Take A Mouse ... And Reconfigure The Rat Race

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday August 25, 2000

Daniel Fallon

Feeling frustrated by Sydney's traffic? Think you could do better at managing peak-hour congestion? It's time to test your planning skills.

The simulator game Mobility, a City in Motion lets you do just that. Running from a

CD-ROM on your PC, it puts you in charge of planning and building your own city and managing its traffic.

Given 100 million Euros (more than $150 million; the game was made in Germany) and a completely fresh landscape, you must build a network of streets, including bus and train routes, housing and industrial areas to generate commerce and fund the city's growth.

Building the infrastructure is a fast point-and-click affair using a mouse. Change traffic lights and speed limits with a couple of clicks, or tar a four-lane highway in an instant by dragging the cursor across the screen. Badly placed roads can be scrubbed just as easily - if only Sydney's roads were as simple to fix!

The aim is to make your city attractive, environmentally friendly and free of traffic congestion, at the same time balancing your budget. The consequences of decisions flow on quickly to motorists. Bad decisions will result in traffic jams and a severe budget blow-out (but the revenue from taxes and fines helps).

Performance is measured by the number of people who move to your city because it is clean and easy to navigate and has plenty of work. If they start leaving, you're failing.

To cut pollution, Mobility allows you to introduce car-sharing centres or subsidise hydrogen or electric cars. But building an Eastern Distributor under problem spots is out of the question and there is no option to stick in a hefty toll anywhere either.

The car graphics aren't very impressive and the soundtrack might be annoying but, if it has always been your dream to build the perfect road network, here is your chance.

Order the game from the official Web site at www.mobility-online.de/en/ for $US15. Shipping will take more than three weeks.