[manavdotcom]

If you notice at the bottom of the screen (desktop version), history is also available. So you can check the traffic at a particular time/Day of the week .

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by manavdotcom

If you notice at the bottom of the screen (desktop version), history is also available. So you can check the traffic at a particular time/Day of the week .

Hello Manavdotcom,

Yes. Historical data is another great facility. The user has a option of getting live traffic updates or predict the current / future Traffic situation based on historical data.

Hello All,

This historical data is useful for planning your travel in advance. Say if I am scheduled to travel to Mumbai airport on Monday at 7 pm, I can check the normal traffic situation on given route at 7 pm on Mondays & plan accordingly.

For example from my Residence to Airport below is the live Traffic situation (as on 12:35 pm, today):



But I am scheduled to travel on Monday evening at 7 pm, thus I click on change (Live Traffic) as shown below & select the required day & time:



Now what I see is a entire different Traffic scenario which is predicted for 7 pm on Mondays based on historic traffic situation on these roads:



This will be immensely helpful for me to plan my start time from home & save me from the possibility of missing the flight.

Thanks,

[mayankjha1806]

Awesome find @Jignesh, i decided to use this feature today. Its good but work in progress. I could see it had marked some sections of the road as RED but when we reached, there was no traffic jam, its just that cars were moving slower than other sections of the road.

Need to keep using it to understand it better, also yet to see a Black section indicating very slow moving traffic. This morning i tried to figure "What does Slow on Google maps means on the ground"? Bumper to Bumper or standstill?

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Awesome find @Jignesh, Need to keep using it to understand it better, also yet to see a Black section indicating very slow moving traffic. This morning i tried to figure "What does Slow on Google maps means on the ground"? Bumper to Bumper or standstill?

Thank you Mayank,

Below explanation is taken from Google Maps Help webpage:

Quote:
The colors indicate the speed of traffic on the road compared to free-flowing conditions. For highways, the colors roughly equate to:

Green: more than 50 miles per hour or 80 kilometers per hour
Yellow: 25 - 50 miles per hour or 40 - 80 kilometers per hour
Red: less than 25 miles per hour or 40 kilometers per hour
Red/Black: very slow, stop-and-go traffic
Gray: no data currently available

These speeds don't apply to traffic on smaller roads, such as those within cities, which have lower speed limits. For roads smaller than highways, the colors give an indication of the severity of the traffic. Green means that traffic conditions are good, yellow means fair, and red or red/black means poor traffic conditions.
Unquote

This means that above speeds indicative for highway travel & for smaller roads (i.e. most of the roads we use in Indian cities) these colors (Green, Yellow, Red, Red/Black) are a indication of the Traffic situation.

But to tell you frankly, I am using this service since more than two months & most of the time the information is spot on (Though sometime times the information was incorrect)

Thanks,

[iSpoke]

Thanks Jignesh for detailed information.
I didn't know about this google service, although noticed one thing that I think is relevant and missing in this discussion.
Recently while finding a route on Google Map, I noticed the usual approximate time to reach destination for a given route is given. There was also a time for Current Traffic, so now its clear that it must be taking live traffic input from this service for calculation.

[mayankk]

NCR guys reporting accuracy gives me hope.
I tried it once when navigation came in officially, and it gave me a choke on the DND, when i was on it, and it was devoid of almost all humanity. So i gave it up.
I'll definitely try it once more.

[Jignesh]

Hello All,

Thank you all for the appreciation. But the real thanks to me will be when you all start using this free service & it generates some useful information for you.

Anyways, now comes the most important question - How does Google Maps Traffic updates work? I am trying to search in internet for precise informtion but there is no such information on Google's website. Most of the other blogs on internet point to following sources for data collection:

1. Road Sensors - In developed countries, Road authorities have installed sensors at fixed distances that transmit the traffic information to their server. Companies like Google & others purchase this data from local authorities.

2. Fleet Taxis & Cars - Based on their GPS positions.

3. Mobile Phone users - Android, iOS, Palm WebOS, Blackberry, Symbian S60, Windows Phone and other smartphones using Google Maps on it.

The traffic data is updated every few minutes, the actual accuracy depends upon number of sources of the data. So if in a city, lots of users use smartphones for directions, Google Maps would be able to predict better traffic estimates.

I wonder the enormous quantity of data that the servers hae to process to generate the live & historical updates.

