Google Map's Driving Directions

[Swammerdami]

I have questions and comments about Google Map's driving directions. Some of this may seem to take the form of complaints or nit-picking, but that is not my intent. Just the opposite: Maps is the Google product I admire the most. In fact I regard the combination of GPS, Google Maps & Driving Directions as a Magnificent and Awesome Wonder of the World, probably surpassing the Great Pyramids of Giza in sheer grandeur.

I didn't start using Google's driving directions until I moved to Chiang Mai almost 3 years ago. I usually drive with Directions Started even when I know the route exactly: I'll be advised of road closures or traffic jams and will get redirected if I make a detour. This city seems like a labyrinth to me and I'm happy to have Google ready to take over if I should miss a turn or something. By keeping Maps active I suppose I contribute to Google's knowledge of traffic conditions. In fact, I suppose it gets that info from me even when I'm not running Maps, since I've not opted out of "Let Google know your Location" or whatever it's called.

I think Google minimizes time of travel (with distance as a tie-breaker). I suppose it would be problematic to try to minimize fuel consumption.

My own preference is to minimize stress and difficulty. From my house there are at least five ways to get on Route 108 northbound. Everybody but me takes either the most direct route, or a slightly longer route that avoids speed bumps. I think I'm the only driver who takes an even longer route that avoids a stressful left^* turn. Lately, Google shows me that longer route as an alternate; I assume this is because it's noticed me taking it every day. (Are others now presented with this option?) It's shown as "similar ETA" (the longer distance is compensated by the lack of speed bumps).

(* - Thailand is a drive-on-left country, so a "left turn" here is similar to a right turn in USA. But left turns often are difficult. Right turns and U-turns are often managed with cooperation from oncoming traffic.)

Similarly when I'm in a taxi approaching Floating Fortune Road from the South, I see the taxi encouraged to take one of three narrow zig-zagging routes. Those routes are outrageous because the lanes are barely wide enough for a single vehicle but they are two-way! A long drive in reverse would be necessary if an oncoming car shows up, but that almost never happens: All but the most daring taxis avoid those narrow lanes so they're usually empty. Google offered me that option only once (on a day with a major traffic jam on the main route) but it is a routine shortcut for taxis. Does Google observe individual drivers and offer them routings per the drivers' inferred tastes?

Can Google handle overpasses? Approaching the airport from the East there's a long overpass to bypass the signals and traffic near the "Ro" mall. I drive on the surface road but when I'm under the overpass, Google gives me nonsensical directions. It seems to assume I've somehow teleported to the lanes above me. When I leave that area it reverts to the correct directions.

That's an example of Google changing its instructions. Change can also happen when I take a wrong turn, miss a turn or a traffic jam changes status. I wish there'd be a special Beep sound when it changes the routing: That would eliminate some confusion.

The main variable on my usual route is the timing of a particular long-cycle traffic light. Does Google try to work out the cycles of such lights? (Even if it did it might not help optimize the route: barely missing a green light and barely making a green light are very close but disparate outcomes.)

The voiced instructions evolve, changing every several months. On one route I take frequently, I hear "Turn left after H-O-N-E-Y-B-O-O-N Cafe and Art Gallery Onto." Does Honeyboon Cafe have to pay to get included in the direction? If so, they should ask for "Honeyboon" to be treated as a word rather than spelled out. I assume "onto" would normally preface a road's name; perhaps it omits the name (but not the "onto") because the utterance is already so long.

Other questions or comments?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Offering routes to my taste can be achieved by selecting "avoid highways". Beyond that, whenever I look at the route prior to setting off, I always get a choice of three. The highlighted one being the quickest.
Google maps is a fabulous service. Beyond not getting lost, wasting time and fuel, there is also the safety aspect. Back in the day, who hasn't tried to glance at a paper map or directions written out while driving? Then there were city street atlas' which surprisingly are still in print. I remember using these magazine size county atlas' extensively while job hunting back in the early eighties, all of course while driving.
Another particularly useful thing about Google maps is the ability to just enter a business name into the destination field. Up pops the route and hours of operation.
Google could turn this into a pay service tomorrow and I think there would be few who would refuse to pay up. Can a twenty year old even read a paper map without assistance? Would the scale messed them up? How would they know what time to leave? Traveling some place new, a youngster would know little more than X is an inch and a half away. Google could turn the streets into chaos.

 

[Elixir]

Google maps sends people to a spot that is a few hundred feet from where I sit, but is about 3 miles away by road.
Supposedly it would correct Itself if I went there and informed it that it is wrong, then went to my place and told it “I’m there now”. But I’m too lazy to do that.

