[aniyo]

Hi All,
I have been observing few things on the Google maps for some time. I checked through the forum and the only similar thread I found was Google maps taking people to unknown routes on their highway journeys. Mods can merge this thread if they feel this thread is just an add on to the earlier one.

My observation of the Google maps are

1. The route time at the start shows 50-55 mins actually take 1h:20min that's a significant difference. This is observed consistently for more than 4 weeks.

2. Google Maps does not take into consideration the signals. Many time I have seen the maps show blue with huge traffic in front of me at the signal.

3. Google has started to show smaller lanes which can in reality be jammed and we end up getting stuck. Has happened to me a few times.

I wanted to understand your experience of using google maps for daily city commute. I generally use google maps to see traffic conditions before deciding on the route to office. But I sense my gut feel of the route is more often than not better than the maps.

Having said that I have generally found the location of my destination to be accurate most of the time. Its just the route and the time which is quite inconsistent.
I used HERE maps earlier and loved it. Even in Mauritius I found HERE maps better than google maps.

[Rajeevraj]

Good points. Something that has been in my mind for a few weeks now. Especially in Bangalore, I think Google maps is not able to keep up with the speed at which the traffic situation changes here.

Couple of weeks back, i was headed to the city center in the morning. Maps told me 55 min, I started 2 hours before the time I needed to be there. Ended up taking 1 hr 40 min using the exact same route recommended by Google and there was nothing abnormal along the way. A few other similar experiences with maps recently where I took way longer than what the Maps suggested.

Even for one of my recent highway drives, Maps was more inaccurate than I expected it to be. May have been due to the fact the time saved due to Fastag is not get accurately recognized.

Railway gates are an another challenge for Maps. Due to our enterprising ability to create massive deadlocks at the gates, Maps is not able to accurately calculate the time it will take.

[RaSing]

My experience with Google Maps has been 95 percent good and 5 percent bad.
I have been using it for last 2 years almost daily for my office commute. With that experience i have concluded the following

1 For distances less than 20 kms with average traffic on route -The time predicted is almost accurate.

2 For distances more than 30 kms and heavy traffic(time predicted = or > 1 hr) , you can safely assume that the time predicted can be +or - 10 mins since the time you leave from your start point and the time you reach nearby your end point may have changed the traffic situation on the way.

3 Google Map shows you red wherever there is a heavy traffic and predicts accordingly, but it cannot predict if that traffic is stopped by a traffic policeman making people wait for a VIP pass(or similar situations) and for how much time. In this case the wait time predicted can easily go upto 30 minutes too and the final ETA gets hampered.

4 On Highways, stick to Highways, do not take shortcuts predicted by google as the road condition can be worse.

5 The directions being shown by google map sometimes go haywire when you are under the flyover and it thinks that you are on top of the flyover or vice versa.

6 Do make sure that the turn predicted by Google is an allowed one by traffic police. Sometimes there are boards saying NO RIGHT TURN but google will still tell you to take a turn.

7 Sometimes, it takes time for google maps to show RED when there is Jam which has just been started and similarly when the Jam is over , it will again take some time for it to get updated from RED to YELLOW/BLUE

[ninjatalli]

I have had arguments with my colleagues on this several times - Google Maps' track record is horrible wrt to Indian roads (within cities); be it Mumbai, or any of the other metros. Not only is the time inconsistent; even the ideal route changes as one progresses on the route.

Compare it to similar cities in US or other (developed) countries; and you see a huge improvement.

[the_skyliner]

Interesting thread. My experience with Google maps has been decent enough.

The difference in ETA aspect is correct and more so in the cities. In Mumbai usually when Google indicates 50-55 mins, it mostly ends up being 70-75 mins for me.

However, in case of highways, I found Google to be quite accurate. It updates the traffic conditions quite promptly on the highways as compared to the cities is what I have experienced.

Google did got me in to trouble a couple of times by diverting to very narrow lanes where there was hardly enough space for a car to pass. So since then, I do check the suggested route in detail in case traveling across an unknown town.

Most of the times, I use Google maps for traffic conditions rather than the navigation itself.

This is the first time that I heard of HERE maps. Will definitely give it a try.

[centaur]

When I use Google on the long drives, I feel its still accurate most of the times in terms of the duration but if I look at the route it gives or the traffic condition it provides, I really don't rate it that well. This morning while driving to work, I checked for traffic (its raining cats and dogs here and I was sure of heavy traffic) and it showed a pretty much empty route but when I actually started driving, the situation was exactly opposite.

Likewise, there have been times when maps show heavy traffic but when I start driving there isn't much traffic.

Adding to it, there are many routes which can get you faster but google never shows them and then there is the perennial problem where it takes you into routes where its a very very tight squeeze.

