🚌 Rush Hour Bus

A traffic jam puzzle starring a bus

Rush Hour Bus is a sliding-block puzzle about a very bad traffic jam. A yellow bus is stuck in a crowded car park, boxed in by cars, vans, trucks and other buses, and the only way out is the exit on the right. Nothing can turn or jump: every vehicle slides only forwards and backwards along its own lane. Your job is to work out which vehicles to move, in what order, so that the bus has a clear road to the exit.

It is the same idea as the classic Rush Hour board game, but with a twist: the vehicle you have to free is a long three-square bus instead of a little car, which makes every jam a bit harder to untangle. The rules take ten seconds to learn, and some of the later puzzles take ten minutes to solve.

How to play

Drag any vehicle with your mouse or finger to slide it along its lane. Vehicles that face left and right can only slide left and right; vehicles that face up and down can only slide up and down. A vehicle can slide as far as the empty space allows, and each slide counts as one move, however far it goes. When the road to the exit is clear, slide the bus all the way to the right and it drives away.

The counter in the corner shows your moves and the par for the level: the fewest moves anyone can possibly solve it in, worked out by a computer solver that tries every possibility. Match par and you earn three stars; finish within one and a half times par for two stars; any solution earns one.

100 levels and a Daily Jam

The first ten levels are warm-ups that need between three and six moves, perfect for learning how the traffic moves. Levels 11 to 30 need seven to twelve moves, levels 31 to 60 need thirteen to twenty, and the last forty levels are serious brain-burners where the bus needs twenty or more moves to escape. From level 46, yellow bollards appear: fixed posts that nothing can drive through, which make some lanes even tighter.

Every level was generated by a computer and then checked by the solver, which also picked the hardest arrangement of each jam it could find. The Daily Jam is a fresh tricky puzzle every day, the same for every player; solve it on consecutive days to build a streak.

Hints, undo and keyboard play

If you are stuck, the 💡 Hint button asks the solver for the best next move from exactly where you are, and draws a glowing arrow on the board. Using a hint limits that level to one star, so you can always come back later for a perfect score. ↩️ Undo takes back your last move, and 🔄 restarts the level.

You can also play with the keyboard: Tab picks the next vehicle (Shift+Tab goes back), the arrow keys slide the selected vehicle one square, Z undoes, H shows a hint and R restarts.

Tips for untangling a jam

Work backwards. Look at the cars directly in front of the bus and ask what has to move for each of them to get out of the way, then what has to move for those cars, and so on. Long vehicles three squares tall in the bus's row are usually the real problem, because they need a lot of free space above or below them. Sometimes the right move is to slide a car further than you need to, so that another car behind it has room. And remember that vehicles can go back the way they came: a jam is often solved by undoing what looked like progress.

Good for young and old brains

Sliding-block puzzles are a favourite of teachers because they train planning, patience and spatial reasoning without any words or numbers. Rush Hour Bus starts gently: the warm-up levels can be solved by children of about six with a little trial and error, and the hint button means nobody stays stuck for long. The longest puzzles near level 100 are hard enough to keep adults thinking on the train to work. Because every level has a proven par, there is always a reason to replay an old puzzle and shave off a move or two.

Rush Hour Bus also works well as a shared puzzle. Put a tricky level on a tablet between two players and take turns suggesting the next slide, or race a friend to solve the Daily Jam in the fewest moves. Talking through a jam out loud ("if the red van goes up, the truck can come left") is one of the best ways to get better at this kind of puzzle, for children and grown-ups alike.

Stars and boards

Stars unlock three more boards to play on: City Street with yellow road markings, Night Rush under neon blue lights, and the bright white Snow Day. There are 300 stars to collect in all, three for every level.

Free, safe and made for every device

Rush Hour Bus works in any modern browser on computers, Chromebooks, tablets and phones. There are no adverts inside the game, no accounts, no chat and nothing to buy, and your stars are saved only on your device. See the Parents & Safety page for more.

More traffic puzzles and bus games

Love traffic puzzles? Try Gridlock, tap cars out of a crowded car park in Parking Jam Escape, or sort passengers onto the right buses in Bus Jam. Every bus game is on the Bus Games page, and more brain teasers are on the Puzzle Games page.

Frequently asked questions