Traffic Architect

Traffic Architect is a road-building and traffic-management game about designing infrastructure for a self-growing, fully simulated city. Every new building generates trips, from people driving to work to trucks making deliveries. You build and change the network, then watch how traffic moves through it.

Design the road network

When congestion builds, you can add lanes, retime signals, create road links or replace a crossing with a highway interchange. Roads have 11 upgrade tiers, from gravel tracks to boulevards and multi-lane highways. You can cross rivers with bridges and mountains with tunnels in one move.

You can build a compact 3-way or trumpet interchange where three roads meet, or a compact or wide cloverleaf where two roads cross. One-way streets, turn restrictions and per-junction rules let you shape traffic, while traffic lights can be tuned phase by phase.

Follow the traffic

Every vehicle is simulated, and you can follow a single car across town to see congestion from its perspective. People using your network report smooth journeys, long waits or detours twice the direct distance. A congestion heat map shows where the network is under strain.

More than two dozen live metrics, from queued cars to transit share, are charted across the whole run so you can see how changes such as a new interchange affect the numbers.

Build public transport

Bus lines use routes and stops, with bus lanes and bus-only roads to keep buses out of traffic jams. Passenger rail and underground metro systems include stations, level crossings and tunnels. Passengers route across the network using buses, rail, metro and transfers.

Freight can travel by rail. You can dedicate lines to connect industry with demand, taking trucks off the roads. Goods can change trains at shared stations, just like passengers.

Challenges and creation

Traffic Challenges present puzzles in which you build interchanges by hand, one ramp at a time, and test whether they can carry enough cars. Creative mode lets you place buildings yourself with no budget and no way to lose.

The full map editor lets you shape terrain, rivers, mountains and lakes, then play runs on your maps and share them on Steam Workshop. Maps can be up to 18x18 km, with dense downtown districts and suburban settlements.