Sims will not commute for study to another city
Hi! Sorry to bring up such a repeated question but I haven't played SimCity in a while and began playing it again a couple days ago. I built a city specialised solely in Education, it even says so when I hover my mouse over the city's name. Buuuut, when I created another city and wanted its residents to commute for study, they just won't. I have placed School Bus Stops at the new city, put a Bus Terminal and Bus Stops all over both cities, and have waited a while, but nothing seems to work. I have searched for people with the same issue, but most of them said they solved it by placing Bus Stops right in front of the school building, but that also doesn't seem to work for me. I've also read someone speculated it can take up to 12 hours for the regional sharing to work since the data is very slowly uploaded to the server. Could somebody please help me?
*Sorry for any English mistakes, it's not my mother tongue
Sadly, one of the bugs that is here to stay is Sims leaving a city for any reason lose their tracking and don't return. This happens with students, shoppers and workers. So it is best to balance population on a per-city basis.
What does this mean for you? It means that you should set up your education city like it's the only city in the region.
You have to have the right transportation for each type of educational building:
- Elementary and high school students travel by School Bus. Make sure you add bus garages to your schools, and school bus stops around the Residential areas (you don't need them in front of the school, just along the residential areas. Anywhere that students live
- Community college and Universities travel by Mass Transit - bus terminals and bus stops, shuttle buses, trains, street cars, etc. They also will drive their parents' cars if there are no mass transit options
- For ALL education, students will walk if they are close enough to the building. This is the best way to get your city's students to their education. Walking to school will vastly reduce the traffic issues you will face with the other ways
Education Management relies heavily on Traffic Management. If you have Universities and need more students, build dorms close enough that the students will walk. Instead of adding extensions to one building, try plopping several of the base building around the city near your residential areas so the students can walk to school.
Also, keep in mind that SimCity does not split students into age groups. The same student sims will attend elementary, high school or university. It's much easier to manage just one type of education building. The best value is to have community colleges placed around the map within walking distance of every residential area. You can also place multiple universities instead.
This post has a lot of tips for traffic management and zoning: https://answers.ea.com/t5/SimCity-2013/Traffic-Solutions-please/m-p/7176995#M127190
