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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

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 compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map. E.g. driving vs. walking vs. transit. * There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. * Multi-destination route optimization is not available. E.g. I need to go to the mall, the grocery store, and the bank, what's the sequence of destinations and route that minimizes travel time.[1] Edit: [1] I realize this is describing the travelling salesman problem, but for small (<=4) n it should not be too difficult while still being useful in practice.

dangerlibrary 7y ago
My wife and I regularly talk about how "Thanks Google, I'll take it from here" is the best Maps features that doesn't exist.
- ryanmcdonough 7y ago
  You mean pressing “end route” ?
  - rexf 7y ago
    Exactly, I just hit Exit in GMaps, and it works well.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    Common scenario: I’m somewhere unfamiliar, going home, and I need to be home at a certain time. Once I’m on the freeway I no longer need the navigation, but I still want the en route traffic info and ETA.
    - 72deluxe 7y ago
      Traffic Message Channel on your car radio? RDS-TMC kicks in where appropriate even without a "data link" (eg. no 4G / 3G data link)
    - spookthesunset 7y ago
      > Once I’m on the freeway I no longer need the navigation, but I still want the en route traffic info and ETA. Apple Maps on CarPlay added this feature and I love it. It works great for routes where I pretty much know the way but want a heads up for traffic and such.
  - coldpie 7y ago
    Sure, but I'm driving. It'd be nice if it was configurable or automatic, is the point.
- spookyuser 7y ago
  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.
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    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 nagging to "proceed straight for 50km" from the app.
    - ryanmcdonough 7y ago
      It’s maybe different in the UK but it’s great to have it for motorway (highway) journeys where a closure of a section of road can leave you dealing with a 4 mile route around winding roads. It’s also great for avoiding the traffic in the first place.
    - cuddlybacon 7y ago
      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.
  - beamatronic 7y ago
    I want the screen to stop dimming when navigating crucial junctions.
- WaitWaitWha 7y ago
  You can press the X on the bottom left of the navigation page, which halts the navigation. To start back up, just press Start again.
- ninkendo 7y ago
  Does it not have the ability to mute navigation? Apple Maps in CarPlay has this option, and I only ever use it muted. It’s fine even when I don’t know where I’m going, since I just glance at the screen to see the next turn/distance and that’s all I need anyway.
- UnfalseDesign 7y ago
  Or an option to say, "Hey Google, I'm fine until I get to the highway" or if Google proactively said, "I noticed that the last 5 miles of your route is on roads you have not traveled before. Would you like turn-by-turn directions for the last 5 miles?"
chrisseaton 7y ago
> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Presumably this is already factored into route timings?
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  The time taken might be factored in but: * On busy streets, left turns through uncontrolled intersections can have high variability. So you might be unlucky and get stuck for several minutes waiting to turn. A slower, but more predictable route might be better if you need to arrive on time. * Left turns are simply more stressful than right turns. Saving a minute might not be worth the pain.
  - brokensegue 7y ago
    Your variability point extends beyond just left turns. Routes with lots of lights or that cross train tracks have extra variability. If I'm leaving with barely enough time I want directions that have low time variance since I cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the distribution. Other times I'm willing to risk some variance for a shorter expected time.
agency 7y ago
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 because the right lanes were open they would average it to a moderate traffic rating and would always want to route me to get onto the freeway via that shitshow.
- cuddlybacon 7y ago
  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.
noja 7y ago
> I can't compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map. E.g. driving vs. walking vs. transit. I do this all the time. I click between car, public transport, and walking to see the difference in travel time.
- icebraining 7y ago
  I'm guessing they'd like to see the three at once.
ghufran_syed 7y ago
On Google maps on mobile, you should be able to touch the volume icon, then pick one of three audio modes, on, off, or one in between where I think it just gives you warnings but not street by street directions (has a speaker with a ! next to it as an icon. But it only shows up when you are actually routing
gregmac 7y ago
In the Google Maps app (both on Android and Android Auto) you can toggle between "Muted", "Alerts only" and "Unmuted". Alerts only is what I almost always use, and it only comes up to warn of congestion (eg "6 minutes of congestion ahead, this is still the fastest route"), accidents, suggested or required detours, etc. The Google Maps android and web apps also let you switch between transportation modes to compare driving, walking, cycling and public transit. You can even change it to "leave at" or "arrive by" for any time of day for any day of the week, and it'll give you a decent idea of trip time. I agree with the other suggestions though, it would be handy to minimize (unprotected) left turns, and optimize travel time. The last one is probably more nuanced than it seems though. For example, I will usually want to go to the grocery store last to minimize the time groceries are sitting in a hot/freezing car, depending on what I'm buying and the weather.
- UnfalseDesign 7y ago
  Though Google Maps does have that handy ability to switch to "Alerts Only" (as does Waze), I agree that it still has a lot of room for improvement. For example, if I'm headed to a new location where I need turn-by-turn directions, I want them turned on. However, I do not need them for getting out of my subdivision. I wish there was a way to have "Alerts Only" for routes I've traveled multiple times and "Unmuted" once Google Maps determines I'm in an area I have not been to before or have only been to a few times.