 

[thebeave]

I like Google Maps a lot. Sometimes the GPS gets wacky and it thinks I'm someplace else (that's not very close to me). Eventually, it seems to get back on track though. A while back, I was using it to drive back home from an unfamiliar place and it was taking me on side streets and weird places I wasn't expecting, instead of straight to the highway. I felt like Billy in the Family Circus comic strip when he walks home from school. Anyway, I ended up in some sort of park somewhere. Totally not where I wanted to be. On top of that, it was telling me I was going to arrive home in some ridiculous length of time (like 4 or 5 hours or something, when it should have been 1/2 hour?). Found out later the app had somehow got switched from driving to walking, so I was following the best walking path home. Which also explains the late arrival. D'oh!

 

[Elixir]

Found out later the app had somehow got switched from driving to walking, so I was following the best walking path home. Which also explains the late arrival. D'oh!

Maybe it felt like a long trip home, but I bet the app was impressed with your “walking speed”!

 

[steve_bank]

During one of our yearly Seafair events I walked around a Navy destroyer. On the bridge an officer was explaining that everyday they take a noon sight with a sextant and check position against electronic navigation.

Our building has a weekly van trip trip stores. The driver uses GPS. The GPS said turn into a parking lot and the driver did. It was the wrong parking lot.

 

[Swammerdami]

With Internet disabled, how well does Google Directions function?

The GPS signals from 4 (or more?) satellites aren't transmitted by Internet and neither (I'm guessing) is auxiliary GPS info. (I once read that receivers are presented with atmospheric info to better model GPS signal speed -- is that correct?)

And what about Google Maps itself? Does it communicate with my phone even when Internet is disabled? I ask because that appears to be the case.

With Internet disabled, Google Maps still presents its map of Chiang Mai, still knows where my car is, and still gives me directions, both on the map and with its voice.

I have a weekly appointment where -- to avoid a high-speed "freeway" -- I take the second-best route. Google Maps suggests a U-turn but I ignore that and Maps soon switches to my intended route. One day I inadvertantly had Internet disabled; Maps suggested the usual U-turn, then the next U-turn, then a 3rd U-turn, but finally switched to my intended route rather than offering up the Fourth U-turn possibility!

What?? Was Google Maps doing ALL that processing on my phone with no help from its "mother-ship"?

 

[thebeave]

I believe Google Maps also uses cell tower triangulation in conjunction with GPS.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

AFIAK all the mapping systems do not consider the cost of traffic controls. Head south from here? It wants to turn left from a stop sign onto a 6+1 road. In rush hour that's impossible. Head east? The shortest and best route goes through a protected left turn. The computers see the ever so slightly "faster" (slightly longer, but replacing a few blocks of 25 with 45) route that involves another stop sign left onto a 6+1. Under light enough traffic the computer is right. Rarely is it light enough.

And one I've heard out of out of Israel: There's one holiday where all roads are closed to non-emergency traffic. Lots of people out there on bicycles on what would normally be traffic lanes. Google sees a bunch of people on the road moving faster than pedestrians but slower than normal traffic, reports it as a traffic jam.

 

[crazyfingers]

I use my Garmin but I did notice that Google Maps directs people going to Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA to take the bridge across the Taunton River, crash the barriers and fall 300 feet off the bridge to arrive in the parking lot.

 

[crazyfingers]

With Internet disabled, how well does Google Directions function?

The GPS signals from 4 (or more?) satellites aren't transmitted by Internet and neither (I'm guessing) is auxiliary GPS info. (I once read that receivers are presented with atmospheric info to better model GPS signal speed -- is that correct?)

And what about Google Maps itself? Does it communicate with my phone even when Internet is disabled? I ask because that appears to be the case.

With Internet disabled, Google Maps still presents its map of Chiang Mai, still knows where my car is, and still gives me directions, both on the map and with its voice.

I have a weekly appointment where -- to avoid a high-speed "freeway" -- I take the second-best route. Google Maps suggests a U-turn but I ignore that and Maps soon switches to my intended route. One day I inadvertantly had Internet disabled; Maps suggested the usual U-turn, then the next U-turn, then a 3rd U-turn, but finally switched to my intended route rather than offering up the Fourth U-turn possibility!

What?? Was Google Maps doing ALL that processing on my phone with no help from its "mother-ship"?

Your phone can download a relatively small map segment to use when your phone is not connected to the internet via mobile data. But eventually if you travel out of that segment you will run out of map and will need mobile data to get the maps where you are traveling.

My own commemt, I have not used google maps very much for navigation because using Android Auto when navigating it blocks incoming messages on my phone. I can have the map displayed on the car's screen and messages come through fine. But if I tell google maps to navigate me somewhere then it blocks messages. Kinda dumb. So I navigate with the Garmin and sometimes display google maps if I want to see the traffic situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With Internet disabled, how well does Google Directions function?

The GPS signals from 4 (or more?) satellites aren't transmitted by Internet and neither (I'm guessing) is auxiliary GPS info. (I once read that receivers are presented with atmospheric info to better model GPS signal speed -- is that correct?)

