Arifiye is on Turkish Motorway O-4 and state highway D.100, both of which connect Istanbul to Ankara.

In the Middle Ages, it was plundered several times by the Sassanid Persians, Umayyad Arabs and Russians.

Although an important stop on Silk Road in the Middle Ages, because of frequent floods of the nearby Lake Sapanca it was not a populous settlement.

The Arifiye railway station is served by high-speed trains between Istanbul and Ankara, and by the commuter service between Gebze and Adapazarı.

It was the westernmost terminal of the Adana-Istanbul railway from February 2012 to 2015, while construction took place in Istanbul's Haydarpaşa train station.