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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

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Re: Google Maps Hacks

#371

Post by s0rce »

magduf wrote: post #366
s0rce wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a popular road in a relatively rural part of the SF Bay area for bicycling and on the weekends it appears to have traffic due to the slower speed of the numerous cyclists. There isn't actually more traffic. Google then sends cars on a winding narrow hilly alternate route.

As a cyclist, this sounds like a feature, not a bug. Fewer cars on the road is always a good thing for cyclists if they have to share the road.

Yes, its good for cyclists and not really detrimental to cars. Although, I'm sure the local drivers know the other route in annoying and not faster.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#372

Post by reroute1 »

brewdad wrote: post #319
andrewzah wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or whether you're connected to headphones I’m pretty sure this is rarely enforced in most states in the US. My father frequently drives across the US and always takes his calls with earbuds because the speakers aren’t very good. I do it with one earbud in because I find the quality of speaker audio terrible, forcing me to concentrate harder on it to discern what’s being said.

Single ear devices are usually legal where earbuds in both ears is not. Maintaining situational awareness seems to be the rule. If course, I'm essentially deaf in on ear, so being legal isn't any safer. I tend to use the car speakers or simply refuse all incoming calls while driving.

> simply refuse all incoming calls while driving

Definitely the best course of action. Even just talking on the phone is very distracting. No way someone can have a full conversation going and still be giving the same attention to driving.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#373

Post by dwild »

foepys wrote: post #211
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…

Turning left can also be an extremely time-consuming task. Somebody I know drives a 3km longer route on his daily commute but is home about 10 minutes earlier because the shorter (and Google recommended) route contains two left turns that take incredibly long. Optimizing this should really be a goal.

> Optimizing this should really be a goal.

After many of my travel using Google Maps, I get a notification asking whether the route recommended was right. I never had a bad one (where they asked it at least) so I don't know what happens if I do answer no, but I guess it's to allow to optimize theses kinds of situation.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#374

Post by dwild »

shric wrote: post #294
c0restraint wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Google uses phone sensors to tell motorbikes apart form cars While they could, I doubt they do... do you have evidence of this?

not the GP, and I don't how it's done, but my Google Maps timeline does distinguish between motorcycling and car trips, however its reliability is questionable. It has often mis-categorised my motorcycle trips as car trips, but rarely if ever the reverse. I would guess (unsubstantiated) that it classifies a motorcycle trip as being unexpectedly fast through many traffic jams.

They are pretty good to identify public transit from cars too.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#375

Post by dwild »

mindfulhack wrote: post #323
stevenhuang wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a predictably cynical interpretation. Your immediate reaction to the application of imperfect models to the real world need not be one of distrust as if slighted but rather simple acknowledgment that this is just the best we can currently do.

You have a point. Perhaps it's Google users' fault as much as anyone else's, to form such trusting emotional bonds to the Google service in the first place. However: 1. Google doesn't do anything to educate their users about this reality. 2. If corporations like Google really wanted to do "the best we can currently do", they'd try harder but instead they just do "the best we need to do to make billions of dollars fro…

> Google really wanted to do "the best we can currently do", they'd try harder

Trying harder what? Trying harder to avoid showing traffic when someone with 99 phones in a cart wheel is walking in the street?

They are doing the best they can, the kind of traffic they are showing is quite close to reality in pretty much any situation.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#376

Post by cuddlybacon »

agency wrote: post #123
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…

I've found there can also be an inverse of the "red but no traffic" problem where Google Maps is unable to understand that there can be multiple lanes traveling at different speeds on the same street. When I lived in SF I would always run into this at the freeway entrance on 5th and Bryant (shoutout to the worst intersection in the city). The two leftmost lanes going onto the freeway would be backed up for blocks but…

I get that all the time in Vancouver. The lane(s) that eventually hit the bridge barely move, but get averaged with the flowing traffic in the other lane. Google Maps will always suggest taking two bridges on my morning commute.

Apple Maps seems to do a better job on this specific issue.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#377

Post by cuddlybacon »

AlexandrB wrote: post #128
spookyuser wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Or maybe a radius around around your house where navigation stops, just like how you can set an area of maps which is downloaded. I guess, though, I would probably only want navigation to stop if I'm going to my house, not from it.

The case I find most annoying is driving from one city to another. I don't need directions on how to get to the highway, nor on how to drive straight for 200km[1]. I just want directions when I get close to the city I'm unfamiliar with. Currently, the best solution is turning on directions only when I get a chance to stop near my destination city. [1] It seems this has gotten better in recent years with less frequent…

I _hate_ how all map programs think they need to tell you to keep going straight. It seems to be because the road you are on will change its name.

The worst example I've had is that a road changed it's name 70m before it split into two. The app would only show "In XXXm, continue straight" then, with 70m warning, it told me which lane I needed. That was stressful.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#378

Post by t413 »

shric wrote: post #236

I'd love a motorcycle mode aka "ignore traffic", in states/jurisdictions where lane filtering/splitting is allowed. I don't want to have to go offline to avoid it taking into account current traffic.

+1 agreed– just a toggles for 'disable traffic optimization' and 'prefer 2+ lane roads' would do the trick.

I'm definitely adding a pretty bad outlier to real-time traffic data about stopped traffic.. Very similar to what this cute hack is doing.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#379

Post by LocalPCGuy »

kccqzy wrote: post #273
kibwen wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offline routing works? Every time that I've previously tried offline routing on downloaded maps it spun for a while and then gave up with a connection error. I was under the impression that the only point of offline maps was for looking up locations, not for navigating to them.

Yes it works in Google Maps. But only for moderately short drives (say, an hour or so).

Took a 9+ hour drive today, started offline and Google was able to navigate and plot it just fine. We had downloaded the maps for the area ahead of time.

Guessing maybe it outpaces what is downloaded when it starts having problems?

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#380

Post by jrochkind1 »

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…

Man, now imagine how the people who live on those residential side streets feel...
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