[jkrishnakj]

I have had my share of mixed experiences with gMaps. That said, when it comes to driving inside Bangalore City, i have always had a more or less accurate information that i can totally rely on. I mostly use the outer ring road and i have always trusted Google Maps.

[bharatbits]

Originally Posted by indian21r

When was this? I don't ever remember the option for alternate route unless I choose manually. Only at the start do we get the various options.

The feature is - once you start your journey after selecting your route and enroute if the traffic conditions change on your originally selected route you get a visual and verbal alert of a alternate route that's available which will save you x minutes. If you want to take the new route you have to click accept or close it to stick to your original route. I use G Maps everyday and it's been many months since i got that alert hence was curious if it is still there.

Also, from Work to Home i get shown 2 routes everyday
7 kms - 19 minutes - red color - main highway
9 kms - 26 minutes - red color - internal roads

And Google by default shows me the longer 9km route as the pre selected route. I don't know why. There's a BP fuel station on the 9km route. It makes me think if BP got into a agreement with Google to drive traffic on routes where's its fuel stations are located.

[VivOverland]

I commute 30-35 kms each way in Mumbai, Thane to BKC. GoogleMaps is useless in terms of ETA for me, it does not account for daily traffic at Teen Haath Naka, or the SCLR. 1hr02 mins regularly becomes 1hr35 mins or sometimes 2hrs05.

Perhaps this is because Gmaps isn't predictive yet, not in the sense of AI. Yes, it does take aggregate data, but only for a specific time IN THE PRESENT. Perhaps it does not really analyse the impact of FUTURE traffic patterns, during a longer commute. Those are added on as 'masala' after the 'tadka' has been prepared.

When AI does get in; is when it gets creepy! Do we really want machine logic coordinating our traffic? Yes, you say? What if it's programmed to pass by your local Starbucks, to tempt you to buy that favourite latte? Or force-stops you at the grocery because you ignored your wife's shopping list sent on WhatsApp? Sure, you can bypass the instruction and keep driving; but what about when your car has an artificial driver?

Fun times ahead I say

[raja_ys]

My experience is Google maps are a tad better accurate than others. I had a oem navigation system on Scorpio S10 and currently a mapsmyindia from pioneer 80bt head unit on Vcross. In unknown routes i have or face difficulty regarding the accuracy of routes specially in agra city where they would direct me through narrow lanes which are traffic jammed. So any unknown route I have learnt to rely only on google maps on the mobile phone.

[Im_Abhisek]

Google maps ETA will be inconsistent in areas where the traffic load increases or decreases substantially overtime. The ETA is based on as-is condition and does not take into account the additional load that may kick in 30 mins from the start of the journey. Hence the same will be quite accurate in highways / area with steady traffic but be a bit erratic when you face heavy office traffic in cities.

[Nalin1]

Can someone tell me why Google Maps shows the airport towards the right side when approaching from Hebbal after the toll gate?

[Midas]

Google map is fairly accurate in terms of time, with less than 10% error in most cases. But, when in comes to cities like Bangalore where the traffic is so unpredictable, error rate seems to be higher. I rarely manage to beat google predicted time. Probably I should drive more aggressively

Regarding route accuracy, there is still lot of scope of improvement when it comes to remote areas / villages due to obvious reasons. Once I was driving to a friend's place in Kerala for the first time, completely relying on google navigation. It lead me to a dead end in the middle of a rubber plantation. Apparently there is a path where people can go on foot, but google incorrectly identified it as road. On the other hand, a nearby road is not even marked as road in map.
Similar incident happened in Bangalore itself 3 years back. We were navigating to Whitefield Honda showroom in a friend's car. Nearing the destination, we felt something is wrong seeing the kind of interior roads we were asked to follow. Upon reaching destination, found that we were indeed near the showroom. Only issue was that we were on the other side of compound wall at the back of showroom. Ended up driving 2-3 more kilometers to reach the other side.

Having said all these, I still think Google maps is the best option we have in India and I can't think of surviving in big cities like Bangalore without it.

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Can someone tell me why Google Maps shows the airport towards the right side when approaching from Hebbal after the toll gate?

Airport on the right side itself even though you turn left to enter the ramp.

[pvbengaluru]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Can someone tell me why Google Maps shows the airport towards the right side when approaching from Hebbal after the toll gate?

This is accurate. The ramp you take loops to the right, initial entry to the ramp on the left side is what confuses most people about this.

