ARS rules; who writes them? Can I edit them?

I find running a large area with ARS rather frustrating. Some ARS rules seem counter-productive; for example I'm running Motherwell old layout; a down train approaching Bellshill calls the route through into Newton station, prematurely blocking the main line from Motherwell and the branch from Hamilton.

Two points for Bill Wilson:

1) I have now worked through 24 hours in this sim; thanks for setting up the timetable, which was very entertaining. I think in one or two cases the transition from 0z99d to 0z99e [hypothetically] might be wrong, encouraging the oncoming traction at a change to come on to the train before the offcoming traction is released. But very good and painstaking work anyway, thank you.

2) You say "I did as much as I could with rules." So you can set up the rules then? This contradicts SF (below) who has said "They are hard coded into the sim and cannot be changed by the end user." And if you can set them up, then anyone could modify them for their own use?

Notwithstanding these whinges, I did enjoy running this one. Modern timetables with regular interval passenger services dominant, no locomotive changes, and precious little freight are nothing like as interesting. Theextreme example is Carlisle old (very demanding) and Carlisle recent (so simple you can be reading a book while it is running. Thanks again to BW for the timetable, and to all who responded.

There are very few "rules" as such. Only when a specific junction or station where the standard ARS logic has difficulties do developers restrict routesetting in some way (depending on the circumstances). Two greens, as Steamer says, is SOP in the industry.

Use of collars (reminders), just like what real life signallers use, sounds like what you might need.

GeoffM in post 137258 said:

There are very few "rules" as such. Only when a specific junction or station where the standard ARS logic has difficulties do developers restrict routesetting in some way (depending on the circumstances). Two greens, as Steamer says, is SOP in the industry.

Use of collars (reminders), just like what real life signallers use, sounds like what you might need.

Out of interest, why are some of the loops not provided with an ARS rule to wait until booked time? This is evidently a real life issue more than a SimSig specific one, but it seems strange ARS wouldn't have that rule applied, which the signaller can effectively override.

jc92 in post 137418 said:

GeoffM in post 137258 said:

There are very few "rules" as such. Only when a specific junction or station where the standard ARS logic has difficulties do developers restrict routesetting in some way (depending on the circumstances). Two greens, as Steamer says, is SOP in the industry.

Use of collars (reminders), just like what real life signallers use, sounds like what you might need.

Out of interest, why are some of the loops not provided with an ARS rule to wait until booked time? This is evidently a real life issue more than a SimSig specific one, but it seems strange ARS wouldn't have that rule applied, which the signaller can effectively override.

I find that ARS works fine in loops, because it correctly gives priority to trains which are due to depart the timing point earlier, and therefore the route is only set out of the loop once the train in said loop is the next scheduled departure

Out of interest, why are some of the loops not provided with an ARS rule to wait until booked time? This is evidently a real life issue more than a SimSig specific one, but it seems strange ARS wouldn't have that rule applied, which the signaller can effectively override.

But this seems hit and miss. Sometimes the train waits for time and sometimes the same train (in a different run of the sim) doesn't.

Can I just add that I'm playing Liverpool Street and ARS always prioritises on the departures when in reality a signaller would prioritise on the arrivals unless the platform was occupied.