Outside connections not working

Verified: January 2022

Symptoms

• Outside connections not working properly; some examples:
  • Vehicles not entering by highway
  • Vehicles aren't using some, but not all highway connections
  • Vehicles using highways but nobody moves in to city (see also: Population stuck at 0)
  • No cargo vehicles entering the city (see also: Vehicles not spawning)
  • Aircraft not entering city
  • Aircraft enter city, but won't land
  • Ships not using harbours
  • Inter-city trains not spawning
  • Inter-city trains not stopping at stations
  • Intercity buses not working

If you came here looking for ways to make highway traffic behave more naturally / correctly, try: Traffic on highways not behaving properly

Causes

There's lots of things that can break outside connections, let's just skip to solutions...

Solutions

Incompatible mods

These mods are known to cause issues:

• Cargo Info - prevents vehicles spawning on highways, also causes Simulation error Array index is out of range error.
• 81 Tiles (all variants) - doesn't currently support intercity buses outside central 25 tile area
  • Quistar is working on new implementation of 81 Tiles mod that might fix this as part of his Extended Managers Library

General outside connection issues

You'll need to disable the edge fog to see the outside connections clearly (use Hide It! or Clouds and Fog Toggler mod to achieve that).

• Outside connections must have green arrows at edge of map:
  • If arrows are missing, the connection is broken...
  • Roads: Only highway roads can be used by default
    • Use Any Road Outside Connections to overcome that limitation
    • Zoned roads don't work; use Zoning Adjuster to disable zoning while placing the outside connection.
    • Two-way roads break intercity buses; see: Intercity buses not working
  • Rail: Some custom rail tracks don't work as outside connections
    • The outside connection must be made from special station track
    • If you connect vanilla train track to outside, game automatically replaces with station track
    • Custom tracks (workshop assets) probably won't work; replace with few segments of vanilla track
    • If station track segment is too small, use Move It mod to stretch it, or bulldoze and rebuild
  • Ferry: These can not be used for outside connections (use ship harbours instead)
  • Blimps, Helicopter, Air tours: These can not be used for outside connections (use airports instead)
  • Tram, monorail and metro: These can not be used for outside connections (use train stations instead)
• Connections showing "no power" or "no water" notifications at edge of map are broken:
  • This can happen on any type of outside connection (for example: Aircraft, Highways)
  • Often caused by old Ploppable RICO mod; replace it with newer Ploppable RICO Revisited mod.
• Too many connections:
  • Each type of connection (road, rail, aircraft, ships) has a limit on how many connections of that type can exist
  • Use Unlimited Outside Connections to overcome that limitation
• Did you create your own connections?
  • If so, it sometimes takes a while for the game to start using them
  • Sometimes you might need to save, quit to desktop, then reload for changes to take effect

General station / port / hub issues

In this section we use the term 'station' to collectively refer to train stations, ship harbours/docks/ports, airports, and transport hubs

• The station must be connected to your city by road
  • Some stations (like this) require pedestrian path connection instead
  • Some stations are designed to work more effectively when connected to train (eg. Cargo harbours) or metro (eg. International airport)
• Broken workshop assets:
  • Stations must contain spawn points to function correctly
  • Use Spawn Points Fix or Building Spawn Points to repair
• Passenger stations:
  • Click the station, and on the info panel you'll see an Inter-city option
    • To get similar option on bus stations, use Intercity Bus Control mod
  • If you want inter-city vehicles to use that station, you must enable the option

New users should be aware that there are two types of station, passenger and cargo, which can only receive passengers or cargo respectively.

Highways

In addition to general issues listed above, check for these issues:

• Broken connection between highways and your city roads:
  • Most highways are two separate 1-way roads; one incoming and one outgoing
  • Make sure both connect to your city road network
  • If in doubt, connect both highway roads with a bit of 2-way normal road and see if that helps
• One way roads preventing vehicles from reaching their destination:
  • Unless you know how to properly use one-way roads, it's best to avoid them.
  • Activate the road building tool and you'll see white arrows on any one-way roads - replace them with 2-way roads

Trains

In addition to general issues listed earlier, check for these issues:

• One-way tracks preventing vehicles from reaching their destination:
  • Unless you know how to properly use one-way tracks, it's best to avoid them.
  • Activate the track building tool and you'll see white arrows on any one-way tracks - replace them with 2-way tracks
• Outside connection platform not connected:
  • Inter-city trains always use the same platform, chosen by the game
  • If that platform isn't connected to outside connection the trains can't use the station
  • Simple solution: Connect all station tracks to the outside connection
  • Once you see which platform they use, you can disconnect the others if desired

There are some reports that tracks should have outside connection at both ends to work properly. Having done some testing, this doesn't seem to change anything.

Passenger Ships

In addition to general issues listed earlier, check for these issues:

• Not connected to shipping lane:
  • When placing harbour, you should see a purple line extending out in to the sea
  • If that line isn't there then the harbour isn't connected to a ship lane and no ships can use it
• Broken ship routes:
  • They can be hard to spot (because it's a dashed line, not a solid line)
  • Sharp bends or gaps in the route can cause problems
  • Use More Network Stuff to repair routes if required

Aircraft

In addition to general issues listed earlier, check for these issues:

• Not connected to aircraft route:
  • When placing airports, you will see a warning if the airport isn't in range of an aircraft route
  • If the airport can't connect to the route, planes can't use the airport
• Broken runways or taxiways
  • The airplane AI is easily confused
  • Used curved paths, not sharp corners (jumbo jets don't handle corners very well)
  • Runways and taxiways are usually (always?) one-way - make sure planes can go from runway to terminal and back to runway again
• Broken aircraft routes:
  • They can be hard to spot (because it's a dashed line, not a solid line)
  • Sharp bends or gaps in the route can cause problems
  • Use More Network Stuff to repair routes if required

Fixed?

If not, try:

• Vehicles not spawning
• Population stuck at 0
• Tracked vehicles not routing or spawning
• Cims not using public transport

Other issues? See: Troubleshooting