It's also the cheapest route to drive, as it's optimizing for lower fuel consumption:
With insights from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab, we’re building a new routing model that optimizes for lower fuel consumption based on factors like road incline and traffic congestion.
Provided that the few extra minutes aren't critical to one's wallet, it's a cost savings. For me those extra minutes are rarely critical. If I could, I'd usually choose the lowest stress route! But I'm definitely going to enjoy using this additional information.
> If I could, I'd usually choose the lowest stress route!
Apple Maps sometimes features alternate routes that are "simpler" or with "fewer turns", which I think is a very nice feature. I'd rather not cut through small side streets just to save 1-2 minutes.
While I guess some people:"lowest stress = fastest time"
For me it is: not having to do a turn across 4 lanes of traffic(2 in either direction) without traffic lights.
Wife and I constantly scan google route and make up something when it does that.
The important paragraph that most people probably care about:
Soon, Google Maps will default to the route with the lowest carbon footprint when it has approximately the same ETA as the fastest route. In cases where the eco-friendly route could significantly increase your ETA, we’ll let you compare the relative CO2 impact between routes so you can choose. Always want the fastest route? That’s OK too — simply adjust your preferences in Settings.
FTA but not the main point of this thread: we’re now able to bring Live View to some of the trickiest-to-navigate places indoors: airports, transit stations and malls.
Seems to me that these are the easiest places to navigate indoors, because of the plentiful signage. Malls probably the hardest of the three, but still pretty easy IMO. I've never had any issue finding a gate or baggage claim at an airport, since there are signs every 10 feet or so.
A lot of bigger underground transit stations are literal mazes! Even in the somewhat smaller ones in e.g. Tokyo, you can easily get lost as a tourist or first-time visitor.
I'm sure this will be valuable to people especially with accessibility needs.
Underground transit stations can be a huge pain in the ass to find the right exit for, when you want to come out going a particular direction, because you have no sense of cardinal directions while underground.
Depends on what you’re looking for. Finding the approved ride share pickup spot can be pretty tricky in some airports. It can also be hard to identify and communicate exactly where you are on the curb (where’s “gate 6”?).
> easiest places to navigate indoors, because of the plentiful signage.
You should try getting around Toronto's main transit hub "Union Station". Legend has it the TV show Amazing Race lost contestants for several days after they were trapped in undecipherable signage hell! Good luck to Google.
Yes, there is typically good signage in airports and transit stations, but two main factors will make this a game-changer:
1. airports are a place where a non-insignificant number of visitors have never been there before and may be unfamiliar with the language of the signage.
2. ever been late to a flight? That's a high-stress situation wherein you may be more likely to become frustrated with signage and any human-made error can lead to you missing your flight.
Of course, these two do not usually apply to malls, but still a pretty handy feature there (IMO the less time spent navigating a mall the happier I am).
This is the opposite of a map. A map helps you build a mental model for how you navigate space by showing you a broad view of the land, potentially enabling you to navigate to anywhere. This offloads the effort of learning, such that you don’t learn to navigate the space yourself, and only gets you from one point to another.
You are right, but most people want navigational aid, not map. Maps were popular because they were good navigational aid, not because they help building mental model. If better navigational aid becomes available, most people will gladly abandon map's mental model building feature.
Exactly! Using GPS etc to navigate actively inhibits your ability to learn to navigate yourself. A friend of mine got a car with satnav built in years ago. After living in the same city for more than a decade he still can't get around without it.
Exactly, I feel the title should be more "Redefining what Google Maps® can be with new information". And as you noted, this app is not really a map.
Regardless of the semantic shift that there is probably no way to stop now, I'm hoping real maps will still be around, they are the best tool to give you spacial awareness at different scales.
What I want is an option to find the route with the least amount of turns. I live in a place with little to no urban planning and extremely confusing street layout, and Google will consistently choose very twisty routes, only to later zoom out the map and find that I could have followed an L or S shaped route with just one or two turns.
As mentioned in another reply, Apple Maps many times suggests the “simplest” path (I believe it’s the minimum number of turns, but I’m not sure) as an option next to the fastest route. I think it’s my favorite feature of Apple Maps, and it’s the primary reason I use it over Google Maps.
I got a route from them recently that wanted me to turn left on a six lane road, no traffic light, to make a quick right turn from the farthest lane, during rush hour.
There are many reasonable requests like this - I would love an option to take a scenic route when I have time, to see a new countryside just behind a hill from a highway I usually travel through.
Or city transport route with as few changes as possible, to enjoy the booknor to make travelling with toddler easier.
Guess these won't get a middle manager a promotion for rising some key metric, though.
I find it more believable that Google attracts engineers who want to save the environment than Google is secretly manipulating the routes of the masses for profit.
1) "I already know this part" where the navigator is muted for part of the journey and you can just get directions for the parts you don't know. I feel like this is a very common occurrence for people but we just leave the navigation on and it consumes the battery (increasing carbon footprint) and distracts us (increasing danger)
2) Multi-method transit. It's a nice day out. I don't want to drive directly to my destination. Show me free parking and let me walk half a mile to finish. This would also encourage more people to walk and be a far greener option.