  - gregmac 7y ago
    That's a great idea. It would be really nice if the first direction when leaving your house was something like "Head to hwy 401 and go East".
gbea42d4 7y ago
It's also important for these apps to consider if it's really legally allowed for the current driver of the current vehicle to drive on that street.
- celticninja 7y ago
  How can an app tell what vehicle it is in and what qualifications the driver has?
  - thaeli 7y ago
    Waze has settings for this.
    - dwighttk 7y ago
      do they have "how tall is your rental truck?" I had a friend I helped move and we had to deal with google continually routing us towards low bridges.
      - michaelt 7y ago
        You can buy satnavs with that feature: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/ https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/ and of course, many truck rental companies will also rent you such a sat nav.
        gbea42d4 7y ago
        Does it work 100% of the time? Is it mathematically disproven, that it won't fail on any occasion? Is it mathematically proven, that every bridge is always appearing in the dataset after it is possible to drive underneath it? Or over it?
        michaelt 7y ago
        No, having a sat nav doesn't obviate the need to be attentive to road signs and the size of your vehicle. No map data supplier warrants that their data is free from errors, and even if they did the data could be out-of-date within hours as roads are being built all the time. There is no proof - mathematical or otherwise - a sat nav won't switch off if you fail to plug it in. Neither is there any proof a bridge won't be closed due to roadworks, an accident, or other reasons.
chillingeffect 7y ago
Not sure if everyone knows about this, but if you click on the headlines on this website, like "Google Maps Hacks," in this case, there's an article there. Most of us are using the comment space in this forum to discuss what's in the articles behind each of the headlines. It's a really great forum for doing this because there are many bright people close to the tech discussed. For example, it sounds like you've got some experience with the tech, so I'm curious what your thoughts would be on the content in the article behind this headline.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  This sort of comment section you are commenting about is par for the course. Check out n-gate.com for some back-to-earth commentary on it all.
herenorthere 7y ago
>There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Woah, I've never heard anyone else mention this problem. It sounds strange having it said "out loud" because I thought it was just a weird personal quirk/irritation of mine. I have always wished there was a route option of "easy mode driving," or "no pressure route." Often the "quickest" route google maps shows me is one that has some sort of difficult turn across multiple lanes going the other direction into a "suicide lane" or what have you. Either that, of some sort of merging is necessary where you're basically at the mercy of other drivers letting you in (especially tough if you're not an aggressive driver like myself). Honestly, some maneuvers give me a lot of anxiety, like when I'm on a very busy two lane road (no middle lane) and google is telling me to turn left, so I have to sit there with my blinker on feeling terrible for pissing off all the drivers that are now pilling up behind me, while I anxiously wait for an opening. Unless Im late for something important, I'd gladly go 5 minutes or more out of my way not to experience that kind of driving pressure/social anxiety. I have a moderate anxiety disorder so I know this might not be normal. But you're absolutely right! I suppose it does in fact boil down to just having a route option with "no left turns" -- I had never thought of it that way. That's such a simple way to solve 95% of the problem. ---- Edit: a left turn lane, with a green left turn light is totally fine. Edit 2: For the handful of caring but misguided people scrutinizing my aversion for left turns: >Federal data have shown that 53.1 percent of crossing-path crashes involve left turns, but only 5.7 percent involve right turns. sauce: 2001 - Analysis of Crossing Path Crashes - NHTSA
- Okkef 7y ago
  Have you considered taking some driving lessons to become more assertive in traffic? You don't need to feel this way for a left-hand turn.
  - herenorthere 7y ago
    I just get some social anxiety when people back up behind me, or anytime I feel like my driving is "imposing" on others. I know it's somewhat irrational. But I doubt a driving lesson would help with my more general problem of social anxiety. Anyway, I'd rather be this type of driver than an overly dense person who doesn't mind backing up traffic. The type of people that will go sideways blocking four lanes coming out of a gas station to get to the turn lane... I learned to drive in a "defensive" manner. Yes, sometimes non-action can be more dangerous in a specific situation; but feeling bad about backing up traffic doesn't make me a bad driver. Just an socially anxious one. I agree though, in the original comment, I probably made it sound worse than it actually is for me. I just wish google maps had this option. I would find driving more pleasant. Edit: I made some edits, to clear up my response
thaeli 7y ago
I often do multi-destination optimization manually on Google Maps desktop. It's practical to solve the small-n travelling salesman problem through manual brute force, it should be doable automatically.
kccqzy 7y ago
> 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". I've turned off voice navigation altogether. It's just not necessary in most cases. Just take a minute or two before departure to actually read the map and the route, if you are not pressed for time. It also gives you much better spatial awareness of where you are going and how you are going there.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  I check map apps for my best commute option a lot. My gripe is that for each leg of my commute, there are about 3 or 4 options, and I know how to drive all of them, but turn-by-turn insists on explaining it. What I want is a summary when I head out, and possibly an update at decision points. I just have no idea how to make an app (or an interface) for that.
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    I think turning off voice navigation will help. You simply drive each leg on your own and glance at the navigation screen at the decision points.
