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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

331–340 of 397 posts

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean pressing “end route” ?

Common scenario: I’m somewhere unfamiliar, going home, and I need to be home at a certain time. Once I’m on the freeway I no longer need the navigation, but I still want the en route traffic info and ETA.

Traffic Message Channel on your car radio? RDS-TMC kicks in where appropriate even without a "data link" (eg. no 4G / 3G data link)

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#334
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem baffles me because all that has to be done to correct it is increase the estimated time of arrival penalty for making an unprotected left turn so that the routing algorithm doesn't mistakenly think it's faster. Ditto for U-turns, which Google constantly suggests (rather than turning onto a side street and U-turning there or going around the block) even when they are impossible (median in the way), danger…

That's weird. Google maps seems to prefer to direct me on a kilometres long detour than to take a simple u-turn into an empty driveway. They do seem to have rules about u-turns, they just don't make sense.

One time I had TomTom accidentally switch itself on in my bag on the floor, set to Homer Simpson's voice and trying to redirect me to home.

As I got further and further away the "turn left here" and "turn right here" directions got more and more frequent, until eventually he just started repeating "turn around where possible" until I was able to find somewhere reasonable to stop and turn it off.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#335
To me, this is not so much about Google Maps or even "hacking" a computer system, but rather about how and how much computer information systems shape our view of reality, and how fake news may be created simply by naive and/or buggy software. It's just that in this case the big gap between view and reality can easily be shown by some photos or a simple video, while in case of search engines or recommendation systems, or advertising, it is much harder to show. To me this is kind of a "the emperor is naked" moment for surveillance capitalism, and even more so, as it is that simple.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish cities had roundabouts instead of intersections, so that would not be a problem :)

Roundabouts only work in the burbs. In cities, they are death traps for pedestrians and cyclists.

> In cities, they are death traps for pedestrians and cyclists.

I haven't experienced that for the many roundabouts we have in The Netherlands. Throughput is higher (can easily be measured), plus waiting time is lower thanks to roundabouts.

Not exactly sure what you mean with "burbs" though it doesn't matter as they're heavily used in cities here.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish cities had roundabouts instead of intersections, so that would not be a problem :)

I hate roundabouts. I live in France, and we have them everywhere. They're a huge clusterfuck that does not win any time, and when misused can be a lot more dangerous than a properly planned intersection. Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts. I hate them.

> They're a huge clusterfuck that does not win any time

Research shows the opposite. They can handle more traffic within a given timeframe. The bit about accidents seems strange. Not sure why you'd think that. I'm wondering if your roundabouts have some kind of design flaw.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#338
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts. In localities with few/no roundabouts, the vast majority of accidents still happen at intersections. Intersections of roads are the most prone to accidents (for fairly obvious reasons), with or without roundabouts. I believe there is research showing roundabouts are actually quite a bit safer in general, but it's possible…

Roundabouts are great for cars, and awful for just about everyone else. People, bikes, buses, trucks: all face difficulty or death in their presence.

> People, bikes, buses, trucks: all face difficulty or death in their presence.

Roundabouts make my bicycle commute way faster. This in The Netherlands where we cycle a lot. Difficulty or death is entirely incorrect. Suggest to compare the designs across countries, maybe there's a huge difference in the design?

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish cities had roundabouts instead of intersections, so that would not be a problem :)

I hate roundabouts. I live in France, and we have them everywhere. They're a huge clusterfuck that does not win any time, and when misused can be a lot more dangerous than a properly planned intersection. Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts. I hate them.

The Place Charles de Gaulle Étoile (Arc de Triomphe) in Paris is a gigantic roundabout, with the peculiar feature that traffic entering the system has priority ; traffic already on the roundabout must yield. This would lead to perpetual gridlock were there no traffic lights controlling access to the roundabout. This kind of junction used to be common in cities.

Out in the countryside roundabouts in France operate in the "normal" way : approaching traffic yields to traffic already in the system, with the usual triangular "yield" sign making priority clear.

It's possible that your experience of French roundabouts is related to driver confusion between these two systems.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#340
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm stuck in a traffic jam, and google maps is telling me I can take an alternate route to avoid it and save 25 minutes vs waiting in the traffic jam. Something that occurs to me as I sit in this traffic... what portion of all the other driver's around me also looking at google maps? Is Google Maps telling them to take the same alternate route as me? Are they all going to do it? If they all do it, does the alterna…

Well the other route presumably has a significant throughput. If 1000 car/min are in traffic, and the side-road has a 200 car/min capacity, the first 20% of people to leave the main road will experience no additional traffic. Now, let's say that the 200 car/min turns to a bottleneck of 100 car/min if it's overwhelmed 10 mins downstream of the turnoff. If google routes >200 car/min to the turnoff, there will eventuall…

These situations absolutely occur. Something like this happened to me in Alexandria, VA, trying to cross the Woodrow Wilson bridge into MD. I-495 was slow across the bridge. Waze re-directed me off the interstate into residential side streets, along with thousands of other travelers. The side-streets were every bit as jammed as the highway. It took me 3 hours to disentangle myself from that mess. Was it faster than staying on the highway? No idea, but 3 hours to cover 5 miles is terrible - the app should have just said "You're fucked, go home and try again tomorrow." instead of constantly telling me "oh hey, try this other side street, it'll save you 45 minutes!"
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