I am surprised that no one mentioned www.abetterrouteplanner.com yet, which is EV-oriented and takes into account not only charging stations (and their power output), but also elevation changes to account for regen filling up the battery and providing increased range.
Also has an in-car mode that is somewhat usable for cars that have an integrated web browser with access to location data.
Driving with low carbon emission can only mean driving with a speed that is (much) smaller then the allowed maximum speed outside of cities. E.g. 80km/h (or even 70) instead of the allowed 100km/h in Germany. This way I can reduce my fuel consumption by at least 30%.
With Google Maps driving and reaching the ETA is very stressful (and burns a lot of gas) as you often have to "max out" the speed limits. I guess the AI that is used is based on the average person that drives like this and/or does not care about the speed limits (which is the case here in Germany). And so I doubt that anything ecologically can come out of an AI that is based on the current state. To change something you would have to assist people how to reduce fuel consumption.
This would have many advantages: it would reduce stress and accidents (people would be less willing to overtake a 'slower' car) and the time of arrival would be only 2-4 minutes later on a 1 hour trip.
When you calculate the shortest path in a road network, you usually take the distance and divide it by the speed limit to determine the weight of the edges.
To be fancy you also do things like account for deceleration and acceleration at nodes (turns).
Artificially capping the speed limit is easy. You often do this for things like tractors that don't drive at the speed limit.
If people want to drive under a certain speed it's a trivial technical problems for the individual vehicle and path finding.
I'm not sure the calculations are made individually however, so an individual speed limit may be a non trivial problem
This is a good point, and navigation apps like Google Maps could perfectly tell you something like "On this section driving at x km/h would save y€ of gas for only z minutes added".
A pet peeve of mine is that google maps doesn't show most transit routes on the map. There is a transit layer you can enable, but it only shows metro and light rail, not buses, brt, trams, ferries, etc.
At least for cars, it makes little sense because the dominant factor is going to be the time on the road, which they in theory have been trying to minimize already.
Any additional micro-optimizations are going to be fractional.
I'm happy about this, and I really hope they provide a transparent explanation why they suggest each route. I would welcome a list of the primary attributes of each suggested route like "this route has many stoplights", "this highway can be dangerous during twilight", "this route avoids quiet neighborhoods".
One routing algorithm I'm really hoping for:
Instead of navigating to a point, I wish Google Maps would let me draw a circle on the map and navigate to wherever within the circle I can drive to the quickest.
Often, Google will send me on a circuitous route to the destination pin, which takes ten minutes longer than it would to go to the parking lot off the big avenue a couple blocks away.
Seems like a creative way of saying that after a decade+ they've finally decided to listen to everyone who's been saying they don't wanna take three left turns in rush hour traffic to save an average of 15sec on a 2hr trip.
I get that you're being flippant, but I did have a coworker who calculated the carbon footprint of his commute for various modes of transport, including walking. He came to the conclusion that, given the average amount of CO2 produced per calorie consumed, riding an e-bike was actually the lowest-impact way.
All privacy concerns aside --- this seems like a very valuable addition to the map service.
Concerning indoor navigation: My minor concern is that I will take minor deviations eg. in an Airport, to pass by a potent Google add customer instead taking the shortest path.
I find it hilarious that the GIF showing it in action at the airport is giving totally wrong directions.
It sais "Go down one level to Floor 2", to apparently reach gate E27. However, if you go down this escalator, all you will find is 2 train tracks with trains taking you out of the airport. You indeed need to take a train to gates E, but those depart from a totally different location.
Sounds like a good idea in theory but in many places in the US when you get off the highway you get a major drop off in the quality of roads and availability of food/gas. If you really care about reducing your CO2 the best option is significantly reducing your travel not slightly optimizing you routes.
> Google Maps will soon default to the route with the lowest carbon footprint
This is not the title of the blog. And that matters because this doesn't make sense.
The fastest route should be the lowest carbon footprint, which it should currently default too.
"road incline and traffic congestion"
I find it unlikely road incline makes 'any' significant percentage difference. I'd want to see the mathematics on this. Adding this complexity seems like PR BS.
'Traffic congestion' might make a difference, sitting still in traffic might be better than going around. Not good for your mental health though.
How about better directions so we make less wrong turns and also save on CO2 emissions. How about better predictions on congestion. A better product will do both.
Though I can envisage some places where the dataset might be a little “out of date”, where you end up being directed to the car park or a completely empty floor in the mall.
[+] [-] murphyslab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oceliker|5 years ago|reply
Apple Maps sometimes features alternate routes that are "simpler" or with "fewer turns", which I think is a very nice feature. I'd rather not cut through small side streets just to save 1-2 minutes.
[+] [-] _carbyau_|5 years ago|reply
While I guess some people:"lowest stress = fastest time" For me it is: not having to do a turn across 4 lanes of traffic(2 in either direction) without traffic lights.
Wife and I constantly scan google route and make up something when it does that.