- abraxas 7y ago
  I just say "OK, Google stop navigating"
dwrodri 7y ago
IIRC, minimizing left turns was a massive cost-saving measure for UPS (or was it FedEx?) back when consumer-facing GPS systems were becoming commonplace.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
every 7y ago
I tend to avoid uncontrolled left hand turns into traffic like the plague. I will gladly make 3 right hand turns to avoid the stress...
delusional 7y ago
I've often thought it would be fun to have a "novel navigate" option, where instead of just picking the fastest route it would try and pick a route that is somehow interesting, or that I haven't been on. I find it pretty boring to drive the same route over and over, and I'd gladly spend another 15 minutes if it means I get a more interesting route.
fit2rule 7y ago
My personal pet peeve: using the wrong language for the region. So, I'm a native English speaker - but I'm driving around Germany. Give me the names of the streets in German only - NOPE. Still can't find any way to fix this issue. Its terribly annoying.
- JCharante 7y ago
  What do the English equivalents look like? I do the same in Vietnam but I'd rather hear the proper pronounciation rather than a butchered one.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    When a German street name is synthesised using English settings, its a proper butchering. Just not good at all. I want the instructions in English - but I want the place-names in the native language. This is the only sensible way, yet none of the Maps vendors seem to have understood this. Do they not use their products?
  - iggldiggl 7y ago
    Semi-related anecdote: A few years ago, for a while Google Maps insisted on labelling White City (in London) as "White Stadt" and the M25 as "Autoroute brittanique M25" (and not just for French users).
neurostimulant 7y ago
> I realize this is describing the travelling salesman problem, but for small (<=4) n it should not be too difficult while still being useful in practice. Google actually already has an api that does exactly this called Google OR-Tools[1]. They could totally build this feature into google map if they want. [1] https://developers.google.com/optimization/ https://developers.google.com/optimization/
fcbrooklyn 7y ago
Another feature I want is "money is no object mode" when travelling around new york city. Sometimes it's fastest to take the subway, sometimes it's fastest to take a Lyft/Uber, but sometimes it's fastest to take the subway part of the way, and then take an uber from there. This last situation is really tough to figure out by hand with the existing tools.
- InitialLastName 7y ago
  Here you go: https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york-city/uber-copter/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york-city/uber-copter/ I promise it's almost always the fastest (I knew someone who had corporate access to it for big clients).
- mayniac 7y ago
  Citymapper does this. It sometimes works in London: the app supports NYC but I don't know if either the feature is supported or if it's functional. When you've set your start and destination scroll down and there's a section called "multimodal labs".
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  In general there would also be a use for optimizing time vs cost. In all driving apps you either take all tolls or none. It should be possible to optimize cost vs time saved, taking some tolls (which gain you enough time to justify their cost), but not all.
0xffff2 7y ago
>* There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Waze has precisely this option.
leppr 7y ago
> Multi-destination route optimization is not available. OsmAnd+ on F-Droid[1] has this feature, although the UX isn't stellar. Add intermediate destinations to your itinerary then the Edit next to intermediate destinations > Sort > Door-to-door. [1] https://f-droid.org/app/net.osmand.plus https://f-droid.org/app/net.osmand.plus
dfinninger 7y ago
> there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" Apple Maps (at least in CarPlay) has a "tap for ETA" feature. It collapses the navigation block and only leaves the blue (yellow, red) line on the map and an estimated ETA at the bottom. I use this daily during my commute where I passively want to know if there's some traffic up ahead, but don't need help to know where I am going. It's not automatic (e.g. Geo-fence setting), but it is just one tap.
jimmaswell 7y ago
I can usually just find an acceptably easier route (less bad left turns) picking one of the given alternatives.
foepys 7y ago
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.
- dwild 7y ago
  > 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.
keyanp 7y ago
> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns Any decent road routing engine does take into consideration a "turn penalty" and makes left turns more costly then right, among other things. E.g. see the Valhalla docs (Mapbox's routing engine): > Turn type - whether the turn is a left turn, right turn, or is crossing another road. The cost applied to the turn type also needs to know if driving is done on the left side or right side of the road. While left turns are generally more costly in the US than right turns, the opposite holds in UK. https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/blob/716fd6e99ab6f271b606c20ea64adcd856d83f8b/docs/sif/dynamic-costing.md https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/blob/716fd6e99ab6f271b6... OSRM also does this, but slightly differently: https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/wiki/Traffic#turn-penalty-data https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/wiki/Traffic#tu... --- With routing applications there are many configurable parameters, rather than providing too many options and risking overwhelming the user some of these things are simply baked into the ETA calculation.
Razengan 7y ago
> apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. Almost all of the “major” popular apps are mediocre, with simple bugs and missing functionality or bad design for years, despite user complaints and requests. Maps, Translate, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram, Instagram, Discord, Tinder, OKCupid, and even most of Apple’s own stuff. It’s like they fired all but one developer after they became popular.
RileyJames 7y ago
Or, I know there is a faster way, but I want to go via this road. The number of times I’ve patiently entered multiple points to force a certain route, only to have it ‘optimise’ it for me, on route, without a clear notification, is incredibly frustrating. It’s not always about the destination, sometimes it’s about the journey. And no, I don’t care that it’s 7 minutes slower!!
