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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

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Re: Google Maps Hacks

#341

Post by londons_explore »

rland wrote: post #302
jrochkind1 wrote: post #297

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…

It depends on the city. In some cities, Googles routing takes into account the number of other users Google has directed down the road.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#342

Post by londons_explore »

orijing wrote: post #325
brewdad wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, this alternate route won't save you 25 minutes by the time you and others reroute. However if it saves you 10 minutes and reduces the delay on the original route by 10 minutes since there are now fewer cars idling, then everyone is better off.

Consider another example. Google suggests an alternate route that will presumably save 15 minutes. Let's say enough cars take the suggestion to slow down that route by 10 minutes and speed up this one by 10 minutes. Even if you end up saving five minutes relative to the original estimate, you'd have saved ten minutes staying put.

It is a point of contention if Google should optimize for saving time for the individual user, (using data only available to that user), or for that user (but using routing information of other google users), or for all users on average (but potentially to the detriment of some users to give other users a bigger advantage), or for the public on average (ie. routing cars to reduce traffic, but possibly putting google users at a disadvantage compared to non-google users).

Various cities round the world have different optimization goals as they try out different approaches.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#344

Post by theSuda »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #297
netsharc wrote: post #23

An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-…

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…

Two weeks ago in Atlanta, I was dropping my wife to the Airport. Atlanta traffic was doing it's thing (not moving). Google said it found alternate route that will save 7 minutes. I was like meh. Then it said 10 minutes so I took the turn. I don't know how many people did the same but I ended up spending half an hour extra in some internal road and half of it was being stuck in a right turn lane that rejoined the original highway I was on. So if I had kept on the slow moving highway I would have definitely reached much earlier than the alternate route. Bottom line is that the 'Save time' works only when the alternate route is truly alternate and not just a detour and rejoin the same highway as you will get stuck on the ramp while joining back.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#345

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #297
netsharc wrote: post #23

An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-…

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…

My third hand information frmo a coworker who is friends with people on the maps team is that some percentage of people will get routed into the traffic, and some percentage will get routed to alternate routes, of which there may be a few. Google appears to take a rather active stance on increasing total traffic flow, even at the expense of giving some number of drivers suboptimal routes.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#346

Post by Finnucane »

Spooky23 wrote: post #292
andrepd wrote: post #116

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.

I ride my bike through rotaries (as we call them here in Mass.) all the time. It's not that hard. It is advisable to try to ride as fast as possible, but the key is to signal clearly all movements in and out of the lane and the circle.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#347

Post by KevinSorboFan »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #297
netsharc wrote: post #23

An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-…

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…

Somewhat related... Braess's Paradox.

Take the toy example illustrating that paradox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox#Mathematica... ) and an enlightened Google maps may do the altruistic thing of telling half of the drivers to stick on the upper route and half of the drivers to stick to the bottom route, but then some 3rd-party app will come along with the "shortcut" down the middle.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#348

Post by danesparza »

alistairSH wrote: post #340
rland wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I would pay good money for the "go home and try again tomorrow" feature. Especially if it was narrated by my favorite celebrity. Like Cookie Monster.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#349

Post by thrownblown »

danesparza wrote: post #348
alistairSH wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I would pay good money for the "go home and try again tomorrow" feature. Especially if it was narrated by my favorite celebrity. Like Cookie Monster.

You can get cookie monster's voice on Waze...

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#350

Post by rsync »

AlexandrB wrote: post #115

Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. In addition to the "red but no traffic" problems highlighted by others I find turn by turn directions are incredibly annoying while driving in areas I'm intimately familiar with and there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes". Additionally: * I can't co…

" ... there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes"."

Yes, this is a very obvious feature that one encounters almost immediately when adopting direction tools like this and, like you, I am quite surprised this isn't fixed.

Related: an option, or even a default, to pause media playback for the duration of directions dictation, rather than just drown it out ... if you are listening to news, etc., you can miss 15+ seconds of content while a longer direction is dictated.

Again: these are not hyper-distilled, personal features that took man hours to discover - these are features that one discovers almost immediately, across a broad spectrum of use-cases. Very surprising that it hasn't been "fixed".

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