[+] [-] strken|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benhurmarcel|5 years ago|reply
It would be the cheapest if it accounted for toll prices.
[+] [-] ladberg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayboise|5 years ago|reply
Seems to me that these are the easiest places to navigate indoors, because of the plentiful signage. Malls probably the hardest of the three, but still pretty easy IMO. I've never had any issue finding a gate or baggage claim at an airport, since there are signs every 10 feet or so.
[+] [-] meibo|5 years ago|reply
I'm sure this will be valuable to people especially with accessibility needs.
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tape_measure|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pimlottc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canada_dry|5 years ago|reply
You should try getting around Toronto's main transit hub "Union Station". Legend has it the TV show Amazing Race lost contestants for several days after they were trapped in undecipherable signage hell! Good luck to Google.
[+] [-] zak2727|5 years ago|reply
1. airports are a place where a non-insignificant number of visitors have never been there before and may be unfamiliar with the language of the signage. 2. ever been late to a flight? That's a high-stress situation wherein you may be more likely to become frustrated with signage and any human-made error can lead to you missing your flight.
Of course, these two do not usually apply to malls, but still a pretty handy feature there (IMO the less time spent navigating a mall the happier I am).
[+] [-] asdfasgasdgasdg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 48snickers|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanxiyn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HourglassFR|5 years ago|reply
Regardless of the semantic shift that there is probably no way to stop now, I'm hoping real maps will still be around, they are the best tool to give you spacial awareness at different scales.
[+] [-] pezezin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atty|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Igelau|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomaskafka|5 years ago|reply
Or city transport route with as few changes as possible, to enjoy the booknor to make travelling with toddler easier.
Guess these won't get a middle manager a promotion for rising some key metric, though.
[+] [-] eximius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelski|5 years ago|reply
1) "I already know this part" where the navigator is muted for part of the journey and you can just get directions for the parts you don't know. I feel like this is a very common occurrence for people but we just leave the navigation on and it consumes the battery (increasing carbon footprint) and distracts us (increasing danger)
2) Multi-method transit. It's a nice day out. I don't want to drive directly to my destination. Show me free parking and let me walk half a mile to finish. This would also encourage more people to walk and be a far greener option.
[+] [-] Rygian|5 years ago|reply
Also has an in-car mode that is somewhat usable for cars that have an integrated web browser with access to location data.
[+] [-] karussell|5 years ago|reply
With Google Maps driving and reaching the ETA is very stressful (and burns a lot of gas) as you often have to "max out" the speed limits. I guess the AI that is used is based on the average person that drives like this and/or does not care about the speed limits (which is the case here in Germany). And so I doubt that anything ecologically can come out of an AI that is based on the current state. To change something you would have to assist people how to reduce fuel consumption.
This would have many advantages: it would reduce stress and accidents (people would be less willing to overtake a 'slower' car) and the time of arrival would be only 2-4 minutes later on a 1 hour trip.
[+] [-] cerved|5 years ago|reply
To be fancy you also do things like account for deceleration and acceleration at nodes (turns).
Artificially capping the speed limit is easy. You often do this for things like tractors that don't drive at the speed limit.
If people want to drive under a certain speed it's a trivial technical problems for the individual vehicle and path finding.
I'm not sure the calculations are made individually however, so an individual speed limit may be a non trivial problem
[+] [-] benhurmarcel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jld|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thescriptkiddie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehjoker|5 years ago|reply
Any additional micro-optimizations are going to be fractional.
[+] [-] quinncom|5 years ago|reply
One routing algorithm I'm really hoping for:
Instead of navigating to a point, I wish Google Maps would let me draw a circle on the map and navigate to wherever within the circle I can drive to the quickest.
Often, Google will send me on a circuitous route to the destination pin, which takes ten minutes longer than it would to go to the parking lot off the big avenue a couple blocks away.
[+] [-] tsjq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smabie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AussieWog93|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhoechtl|5 years ago|reply
Concerning indoor navigation: My minor concern is that I will take minor deviations eg. in an Airport, to pass by a potent Google add customer instead taking the shortest path.
[+] [-] nerfhammer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] red0point|5 years ago|reply
It sais "Go down one level to Floor 2", to apparently reach gate E27. However, if you go down this escalator, all you will find is 2 train tracks with trains taking you out of the airport. You indeed need to take a train to gates E, but those depart from a totally different location.
[+] [-] jsz0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|5 years ago|reply
This is not the title of the blog. And that matters because this doesn't make sense.
The fastest route should be the lowest carbon footprint, which it should currently default too.
"road incline and traffic congestion"
I find it unlikely road incline makes 'any' significant percentage difference. I'd want to see the mathematics on this. Adding this complexity seems like PR BS.
'Traffic congestion' might make a difference, sitting still in traffic might be better than going around. Not good for your mental health though.
How about better directions so we make less wrong turns and also save on CO2 emissions. How about better predictions on congestion. A better product will do both.
[+] [-] ehershey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benplumley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjgs|5 years ago|reply
Though I can envisage some places where the dataset might be a little “out of date”, where you end up being directed to the car park or a completely empty floor in the mall.