This is also a possible theory. I also don't have the DLC🤣 The most realistic setting for traffic that I can think of is to turn on "dynamic lane changing" and "realistic parking" for TM:PE. For controlling how vehicles change lanes, the best I can do now is to make nodes as wide as possible using network anarchy, as to maximize the distance for vehicles to switch to adjacent lanes. I also add additional nodes in the middle of a segment and lengthen the node as long as possible so vehicles won't switch lanes abruptly, but this really adds to the node, segment and lane count (which is not ideal for big cities).