Thanks,

[Omtoatom]

The missus has been using this feature regularly since its launch a few months back. I did not find it to be particularly accurate. Real-time updation is still pretty much WIP. Understandably so; it will require massive amount of technological legwork.

Right not you're quite likely to encounter very slow moving traffic in a "Green" zone or freely moving traffic in a "Red" one within minutes of arriving upon the scene after you've accessed this information on your smartphone. I've actually tried to test the authenticity a few times by taking routes marked as congested or slow moving. On majority of those occasions, it has turned out to be quite the contrary.

However a commendable initiative all the same. I think it is bound to get more and more spot-on with usage and as more and more historical data is recorded in the bank.

Imagine the savings in time and fuel bills such an app is potentially capable of if followed religiously!

[vikram_d]

Isn't this old news? Goggle introduced this update way back in September 2012 and about a month later Bing and Nokia maps also introduced it.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

Isn't this old news? Goggle introduced this update way back in September 2012 and about a month later Bing and Nokia maps also introduced it.

I somehow had navigation available from sometime in 2011 onwards, and traffic used to show me all green in Delhi, even at ashram ,at 12 in the noon. Less than two years, and ashram is jam packed almost 24/7! Imagine!
(A lil bit of tongue in cheek there. )

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by Omtoatom

Imagine the savings in time and fuel bills such an app is potentially capable of if followed religiously!

Hello Omtoatom,

Yes. If the information is accurate the time & cost saving possibilities are great. Also this can reduce incidents of people getting frustrated while struck in traffic, because they are already mentally prepared to face the jams.

Originally Posted by vikram_d

Isn't this old news? Goggle introduced this update way back in September 2012 and about a month later Bing and Nokia maps also introduced it.

Hello Vikram,

Yes. This feature was launched in September 2012, but most of the people I have spoken to are unaware of this. Even in this thread most of the people are surprised to know of a facility like this.

Originally Posted by mayankk

I somehow had navigation available from sometime in 2011 onwards, and traffic used to show me all green in Delhi, even at ashram ,at 12 in the noon.

Hello Mayankk,

That will probably because Traffic updates were launched in other coutries couple of years back. Only in September 2012 updates were started for major Indain cities & we are able to see different colors of Traffic now.

Thanks,

[carzone]

Thanks Jignesh.

I have been using this feature from the day I read it in newspapers that Google has launched traffic in India. I also faintly remember that there was some thread here that had a post or two on this feature.

This is what I was talking about. I am using the app since then.

Have found this very useful not only when driving but also while using public transport buses. Suppose I need to travel from point A to B and there is more than 1 bus route that I can take, I check on google for the route with least traffic and board the respective bus.

Traveling on Ghodbunder road, it has unexpected traffic at some points any time of the day. Sitting in the bus, I can make out the length of the jam and that helps to decide the estimated time of arrival.

The only problem is that I use a Symbian phone which I guess does not support voice navigation by google. It has its inbuilt maps which are no doubt great, but including traffic in Nokia maps would take some time. If we could have google maps decide the fastest way, it would be all the more efficient use of the traffic data. I am not sure if the option of fastest route considering the traffic data is there in android devices, but it does prove very useful. Also, I have found the information to be almost accurate all the times. The sore point, it does not show traffic in the small by-lanes and only on the major roads.

Thanks again Jignesh.

Originally Posted by vikram_d

Isn't this old news? Goggle introduced this update way back in September 2012 and about a month later Bing and Nokia maps also introduced it.

Hey Vikram, I am using nokia maps. Could you guide me as how to activate/use traffic on Nokia maps?
There is option for traffic, but I am not sure whether it considers traffic or no. No indications of it on the map.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by carzone

Hey Vikram, I am using nokia maps. Could you guide me as how to activate/use traffic on Nokia maps?
There is option for traffic, but I am not sure whether it considers traffic or no. No indications of it on the map.

Sorry, I was mistaken. Nokia maps has not yet rolled out this feature for India. Bing maps has for sure.

[abbey4u]

i think this data is sourced from mapmyindia. They started this last year http://traffic.mapmyindia.com/live/. But whosoever got this for us, its a welcome addition

[SDP]

On a separate note, this service offers a brilliant integration opportunity for players like MapMyIndia who provide navigation systems in the car.

If cellphones can provide it, should not be too difficult for MMI/Garmin to do it.