- sigmonsays 7y ago
  the best is the complicated left turn on a busy intersection to save a 1 minute. Litearlly, the other route is a minute longer. It seems like a clash of computers versus reality. The reasons a route is optimal is still not known to a gps system.
bootsbootsboots 7y ago
Honestly i'd love a simplest route option, with minimal turns, especially for areas i dont know well. I'm ok if my driving route takes 5 min longer if I dont have to take a left turn on that 4 lane road, or the weird y intersection, or the very quick left turn followed immediately by the right turn that requires getting across 3 lanes of traffic
ssss11 7y ago
The left turn (or in my case in Australia, right turn) problem is huge and my biggest issue with google maps (and I expect the others are the same but I don’t use any others). I don’t want to take a backstreet only to pop out at the freeway where I need to turn over 6 lanes with no lights.... I feel it’s getting worse, it’s like google maps is trying to get trickier about where it sends you but the outcome for me seems to be getting worse.
Thorentis 7y ago
Like others, I'm glad to see somebody else has noticed the turn issue with navigation. Minimising difficult turns (left/right depending on where you are in the world) across multiple lanes would be fantastic. Many a time I've need to navigate somewhere fast, so even if I could've found my own way there I'll use Gmaps to find the "quickest" router around traffic, etc. Sometimes it works great, others I find I'm having to make a difficult turn across 4 lanes of traffic on both sides of the road, and I'm stuck there in peak hour for 5 mins waiting for a break. Google only optimised for distance and traffic I was in. (I.e. The traffic on both the roads was fast moving, but entering the fast moving traffic took a long time). Optimising only for the speed of traveling in traffic as opposed to entering it (from a turn) can cause this. Another pet peeve of mine, is if you're doing a long distance road trip, you sometimes want to see where the next stop could be. That is, you haven't planned it, but your destination is set to somewhere 7 hours away and you'd like to stop within the next hour. There's no easy way to see where a good place could be. I want a "road trip" mode where you can bring up something a bit like those road side signs that tell you the distance to the next 5 towns or whatever. So on your phone you tap an info button, and get distance and time to the next x townships that are on your route or a short detour away.
- jzwinck 7y ago
  Microsoft Streets & Trips had this feature around 1997. It also had the feature your parent asked for where it would optimize a route with more than two locations (travelling salesman). Yes, 1997, so you needed a laptop in your car and a person other than the driver to operate it, but it worked.
- bradknowles 7y ago
  There used to be an app for this exact problem. I think it was called “Up Next”, and it looked at your direction of travel and what was known to be on or near the road, within a given set distance. They made a point of having all the information from all the road signs in their database, and knowing exactly what was available at which exit, which direction you’d have to turn when you got off, and how far you’d have to drive after the exit. When my wife and I did more road trips, we used to make quite a lot of use of that one. Not sure whatever happened to it, but I haven’t used it for years.
madeofpalk 7y ago
> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. I use Google Maps for cycling directions, and I get frustrated that I can't tell it to avoid big roads.
toper-centage 7y ago
Google has recently started to tip its toes in something I've been wanting for so many years: mixing transit and cycling. But it's still mostly useless. For now Google suggests I cycle to the train and then take the train and then change to the subwat, and then walk the rest of the way. But what I want is to take my bike _inside_ the train with me, commute only in transit that allows bikes, and then bike the last mile.
Liskni_si 7y ago
> Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. There are some hidden gems out there. I've been using Locus Map Pro (Android app) for all my cycling and geocaching needs for the last few years, and some of the things you mention do have solutions in it. The app is not at all beginner-friendly, there's like a million various options and functions, but if you're willing to spend time configuring it, usually you can have it do whatever you want. > I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area When planning a route, it's possible to choose whether to generate navigation instructions, and this can be chosen for any part of the route separately. It's also possible to delete individual nav instructions or manually add new ones. > I can't compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map The route can be saved and then shown/hidden on the map, and there's probably no limit on how many routes can be shown. Color and line width is configurable, too. But yeah, it will be quite a manual process, unfortunately. > There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns I think that if the navigation engine is switched to BRouter, it's possible to assign different weights to left/right turns. But I have to admit that tweaking these parameters is too much even for me. At this point it's also worth mentioning that it only uses OSM routing engines (GraphHopper, BRouter, YOURS), so it can't take traffic into account. Which is fine for my needs (cycling), as I'd rather see the Strava heatmap (and I can!) than live traffic data. :-) (I'm not affiliated with the project but I do use it a lot and have built an add-on against their API, so I'm a huge fanboy.)
rsync 7y ago
" ... 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".
- mwcampbell 7y ago
  About pausing media playback versus fading down the audio, on iOS, this is controlled completely by the OS, but on Android, it's up to the media player. There's an audiobook player for Android called Smart Audiobook Player that does pause its playback when something else cuts in. For me, this usually happens when I do something that makes the TalkBack screen reader [1] speak while playing an audiobook. [1]: I'm legally blind.
specialist 7y ago
* Side trips, eg find coffee then resume main trip.

