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Tools and Upgrades

At the end of every in-game week, you choose between two upgrade packages. These packages always contain road tiles and one piece of special infrastructure. Knowing which tool to pick and when to deploy it is the key to managing late-game traffic.

Motorways​

The motorway is the most powerful tool in the game. It allows you to create an "express lane" that ignores all geography and traffic underneath it.

  • Primary Use: Connect a distant cluster of houses directly to a high-demand destination of the same color.
  • Bypassing Congestion: If you cannot segregate two colors on the ground, use a motorway to pull one color entirely out of the local street network.
  • When to Pick: Always choose the motorway if you do not desperately need a bridge or tunnel for survival. You can never have too many motorways.

Roundabouts​

Roundabouts are the best way to handle high-volume intersections on the ground.

  • Continuous Flow: Unlike standard intersections, cars entering a roundabout do not come to a complete stop if the path is clear. They yield, merge, and exit at high speed.
  • Placement: Use roundabouts to connect three or four heavy traffic streams. Never connect a driveway directly to a roundabout.
  • Footprint: They require a 3x3 grid space completely devoid of any structures. If a single house or destination spawns adjacent to your planned intersection, you cannot place the roundabout. You must proactively place dummy road tiles to secure the 3x3 footprint early before buildings spawn in the area.

Bridges and Tunnels​

Water and mountains are hard barriers. You cannot route traffic through them without bridges or tunnels.

  • Map Specific: The necessity of these tools depends heavily on the map. Zurich requires many tunnels, while Los Angeles demands bridges.
  • Resource Heavy: Tunnels and bridges consume your road tiles. Always make sure you have enough regular roads to actually build the connection after placing the bridge.
  • When to Pick: Take these only when the geography forces your hand. If a new destination spawns across a river and you lack a bridge, you lose.

Traffic Lights​

Traffic lights are widely considered the weakest upgrade, but they have niche uses.

  • Stop and Go: They force traffic to stop, which inherently slows down the overall flow rate. They are highly detrimental at heavily congested, multi-color four-way intersections (use a roundabout instead).
  • Where They Work: Traffic lights excel in one highly specific scenario: merging two streams of identically colored traffic onto a single arterial road.
  • Placement Rules: You must place the traffic light a minimum of 3 to 4 grid tiles away from any destination entrance or residential driveway. If placed immediately adjacent to a parking lot, cars decelerating to park will negate the light cycle, causing traffic to instantly back up into the intersection.
  • When to Pick: Only select traffic lights if the alternative package is completely useless to your current layout.

The Value of Basic Roads​

Do not underestimate the package that simply offers more road tiles. Sometimes you have enough motorways and roundabouts, but lack the basic infrastructure to connect a new suburban sprawl. If you are consistently running out of road tiles, prioritize the basic road upgrade over a shiny new traffic light.