lanes
Click an outgoing lane - add or remove connector to/from current incoming lane
Del or Backspace - reset all lane connectors

Bulk applicators:

Stay In Lane (hot key is Ctrl+S)

Refresh

Vehicles calculate their path before starting their journey. As a result, when you make changes to lane connectors, only vehicles spawned after that point will be aware of the changes.

To force a refresh, you can:

Enable Customizations come in to effect immediately in General Settings in Settings to force vehicles to automatically recalculate their paths when lane connectors change.
- This may add some momentary lag on old potato computers or on big cities.
Or use the Clear Traffic tool to remove all existing traffic from the map, leaving only newly spawned traffic that is aware of your changes. This causes less lag, but you have to do it every time.

Deactivate

Press Esc or switch to any other tool when you're finished.

Notes

Unlike Lane Arrows, which set a general direction that an incoming lane can exit by, lane connectors explicitly link to one or more outgoing lanes in any direction. Essentially, you are hard-wiring the paths that can be taken through the junction.

If an incoming lane does not connect to any outgoing lanes, it will be treated as a "lane arrow" lane - the game will decide which outgoing lanes it can connect to.

If an outgoing lane is not connected to any incoming lanes then it is likely that no traffic can enter it, unless there is a suitable "lane arrow" incoming lane. Inaccessible outgoing lanes can wreak havoc in your city if they prevent vehicles reaching a destination.

If you have enabled Enable highway-specific lane merging/splitting rules in Policies Settings in Settings, and you override a highway junction with lane connectors, the highway rules will automatically be disabled for that junction, and it will act like a normal city road junction - for all lanes at the junction, including any that aren't connected. We recommend either connecting all lanes at a highway junction, or no lanes, in order to avoid unexpected vehicle behaviour.

Traffic Manager 11 for Cities: Skylines Help