Google Maps adds navigation and live traffic updates in India

On  Wednesday, Google has rolled out two new features for Google Maps in India. While it has enabled the much awaited turn-by-turn voice navigation through Google Maps Navigation (Beta) in India, the company has also made available live traffic information through Google Maps for major roads in select cities -  Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad.

These features will be accessible for free on desktops as well as Android smartphones running version 2.2 or later. The live traffic conditions can be checked by enabling the 'Traffic' layer on the desktop as well as on the mobile version.

Traffic density on the roads will be represented by different colours for ease - red for significant congestion, yellow for minor slow-downs and green for free-flowing traffic. Google Maps Navigation also takes traffic data into account when calculating directions for navigation, so users will automatically be routed around areas of major congestion if a faster alternative route is available nearby.

Google Maps for mobile can be downloaded free of cost from Google Play, but the user has to pay data charges for the facility incurs.