Most transportation games are super shallow:
- trains simply turn around on the platform
- there is not enough road traffic to actually necessitate advanced traffic planning, or then the driver AI is too stupid to make use of more complicated traffic solutions
- airplanes simply clip through each other
- pedestrians are just decoration that is randomly generated when the player is looking
- people are not individual agents
In factorio, trains are done quite well, except that the trains can drive curves with arbitrary small radii at arbitrary high speeds.
In cities skylines, road traffic is done relatively well, but vehicles are not simulated at any depth, and behave dumber than human drivers.
In workers and resources soviet republic, there seems to be a nice people simulation, but the traffic and train simulation is super basic.
In transport fever, laying rail tracks at low curvature and inclination and creating roads with low inclination is interesting, but the rest of the simulation is super basic.
Is there any game that simulates the different modes of transportation and their interaction well?
- pedestrians should halt traffic when crossing a crosswalk
- road traffic should be smart about choosing lanes
- trains should be forward only, unless there is locomotives or drivers stands at both ends
- planes should follow reasonable holding patterns over airports and have vertical separation on routes
And many many more things. Designing a good transportation network is challenging in the real world. Why can't we bring that real challenge into games?