PC game · Windows · Online multiplayer

Smartway:
UK Motorway Traffic Controller

Take the desk at a smart motorway control room. Set the gantry speeds, close lanes with a Red X, send Traffic Officers, and keep any real British motorway moving and safe through a whole shift. Play solo, or run the control room together with your friends online.

Online multiplayer · text and voice chat · no port forwarding

Buy Smartway £12.99 · one-off payment, licence key straight away

Multiplayer

Run the control room with your friends

A smart motorway control room is never a one-person job. Bring your mates onto the desk and work the shift together, live.

Host or join in seconds. Pick a game from the online list, or host your own on any motorway in the UK.
Public or private. Open your game to anyone, or lock it with a 4-digit PIN for just your friends.
One shared motorway. Everyone sees the same traffic, cameras, signals and incidents, as they happen.
Talk it through. Built-in push-to-talk voice chat and text chat, so you can call out the jobs.
See each other. In the 3D control room your friends sit at their own desks as the operators they picked.
No setup. No port forwarding or router settings. Join and play.

Each player needs their own copy of Smartway to play online.

Run the motorway

Every UK motorway

All 76 UK motorways are built into the game from OpenStreetMap. Pick a motorway and a stretch between two junctions, and you get its real lanes, slip roads, bridges, railways and rivers, with towns and countryside built around it. You can also download the latest map for your stretch.

A 3D control room

Sit at your desk with its monitors, or stand up and walk around the room. There's a big video wall, a red LED clock, colleagues at their desks and an office that dims at night. Pick which of 23 office staff you play as, and your friends see you at your desk. Prefer the classic flat desk? Press F2 to switch.

Live CCTV

Pan, tilt and zoom 3D cameras, set presets or let them patrol, and watch a camera wall that follows the action. You get rain on the lens, fog, snow, sodium street lights, cat's eyes, night vision, and a photo mode.

Real people

Fully animated people in the control room and at the roadside. Police, Traffic Officers, paramedics and firefighters walk the scene. Drivers wait by their crashed cars and talk to the crews, and witnesses ring 999.

British vehicles

Cars, vans and lorries pulling curtainsiders, tankers, fridges and flatbeds. Police, Traffic Officer, ambulance, fire and recovery crews arrive on blue lights and drive away when the job is done, and the air ambulance lands on the carriageway.

Signals and signs

Speed limits, Red X lane closures, lane-change arrows and hard shoulder running. Write your own message signs or pick standard wording. Drivers stop trusting signs that cry wolf.

Speed cameras

Gantry speed cameras flash speeders and keep an evidence photo with the plate and speed. Set up average speed camera zones between gantries, and drivers ease off to the limit. Print each speeding notice, then file it in the folder on your desk.

Full 2D desk

Prefer a classic control desk? Play the whole game in 2D, with the CCTV, live incidents, signals, radio and road map all on one screen. Switch between 2D and 3D any time.

Incidents and weather

Breakdowns, collisions, fires, debris, animals, wrong-way drivers, police chases and suspects who run off on foot. Fog, rain, gales and snow that settles until the gritters arrive, plus day and night shifts and seasonal events.

Radio and phones

Spoken radio traffic, Traffic Officer chatter that turns into jobs, and calls from emergency refuge areas, the police and the council. Optional voice commands, with radio readbacks.

Your career

Over 20 scenarios built from the places along your road. Earn ranks and epaulettes, get promoted, or end up on probation. There are 100 achievements, desk upgrades, shift stats and a daily challenge with an online leaderboard.

A VR edition for Meta Quest 3 is in development.

Screenshots

Your desk in the 3D control room, with the CCTV monitor and the video wall — In the 3D control room: your desk, CCTV and the video wall

Walking around the control room while colleagues work at their desks — Get up and walk around the control room

The video wall and desk screens seen from the chair — The video wall from your chair

CCTV view of a vehicle fire on the M66 with a queue building and crews on foot — Vehicle fire on the M66, live on CCTV

CCTV view of a fire engine arriving on blue lights in the rain — Fire and rescue arriving in the rain

A gantry showing QUEUE AHEAD SLOW DOWN and Red X lane closures above a queue in the rain, with an ambulance in the traffic — Red X and a queue warning over the scene

A firefighter in breathing apparatus beside a fire engine and police car, cones out in the fog — Coned off in the fog

Firefighters and a police officer working at a collision behind cones — Firefighters and police at a collision

An ambulance at the scene with crews and a police officer in fog — Ambulance on scene in the fog

A police officer and a firefighter in breathing apparatus walking the scene — Police and fire walking the scene

Firefighters walking back to the ambulance in thick fog — Crews heading back to the ambulance

Crews at a stopped vehicle in heavy rain — Crews out in heavy rain

Traffic Officers in hi-vis walking back from their patrol car in thick fog — Traffic Officers in thick fog

A Traffic Officer at a broken-down car at night, with the patrol car behind — Helping a broken-down driver at night

The motorway at night under orange street lights, with a Red X gantry and a journey time sign — Night shift under the sodium lights

CCTV view at night of overnight roadworks coned off under orange street lights, with the gantry showing lane closures — Overnight roadworks on CCTV

A gantry at night showing Red X over three lanes, a 50 limit and LANE CLOSURE LANES CLOSED — Lanes closed for the night

Traffic queuing under a gantry with Red X over every lane and AIR AMBULANCE LANES CLOSED, with the air ambulance landed on the carriageway ahead — Every lane closed for an air ambulance landing

The full 2D desk at night: CCTV, gantry signals, live incidents and the road map on one screen — The full 2D desk: everything on one screen

The text sign editor showing 2 LANES CLOSED AHEAD — Write your own message signs

Gantry speed camera view at night with lane speeds and number plates — Gantry speed camera catching a speeder

A printed in-game speeding notice with the camera photos, recorded speed and a FILED stamp — Print the notice and file it in your desk folder

The 3D control room at night in major incident mode: red glow, MAJOR INCIDENT sign, LED clock at 03:30 and the video wall showing a vehicle fire — Major incident mode on the night shift

An operator in a headset beside the incident log whiteboard listing live jobs — The incident log whiteboard keeps up with every job

The control room with the lights switched off at night, lit by desk lamps and screens, colleagues at their consoles — Lights off: just the screens and desk lamps

An operator in a headset standing at the desk, looking up at the video wall of night CCTV feeds with a vehicle fire, a pedestrian and breakdowns, and the LED ticker below — Watching the wall on a busy night

What you get

The full game for Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), as a download.
A personal licence key, sent to your email straight after purchase. One key activates the game on one PC.
An internet connection is needed to activate, and for a quick licence check now and then. The game keeps working offline for up to 7 days between checks.
Free updates to this version.
Online multiplayer with friends (each player needs their own copy). Online play and the daily leaderboard need an internet connection. Everything else works offline.

Questions before you buy? Email plaztikman@live.com.

Smartway:UK Motorway Traffic Controller