Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations

#91

Post by magduf » Wed, May 09, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

chrissnell wrote: post #86

magduf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps (and in fact just about every nav program) has an option for "no highways". That'll probably be better for your objective than just plotting the shortest route, which may very well follow a highway at some point since highways frequently are more direct.

Yes, I use this option frequently, but it's still not always the shortest. For instance, here in Kansas, it will avoid interstates but route you on U.S. highways, even though there are more direct state and county roads. I want to see the very shortest route and make that decision for myself.

Hmm... usually when I use Google Maps (esp. on the desktop version), it'll give me several route options at the beginning. One of those is usually the fastest, and another is usually the shortest distance. You can then pick the preferred route and it should follow that (though, during driving, it can get screwed up if you take a wrong turn and then try to re-route you on the fastest route again).

Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations

#92

Post by magduf » Wed, May 09, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

vmarsy wrote: post #75

magduf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my suggestion for Google Maps: how about handling toll roads better? It's all-or-nothing. Why not put a little gray box saying "20 minutes shorter, $1.50", or "1 minute shorter, $29.50"? If you turn on toll roads, it'll happily always route you on a toll road or toll lane, even if it isn't any faster. And here in DC, toll roads can easily cost you $30-50 per trip. Maps already gives you route options to choose…

That's actually one of the suggestions I left them on the product. I've the choice between toll-lanes or not on my way home, I'd love to know how much faster it'd take if I get on the toll lane... But in that particular case, I'm not sure how that information is gathered in the first place, it might be hard for them to figure out which cars are on the toll-lane, and which cars are not since both the express lane and…

Surely a simple filter algorithm could figure out the toll-lane thing: if you have a bunch of cars reporting speeds on what seems to be the same road, but you know that there's toll lanes there, and the speeds reported fall into two extremely different ranges (one crawling, one highway speed), then it seems safe to assume that the slow vehicles are on the regular road and the fast ones are in the toll lane.

Plus, while they aren't perfectly accurate, toll lanes are usually far enough away from the regular lanes that modern GPS devices in those lanes should be able to generally show themselves biased in that direction (relative to the devices stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic).

Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations

#93

Post by 6cd6beb » Thu, May 17, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #70

6cd6beb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a local newspaper that shows restaurant openings and closings; it seems like a much better fit for that kind of information than something global like google maps. Google maps should be answering two questions: Where is it, and how do I get there. "What's cool and new in my city" seems like a feature that's being shoehorned on because it's a possible revenue channel. >asking locals I like that for hippie reason…

If you have access to a local who's tastes (and temperament and budget) are calibrated to your own, it's a good strategy. If you are in a place for a while and want the most out of it, researching on blogs etc is absolutely the right thing to do. But if you are passing by and looking for a place to have lunch, that's not feasible. Heck, even finding a local who routinely eats out in the local area (in a great many pl…

Fair enough, but I have a hard time google maps is building this system purely out of altruistic intentions, and not to sell us on the locations that pay their way into the "hip local venue" group a la yelp.