dangerlibrary 7y ago

My wife and I regularly talk about how "Thanks Google, I'll take it from here" is the best Maps features that doesn't exist.

ryanmcdonough 7y ago
You mean pressing “end route” ?
- rexf 7y ago
  Exactly, I just hit Exit in GMaps, and it works well.
- cgriswald 7y ago
  Common scenario: I’m somewhere unfamiliar, going home, and I need to be home at a certain time. Once I’m on the freeway I no longer need the navigation, but I still want the en route traffic info and ETA.
  - 72deluxe 7y ago
    Traffic Message Channel on your car radio? RDS-TMC kicks in where appropriate even without a "data link" (eg. no 4G / 3G data link)
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    > Once I’m on the freeway I no longer need the navigation, but I still want the en route traffic info and ETA. Apple Maps on CarPlay added this feature and I love it. It works great for routes where I pretty much know the way but want a heads up for traffic and such.
- coldpie 7y ago
  Sure, but I'm driving. It'd be nice if it was configurable or automatic, is the point.
spookyuser 7y ago
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.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  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 nagging to "proceed straight for 50km" from the app.
  - ryanmcdonough 7y ago
    It’s maybe different in the UK but it’s great to have it for motorway (highway) journeys where a closure of a section of road can leave you dealing with a 4 mile route around winding roads. It’s also great for avoiding the traffic in the first place.
  - cuddlybacon 7y ago
    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.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  I want the screen to stop dimming when navigating crucial junctions.
WaitWaitWha 7y ago
You can press the X on the bottom left of the navigation page, which halts the navigation. To start back up, just press Start again.
ninkendo 7y ago
Does it not have the ability to mute navigation? Apple Maps in CarPlay has this option, and I only ever use it muted. It’s fine even when I don’t know where I’m going, since I just glance at the screen to see the next turn/distance and that’s all I need anyway.
UnfalseDesign 7y ago
Or an option to say, "Hey Google, I'm fine until I get to the highway" or if Google proactively said, "I noticed that the last 5 miles of your route is on roads you have not traveled before. Would you like turn-by-turn directions for the last 5 miles?"

chrisseaton 7y ago

> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Presumably this is already factored into route timings?