On the whole however, I still feel its the better of the devils for city related directions. All cabbies rely heavily on it anyway

[Quatro]

Originally Posted by RaSing

My experience with Google Maps has been 95 percent good and 5 percent bad.
I have been using it for last 2 years almost daily for my office commute. With that experience i have concluded the following

I share the views expressed by RaSing from Delhi. I am from Mumbai and in my experience, I have found Google Maps to be pretty accurate and dependable. The major grouse is that it can select small roads to optimize the time and can land you in a jam - literally. I wish there was an option to specify major roads or 4 lane roads only.

[sachinayak]

I use Google Maps daily for my office commute (encountering the notorious Bangalore Traffic), and I find it fairly accurate.

Now definition of "fairly" accurate is subjective. But considering how arbitrary and unpredictable our traffic conditions are, wherein a single wrongly-parked car or an idiot driving in the opposite direction can completely mess the traffic conditions, I am not complaining.

Morning, I travel at peak hour (start at 9am) and my drive to work takes 40-50 mins, while Google Maps shows 35-40 mins.

Evening, when my return drive takes around 25 mins and Google Maps shows almost the exact time. More often than not, the variation is not more than 2-3 minutes, which is quite remarkable.

Overall, I couldn't be happier with Google Maps, given constraints of our maniac traffic conditions.

[F150]

I think Google's data on turns has to be tweaked. It calculates the time on the some turn which is blocked or not allowed. Other than that my experience has been very good with a variance of +/- 10%.

[Nalin1]

I agree with most of the views here. Google Maps work quite well more often than not. However, with the vagaries of our traffic and road conditions, only God and not Google can tell us exactly how much time it can take for a commute.

I have used it on highways, inside Bangalore city, on four wheeler, two wheeler and even when I walked to a nearby restaurant! Just as any technology has its vulnerabilities, this one too does. Hence it is a guideline only and not to be relied upon blindly for me .

[kavensri]

Contrary to majority of the responses here, my experience with google maps has been pretty good and the estimated time is spot on almost all the time. Whether it is highway drives or the city drives, the error is less than +/-5%.
It has failed only when there is an accident/incident or some unexpected block (like procession, etc) which must have happened just before I reach those spots.
And, I am very bad in remembering the roads even after taking it many number of times, so I heavily depend on google maps for that alone.

[landcruiser123]

I've seen google maps struggle (to accurately predict time) a few times in Minneapolis, so I don't think we should be complaining about India.
Indian roads and traffic management is very chaotic, so you can't expect google maps to be very good. I've encountered a few situations in India where there are red worms- but the traffic starts moving moments before I reach the worm and I pass the junction at 20-30 kmph.

I've used both google maps and here maps in different traffic densities in Bangalore, I think Google maps does really well. Always keep about 5-10 minutes buffer as traffic conditions do rapidly change and it doesn't instantly update in google maps.

One thing for sure, google maps just doesn't know one-ways and illegal turns which are recently installed. I remember that I was following google maps and entered a one-way in the wrong direction in Goa. The cops stopped me- after seeing a KA vehicle and me explaining the situation, they let me go and guided me to my destination.

[Hayek]

Google maps works brilliantly in Bombay. For my BKC to Parel or town runs, I inevitably check which route to take. Timing is accurate on an average. There is high variability where you have reds in the map, but that is because of how the traffic is. For example, the left turn from LBS Road to BKC opposite Equinox building on an average takes 15 minutes to execute in the morning peak hour. But on occasion it take 30 minutes - which is impossible to predict based on prior traffic movement. I suspect that the Bangalore issues at high traffic junctions are similar. Of course, the other problem Google faces in India is that it can’t differentiate between two wheelers and cars - and on occassion recommends a route two wheelers use. But the technology is getting better by the day, and it has been truly transformative.

[sudev]

On long distance divided highways the time shown can be lesser as Google maps calculates not only based on traffic conditions but speed limits data.

And the point made about not being able to differentiate between two wheeler or four wheeler is correct. Data is collated based on volume of smartphone users using routes. There is no way for Google to know is it's two wheeler or four.

Just a thought. Probably they can try to collate random user data from smartphones for speed and tilt to determine on average if user is two wheel rider or four wheel driver. Yes big brother is watching.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by sudev

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Just a thought. Probably they can try to collate random user data from smartphones for speed and tilt to determine on average if user is two wheel rider or four wheel driver. Yes big brother is watching.

I am pretty sure they even know the colour of your vehicle, leave alone how many tyres does it have. The way they collect data to enhance your experience is just mind boggling. I yesterday got a notification via my calendar about the change in time of a upcoming flight journey which I had booked online and there is no reason for Google to know that.