[ARAY]

I have been observing google maps and using it rigorously , the improvement I have seen for last 2 years is tremendous.
--On flat lands the timing is almost accurate.
Eg. If i need to do Hyderabad -Vizag tomorrow at 10pm then if i pull up that route the day before , we get a pretty accurate data about what is in store for us.

-If the destination involves crossing few villages or small towns 2,3 days of prior research on google maps gives a pretty good state of affairs of traffic.
On Hills uptil 2016 October Google maps showed me driving on Ganges and Teesta river. In December 2017 things looked very different and accurate specially in unchartered areas like BumLa pass and all.

-What it shows on flat lands and what you end up doing can be changed , specially at night and that change is somehow very satisfying.


-The offline map mode in google maps has also improved over time, the gps signals are processed more accurately. I use the maps rigorously in city and for long trips amd all I can say is that our contribution will only help machine learning algorithms better and in turn help us more.

-On flat land even by just calculating average speed given by Google maps for specific routes I have been able to decide upon a better route. I generally break down the source to destination into numerous smaller parts depending upon distance and get a better idea of a bad patch.
Eg. If source is A and destination is G, ill break the path taking into consideration A-B, B-C,C-D...F-G . That way we get a much better idea of the route. Distance over Google recommended time is something we all contribute and the more we use google maps the more it will help us.

Here is something I follow but applicable on flat lands
Avg speed - condition
55-62 kmph - super happy
52-56kmph - happy
48-51 kmph - mellowed down
45-59kmph - rethink about life
<45kmph - remorse and regreat strikes the heart

Few things i feel should be available as options like
A. Shortest path
B.Fastest path
This option is available in Sygic and Here maps i think. These options are sorely missed.

Too many emoji in one comment but thats exactly my expression on the road patches . End of day we cant expect data accuracy unless we continually contribute to the data.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by ARAY

End of day we cant expect data accuracy unless we continually contribute to the data.

Best post in the whole thread. You nailed it sir.

I use Google Maps a lot and both the ETA and live updates are accurate to the T. No complaints be it in-the-city usage or on long trips, Google Maps on Android Auto is ready to help me.

Haven't used the offline mode yet.

[Payaniga]

Originally Posted by 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 experience with Google Maps have been satisfactory. I'm a highway driver. I relied on Google Map for my TN, MH and GJ trips. Only on two occasions, it failed.

One in TN trip: I was driving from Chidambaram city to Pichavaram Mangrove forest. Google Map took me to the dead end road on the outskirts of the city.

One person noticed that we are lost and he guided me till the main road.

The second instance was in Gujarat. It showed me a road which goes through villages. And there was no road in reality. So there was no way a car could go in that route. I had to inquire and come back to take a different route.

Apart from these two instances, it has been very helpful in unknown locations.

Within the city limits, I usually do not bank heavily on the time it shows (especially in the cities like Bengaluru). As it collects more and more data, it will only improve.

[bharatbits]

Have used G Maps extensively and i am very happy with it. No longer stopping by the road and asking people for directions. The few times i was pissed off was while i was doing Pune Hyderabad and the Maps suggested the shorter, faster NH road which was under construction with lot of potholes and bad patches. I would have preferred a slightly longer SH route. 1 hour extra and 50 kms more on a 12 hour/ 600km drive doesn't matter much i think.

The experience of using G Maps was very good even in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

[Mortis]

I also use Google maps pretty regularly and feel that since the last few months the trip duration has become pretty inaccurate compared to earlier.

I can't be sure but it seems as though heavy traffic isn't accounted for correctly any more. For example if it says that trip time left is 60 minutes and you encounter a 'predicted' jam and get stuck for 15 minutes, it still says that time to destination is between 55-60 minutes but the arrival time slyly goes up from say 5pm to 5:15pm

[swissknife]

Of late, I find that GMaps is probably using AI to suggest routes. I say this because it used to suggest a route that was short and direct till recently. Recently, it has started to suggest a much longer and circuitous route for the same origin and destination. The only difference from before is that a lot more traffic (about 95%) flows from North to South since there has been a diversion from a very busy parallel road. Though the road is two way, the quantum of traffic from South to North is very low. I think it presumes that that road is a one way street and suggests a route that goes around the block and follows the North to South pattern.

Though this is useful, there is no way to override this AI feature and people end up going to places that they don't have to and create a traffic jam.