AlexandrB 7y ago
The time taken might be factored in but: * On busy streets, left turns through uncontrolled intersections can have high variability. So you might be unlucky and get stuck for several minutes waiting to turn. A slower, but more predictable route might be better if you need to arrive on time. * Left turns are simply more stressful than right turns. Saving a minute might not be worth the pain.
- brokensegue 7y ago
  Your variability point extends beyond just left turns. Routes with lots of lights or that cross train tracks have extra variability. If I'm leaving with barely enough time I want directions that have low time variance since I cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the distribution. Other times I'm willing to risk some variance for a shorter expected time.

agency 7y ago

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 because the right lanes were open they would average it to a moderate traffic rating and would always want to route me to get onto the freeway via that shitshow.

cuddlybacon 7y ago
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.

noja 7y ago

> I can't compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map. E.g. driving vs. walking vs. transit. I do this all the time. I click between car, public transport, and walking to see the difference in travel time.

icebraining 7y ago
I'm guessing they'd like to see the three at once.

ghufran_syed 7y ago

On Google maps on mobile, you should be able to touch the volume icon, then pick one of three audio modes, on, off, or one in between where I think it just gives you warnings but not street by street directions (has a speaker with a ! next to it as an icon. But it only shows up when you are actually routing

gregmac 7y ago

In the Google Maps app (both on Android and Android Auto) you can toggle between "Muted", "Alerts only" and "Unmuted". Alerts only is what I almost always use, and it only comes up to warn of congestion (eg "6 minutes of congestion ahead, this is still the fastest route"), accidents, suggested or required detours, etc. The Google Maps android and web apps also let you switch between transportation modes to compare driving, walking, cycling and public transit. You can even change it to "leave at" or "arrive by" for any time of day for any day of the week, and it'll give you a decent idea of trip time. I agree with the other suggestions though, it would be handy to minimize (unprotected) left turns, and optimize travel time. The last one is probably more nuanced than it seems though. For example, I will usually want to go to the grocery store last to minimize the time groceries are sitting in a hot/freezing car, depending on what I'm buying and the weather.

UnfalseDesign 7y ago
Though Google Maps does have that handy ability to switch to "Alerts Only" (as does Waze), I agree that it still has a lot of room for improvement. For example, if I'm headed to a new location where I need turn-by-turn directions, I want them turned on. However, I do not need them for getting out of my subdivision. I wish there was a way to have "Alerts Only" for routes I've traveled multiple times and "Unmuted" once Google Maps determines I'm in an area I have not been to before or have only been to a few times.
- gregmac 7y ago
  That's a great idea. It would be really nice if the first direction when leaving your house was something like "Head to hwy 401 and go East".

gbea42d4 7y ago

It's also important for these apps to consider if it's really legally allowed for the current driver of the current vehicle to drive on that street.

celticninja 7y ago
How can an app tell what vehicle it is in and what qualifications the driver has?
- thaeli 7y ago
  Waze has settings for this.
  - dwighttk 7y ago
    do they have "how tall is your rental truck?" I had a friend I helped move and we had to deal with google continually routing us towards low bridges.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      You can buy satnavs with that feature: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/ https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/ and of course, many truck rental companies will also rent you such a sat nav.
      - gbea42d4 7y ago
        Does it work 100% of the time? Is it mathematically disproven, that it won't fail on any occasion? Is it mathematically proven, that every bridge is always appearing in the dataset after it is possible to drive underneath it? Or over it?
        michaelt 7y ago
        No, having a sat nav doesn't obviate the need to be attentive to road signs and the size of your vehicle. No map data supplier warrants that their data is free from errors, and even if they did the data could be out-of-date within hours as roads are being built all the time. There is no proof - mathematical or otherwise - a sat nav won't switch off if you fail to plug it in. Neither is there any proof a bridge won't be closed due to roadworks, an accident, or other reasons.

chillingeffect 7y ago

Not sure if everyone knows about this, but if you click on the headlines on this website, like "Google Maps Hacks," in this case, there's an article there. Most of us are using the comment space in this forum to discuss what's in the articles behind each of the headlines. It's a really great forum for doing this because there are many bright people close to the tech discussed. For example, it sounds like you've got some experience with the tech, so I'm curious what your thoughts would be on the content in the article behind this headline.

