Shannon Atherfold, a spokeswoman for Google SA, told Beeld that the new traffic application had officially been launched on Wednesday.

Regardless of whether you use the internet or your smartphone to get directions, Google Maps will give you the time (for example 52 minutes) that it should take you to reach your destination, given the current traffic conditions.

Turning on the "Traffic" function in the top right corner of Google Maps will also allow people to monitor heavy areas of slow traffic, and weigh up the best route options to avoid congestion.

Roads with smoothly flowing traffic are shown in green, slightly slower routes are yellow, and no-go areas are red.

Dave Barth, product manager at Google Maps, explained the technology on Google's official blog (googleblog.blogspot.com), saying that Google utilised the GPS data of thousands of smartphone users --who already had Google Maps installed on their phones -- to gauge traffic conditions in real time.