<P> Soliciting electronic information from a large group of people this way is referred to as crowd - sourcing . </P> <P> Google stated: "When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions". </P> <P> Google Traffic is available by selecting "Traffic" from a drop - down menu on Google Maps . A colored overlay appears on top of major roads and motorways, with green representing a normal speed of traffic, yellow representing slower traffic conditions, red indicating congestion, and dark red (previously red and black) indicates nearly stopped or stop and go traffic . Grey indicates there is no data available . </P> <P> Users can use the "search" feature to display traffic in a particular area . For example, a user may type into the search box "traffic near Edmonton, Alberta" to see traffic for that city on the map . Another feature uses historical data to show users the "typical traffic" for an area based on the time of day and day of the week . Google Traffic also displays "traffic incidents", such as construction, accidents, and road closures . In addition, Google Traffic can be viewed while using Google Map's "directions" feature . </P>

How to get traffic info on google maps