James_Henry 7y ago
This sort of comment section you are commenting about is par for the course. Check out n-gate.com for some back-to-earth commentary on it all.

herenorthere 7y ago

>There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Woah, I've never heard anyone else mention this problem. It sounds strange having it said "out loud" because I thought it was just a weird personal quirk/irritation of mine. I have always wished there was a route option of "easy mode driving," or "no pressure route." Often the "quickest" route google maps shows me is one that has some sort of difficult turn across multiple lanes going the other direction into a "suicide lane" or what have you. Either that, of some sort of merging is necessary where you're basically at the mercy of other drivers letting you in (especially tough if you're not an aggressive driver like myself). Honestly, some maneuvers give me a lot of anxiety, like when I'm on a very busy two lane road (no middle lane) and google is telling me to turn left, so I have to sit there with my blinker on feeling terrible for pissing off all the drivers that are now pilling up behind me, while I anxiously wait for an opening. Unless Im late for something important, I'd gladly go 5 minutes or more out of my way not to experience that kind of driving pressure/social anxiety. I have a moderate anxiety disorder so I know this might not be normal. But you're absolutely right! I suppose it does in fact boil down to just having a route option with "no left turns" -- I had never thought of it that way. That's such a simple way to solve 95% of the problem. ---- Edit: a left turn lane, with a green left turn light is totally fine. Edit 2: For the handful of caring but misguided people scrutinizing my aversion for left turns: >Federal data have shown that 53.1 percent of crossing-path crashes involve left turns, but only 5.7 percent involve right turns. sauce: 2001 - Analysis of Crossing Path Crashes - NHTSA

Okkef 7y ago
Have you considered taking some driving lessons to become more assertive in traffic? You don't need to feel this way for a left-hand turn.
- herenorthere 7y ago
  I just get some social anxiety when people back up behind me, or anytime I feel like my driving is "imposing" on others. I know it's somewhat irrational. But I doubt a driving lesson would help with my more general problem of social anxiety. Anyway, I'd rather be this type of driver than an overly dense person who doesn't mind backing up traffic. The type of people that will go sideways blocking four lanes coming out of a gas station to get to the turn lane... I learned to drive in a "defensive" manner. Yes, sometimes non-action can be more dangerous in a specific situation; but feeling bad about backing up traffic doesn't make me a bad driver. Just an socially anxious one. I agree though, in the original comment, I probably made it sound worse than it actually is for me. I just wish google maps had this option. I would find driving more pleasant. Edit: I made some edits, to clear up my response

thaeli 7y ago

I often do multi-destination optimization manually on Google Maps desktop. It's practical to solve the small-n travelling salesman problem through manual brute force, it should be doable automatically.

kccqzy 7y ago

> 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". I've turned off voice navigation altogether. It's just not necessary in most cases. Just take a minute or two before departure to actually read the map and the route, if you are not pressed for time. It also gives you much better spatial awareness of where you are going and how you are going there.

dehrmann 7y ago
I check map apps for my best commute option a lot. My gripe is that for each leg of my commute, there are about 3 or 4 options, and I know how to drive all of them, but turn-by-turn insists on explaining it. What I want is a summary when I head out, and possibly an update at decision points. I just have no idea how to make an app (or an interface) for that.
- kccqzy 7y ago
  I think turning off voice navigation will help. You simply drive each leg on your own and glance at the navigation screen at the decision points.
abraxas 7y ago
I just say "OK, Google stop navigating"

dwrodri 7y ago

IIRC, minimizing left turns was a massive cost-saving measure for UPS (or was it FedEx?) back when consumer-facing GPS systems were becoming commonplace.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

every 7y ago

I tend to avoid uncontrolled left hand turns into traffic like the plague. I will gladly make 3 right hand turns to avoid the stress...

delusional 7y ago

I've often thought it would be fun to have a "novel navigate" option, where instead of just picking the fastest route it would try and pick a route that is somehow interesting, or that I haven't been on. I find it pretty boring to drive the same route over and over, and I'd gladly spend another 15 minutes if it means I get a more interesting route.

fit2rule 7y ago

My personal pet peeve: using the wrong language for the region. So, I'm a native English speaker - but I'm driving around Germany. Give me the names of the streets in German only - NOPE. Still can't find any way to fix this issue. Its terribly annoying.

