Navalny Helps Track Potholes

By The Moscow Times

Oct. 26, 2011

Moscow streets sometimes contain potholes of phenomenal proportions. Igor Tabakov

Moscow drivers will be able to plot routes avoiding potholes and improper speed bumps thanks to a deal between a navigation service provider and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny’s pothole-battling site, RosYama.ru.?

RosYama, established in May this year, allows drivers to upload photographs and the location of potholes, poorly marked speed bumps and other road hazards on a web site and automatically notify the local traffic police. If the offending obstruction is not rectified after 37 days, a notification can be sent to prosecutors.

By Tuesday afternoon, the site had recorded 10,265 road hazards, 2,153 of which were corrected.?

Data from the web site is now available to users of Content Master?€™s new Shturman navigation devices, marketing director Alexander Seliverstov told Vedomosti on Tuesday.?

Data will be updated once a month, but in the future, users will be able to adjust information in real time online.

RosYama is not charging Content Master, part of M2M Telematika, majority-owned by AFK Sistema, for the content, he added.

YandexProbki, the country?€™s most respected mapper of congestion on the roads, turned down an offer of cooperation from RosYama because it was not satisfied with the content, Vedomosti reported.?

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