And what about Google Maps itself? Does it communicate with my phone even when Internet is disabled? I ask because that appears to be the case.

With Internet disabled, Google Maps still presents its map of Chiang Mai, still knows where my car is, and still gives me directions, both on the map and with its voice.

I have a weekly appointment where -- to avoid a high-speed "freeway" -- I take the second-best route. Google Maps suggests a U-turn but I ignore that and Maps soon switches to my intended route. One day I inadvertantly had Internet disabled; Maps suggested the usual U-turn, then the next U-turn, then a 3rd U-turn, but finally switched to my intended route rather than offering up the Fourth U-turn possibility!

What?? Was Google Maps doing ALL that processing on my phone with no help from its "mother-ship"?

Your phone can download a relatively small map segment to use when your phone is not connected to the internet via mobile data. But eventually if you travel out of that segment you will run out of map and will need mobile data to get the maps where you are traveling.

You can actually download many chunks if you want and your phone has space. I used to have pretty much everything within a couple hundred miles downloaded.

My own commemt, I have not used google maps very much for navigation because using Android Auto when navigating it blocks incoming messages on my phone. I can have the map displayed on the car's screen and messages come through fine. But if I tell google maps to navigate me somewhere then it blocks messages. Kinda dumb. So I navigate with the Garmin and sometimes display google maps if I want to see the traffic situation.

I presume it's a safety issue. Can't use the phone while driving. But it goes too far, turn-by-turn is a good thing to be telling (and that's blocked along with the on-screen message) the driver! And it doesn't even distinguish between driver and passenger, you're moving above walking pace, no messages. I consider it pretty much useless because of this.

 

[Tharmas]

My own commemt, I have not used google maps very much for navigation because using Android Auto when navigating it blocks incoming messages on my phone. I can have the map displayed on the car's screen and messages come through fine. But if I tell google maps to navigate me somewhere then it blocks messages. Kinda dumb. So I navigate with the Garmin and sometimes display google maps if I want to see the traffic situation.

I presume it's a safety issue. Can't use the phone while driving. But it goes too far, turn-by-turn is a good thing to be telling (and that's blocked along with the on-screen message) the driver! And it doesn't even distinguish between driver and passenger, you're moving above walking pace, no messages. I consider it pretty much useless because of this

I bought a new car about a year ago and set up Android Auto. Then I disabled it because it interferes with/overrides many of the features my car does well, like playing my music off a USB drive. My car's navigation system seems as good as Google Maps if not better in some ways. It alerts me to upcoming traffic issues, etc. Mrs. T and I compared them using her phone and my car's app on a recent road trip. Nothing to choose from, really.

 

[crazyfingers]

With Internet disabled, how well does Google Directions function?

The GPS signals from 4 (or more?) satellites aren't transmitted by Internet and neither (I'm guessing) is auxiliary GPS info. (I once read that receivers are presented with atmospheric info to better model GPS signal speed -- is that correct?)

And what about Google Maps itself? Does it communicate with my phone even when Internet is disabled? I ask because that appears to be the case.

With Internet disabled, Google Maps still presents its map of Chiang Mai, still knows where my car is, and still gives me directions, both on the map and with its voice.

I have a weekly appointment where -- to avoid a high-speed "freeway" -- I take the second-best route. Google Maps suggests a U-turn but I ignore that and Maps soon switches to my intended route. One day I inadvertantly had Internet disabled; Maps suggested the usual U-turn, then the next U-turn, then a 3rd U-turn, but finally switched to my intended route rather than offering up the Fourth U-turn possibility!

What?? Was Google Maps doing ALL that processing on my phone with no help from its "mother-ship"?

Your phone can download a relatively small map segment to use when your phone is not connected to the internet via mobile data. But eventually if you travel out of that segment you will run out of map and will need mobile data to get the maps where you are traveling.

You can actually download many chunks if you want and your phone has space. I used to have pretty much everything within a couple hundred miles downloaded.

My own commemt, I have not used google maps very much for navigation because using Android Auto when navigating it blocks incoming messages on my phone. I can have the map displayed on the car's screen and messages come through fine. But if I tell google maps to navigate me somewhere then it blocks messages. Kinda dumb. So I navigate with the Garmin and sometimes display google maps if I want to see the traffic situation.

I presume it's a safety issue. Can't use the phone while driving. But it goes too far, turn-by-turn is a good thing to be telling (and that's blocked along with the on-screen message) the driver! And it doesn't even distinguish between driver and passenger, you're moving above walking pace, no messages. I consider it pretty much useless because of this.

With Android Auto the car connects to my phone and reads any texts to me and then allows me to respond with voice to text - while I'm driving. I don't see why they would turn that off when using Maps to navigate. But it's disabled.

One of many reasons why I continue to use my Garmin to navigate.

