Google opened a web site Monday that promises to take some of the mystery out of navigating Moscow's public transportation system.
Moscow Routes (msk.rusavtobus.ru) calculates the shortest distance between any two points in the city and suggests the optimal route to use.
All a user needs to do is enter the starting address and the destination and up pops four possible routes and displays them on an expandable map.
The web site also displays traffic density, the time it will take to reach the destination, and the cost of the various itineraries.
Names of the metro stations and numbers of buses, trolley buses, trams, and minibuses are also shown.
"Moscow Routes ?€¦ will help Muscovites and tourists to quickly make calculations about any destination in the city, taking into account the density of the traffic," Google said in a statement.
Similar services are being developed for St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, the statement said.
Moscow Routes, available in English and Russian, can be used as a stand-alone application on the web site or embedded into a Google personalized web page.
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