OREANDA-NEWS. July 17, 2009. The Yandex.Maps service now provides traffic maps for Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don. Drivers in these cities can now check road conditions before they leave home to save time avoiding traffic backups.

Traffic maps are available online at Yandex.Traffic, as well as on the namesake mobile application. The service shows where the traffic flow is congested, slowed or uninterrupted. If traffic jams are unavoidable, drivers can choose the lesser evil looking at the size of jams and comparing the mean speed of traffic on different routes. Data is updated every four minutes to provide real-time traffic information.

Traffic information is supplied by Yandex’s partners and by the drivers. Any owner of a GPS-equipped mobile phone with the Yandex.Maps application can contribute to the traffic map on Yandex. The more people share information, the better is the map.

Currently, Yandex offers traffic maps for four metropolitan areas in Russia and Ukraine – Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Kiev.