 

[crazyfingers]

My own commemt, I have not used google maps very much for navigation because using Android Auto when navigating it blocks incoming messages on my phone. I can have the map displayed on the car's screen and messages come through fine. But if I tell google maps to navigate me somewhere then it blocks messages. Kinda dumb. So I navigate with the Garmin and sometimes display google maps if I want to see the traffic situation.

I presume it's a safety issue. Can't use the phone while driving. But it goes too far, turn-by-turn is a good thing to be telling (and that's blocked along with the on-screen message) the driver! And it doesn't even distinguish between driver and passenger, you're moving above walking pace, no messages. I consider it pretty much useless because of this

I bought a new car about a year ago and set up Android Auto. Then I disabled it because it interferes with/overrides many of the features my car does well, like playing my music off a USB drive. My car's navigation system seems as good as Google Maps if not better in some ways. It alerts me to upcoming traffic issues, etc. Mrs. T and I compared them using her phone and my car's app on a recent road trip. Nothing to choose from, really.

One reason why I use Android Auto is so that I can bring all my music. My newest can will only index 4999 songs on a usb stick. That's not enough. My older car could do 9999 songs. So I use Android Auto and the PowerAmp music app. All my music on my phone. It connects via wifi, not Bluetooth, so it sounds as good as a usb stick or better because the car can only decode AAC 320kbps while PowerAmp and Android Auto can also play FLACs and ALACs. Also PowerAmp has a far better equalizer than the one built into the car.

 

[steve_bank]

When I drove cross country in 70s, 80s, 90s I had maps and a compass. It must have been a miracle I navigated form from Hartford Ct to Denver and Portland having never driven cross country before.

 

[bilby]

One of the most common questions we get asked by new drivers is "Why can't we have GPS in the bus?"

It's prohibited because it's a distraction. We expect (and train) drivers to use paper or online maps, and even streetview, to memorise the routes before they get in the vehicle.

Driving should always entail a conscious decision to minimise distractions. You should not be making or receiving calls, consulting maps (paper or electronic), listening to or recording messages, applying make-up, chastising your kids, restraining your dog, eating your lunch, drinking hot beverages, fiddling with whatever the fuck is in the passenger side foot-well, or doing anything that involves a screen (particularly a touch-screen); You should be concentrating on driving, which is a full time and demanding skill.

The modern trend for cars to have huge display screens built into them is a disaster, matched only by the introduction of cellular telephony.

Distraction is rapidly overtaking intoxication as the most dangerous driver behaviour, and the general attitude that it is no big deal reminds me starkly of the same attitude towards drink-driving that prevailed in the '70s.

The crash statistics indicate that it is, in fact, a big deal.

Please, stop using electronic distraction devices while you are supposed to be operating a motor vehicle instead. You probably think you do these things in addition to driving, but the reality is that not only are you doing them instead of driving, but that you are likely oblivious to that fact.

The human brain is a skilled and practised liar, and refuses to admit to itself when it is overloaded, or that it is in fact not capable of multi-tasking.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One of the most common questions we get asked by new drivers is "Why can't we have GPS in the bus?"

It's prohibited because it's a distraction. We expect (and train) drivers to use paper or online maps, and even streetview, to memorise the routes before they get in the vehicle.

The problem comes from what to do when you can't do what you intended to. Much, much less of an issue with a bus because rerouting around a problem usually isn't acceptable.

Driving should always entail a conscious decision to minimise distractions. You should not be making or receiving calls, consulting maps (paper or electronic), listening to or recording messages, applying make-up, chastising your kids, restraining your dog, eating your lunch, drinking hot beverages, fiddling with whatever the fuck is in the passenger side foot-well, or doing anything that involves a screen (particularly a touch-screen); You should be concentrating on driving, which is a full time and demanding skill.

The modern trend for cars to have huge display screens built into them is a disaster, matched only by the introduction of cellular telephony.

I agree except on the navigation bit. I think turn-by-turn reduces driver workload because you don't have to pay attention to where you are.

 

[bilby]

I think turn-by-turn reduces driver workload because you don't have to pay attention to where you are.

I think a lack of situational awareness is a disaster waiting to happen, and that you should always pay attention to where you are.

 

[Swammerdami]

I think turn-by-turn reduces driver workload because you don't have to pay attention to where you are.

I think a lack of situational awareness is a disaster waiting to happen, and that you should always pay attention to where you are.

I always know where I am in the labyrinth which is Chiang Mai. (With apologies to Willie Crowther and Don Woods' Colossal Cave Adventure):

I AM AT WITT'S END. I AM IN A TWISTY MAZE OF LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT WHICH LEAD OFF IN *ALL* DIRECTIONS.

If your destination is in the Old City and you can manage to get to Raft-Pier Gate you can park your car (illegally) and consult the map I posted a photograph of here previously: