Yandex launches gas station availability and queue map for everyone

Yandex has opened a service to all users that shows queues at gas stations and fuel availability at specific filling stations — previously this feature was only available to taxi drivers.

What the New Map Shows

The service displays whether there is a queue at a specific gas station and whether fuel is still available — solving a practical problem that previously had to be solved on site through trial and error, by driving from one gas station to another. According to CNews, the feature is already working in many cities across Russia and is no longer limited to professional taxi drivers — any Yandex service user can now use the map.

• Previously the feature was available only to taxi drivers
• Now any user can use it
• The service already works in many cities across Russia

Where Queue Data Comes From

CNews doesn't clarify the exact technical details of the data source, but the product logic is transparent: initially the service was created for Yandex taxi fleets, which already have a constant stream of data about trips, stops, and travel time thanks to vehicle telemetry — and apparently this data formed the basis for the new public feature, supplemented by information from the gas stations themselves. A similar principle of using trip data and crowdsourcing gas station information has long been used by foreign services like GasBuddy in the United States, which rely on reports from drivers themselves about prices and fuel availability.

Why This Is Useful for Regular Drivers

For a driver behind the wheel, such a map saves time and stress: there's no need to visit several gas stations looking for fuel or wait in a queue that could have been seen in advance on a phone screen. This is especially noticeable during periods of localized fuel shortages in certain regions of Russia, when some gas stations have long queues while nearby stations, just a few blocks away, still have gas and can fill up without waiting.

Similar Yandex Services

The practice of turning transportation data into a public service is not new for Yandex: the traffic layer in Yandex Maps, built on data about vehicle movement speeds from users and taxi fleets, has existed since the early 2010s and long ago became one of the most recognizable elements of the service. The fuel availability map at gas stations logically continues this approach, only instead of showing road congestion it shows the congestion of specific gas stations.

What This Means

Yandex is once again taking data originally collected for internal taxi fleet needs and turning it into a public product for all drivers — a path already taken by traffic and navigation in Yandex Maps, and which now extends to the country's fuel infrastructure.