JCharante 7y ago
What do the English equivalents look like? I do the same in Vietnam but I'd rather hear the proper pronounciation rather than a butchered one.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  When a German street name is synthesised using English settings, its a proper butchering. Just not good at all. I want the instructions in English - but I want the place-names in the native language. This is the only sensible way, yet none of the Maps vendors seem to have understood this. Do they not use their products?
- iggldiggl 7y ago
  Semi-related anecdote: A few years ago, for a while Google Maps insisted on labelling White City (in London) as "White Stadt" and the M25 as "Autoroute brittanique M25" (and not just for French users).

neurostimulant 7y ago

> I realize this is describing the travelling salesman problem, but for small (<=4) n it should not be too difficult while still being useful in practice. Google actually already has an api that does exactly this called Google OR-Tools[1]. They could totally build this feature into google map if they want. [1] https://developers.google.com/optimization/ https://developers.google.com/optimization/

fcbrooklyn 7y ago

Another feature I want is "money is no object mode" when travelling around new york city. Sometimes it's fastest to take the subway, sometimes it's fastest to take a Lyft/Uber, but sometimes it's fastest to take the subway part of the way, and then take an uber from there. This last situation is really tough to figure out by hand with the existing tools.

InitialLastName 7y ago
Here you go: https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york-city/uber-copter/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york-city/uber-copter/ I promise it's almost always the fastest (I knew someone who had corporate access to it for big clients).
mayniac 7y ago
Citymapper does this. It sometimes works in London: the app supports NYC but I don't know if either the feature is supported or if it's functional. When you've set your start and destination scroll down and there's a section called "multimodal labs".
benhurmarcel 7y ago
In general there would also be a use for optimizing time vs cost. In all driving apps you either take all tolls or none. It should be possible to optimize cost vs time saved, taking some tolls (which gain you enough time to justify their cost), but not all.

0xffff2 7y ago

>* There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Waze has precisely this option.

leppr 7y ago

> Multi-destination route optimization is not available. OsmAnd+ on F-Droid[1] has this feature, although the UX isn't stellar. Add intermediate destinations to your itinerary then the Edit next to intermediate destinations > Sort > Door-to-door. [1] https://f-droid.org/app/net.osmand.plus https://f-droid.org/app/net.osmand.plus

dfinninger 7y ago

> there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" Apple Maps (at least in CarPlay) has a "tap for ETA" feature. It collapses the navigation block and only leaves the blue (yellow, red) line on the map and an estimated ETA at the bottom. I use this daily during my commute where I passively want to know if there's some traffic up ahead, but don't need help to know where I am going. It's not automatic (e.g. Geo-fence setting), but it is just one tap.

jimmaswell 7y ago

I can usually just find an acceptably easier route (less bad left turns) picking one of the given alternatives.

foepys 7y ago

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.

dwild 7y ago
> 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.

keyanp 7y ago

> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns Any decent road routing engine does take into consideration a "turn penalty" and makes left turns more costly then right, among other things. E.g. see the Valhalla docs (Mapbox's routing engine): > Turn type - whether the turn is a left turn, right turn, or is crossing another road. The cost applied to the turn type also needs to know if driving is done on the left side or right side of the road. While left turns are generally more costly in the US than right turns, the opposite holds in UK. https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/blob/716fd6e99ab6f271b606c20ea64adcd856d83f8b/docs/sif/dynamic-costing.md https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/blob/716fd6e99ab6f271b6... OSRM also does this, but slightly differently: https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/wiki/Traffic#turn-penalty-data https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/wiki/Traffic#tu... --- With routing applications there are many configurable parameters, rather than providing too many options and risking overwhelming the user some of these things are simply baked into the ETA calculation.

Razengan 7y ago

> apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. Almost all of the “major” popular apps are mediocre, with simple bugs and missing functionality or bad design for years, despite user complaints and requests. Maps, Translate, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram, Instagram, Discord, Tinder, OKCupid, and even most of Apple’s own stuff. It’s like they fired all but one developer after they became popular.

RileyJames 7y ago

Or, I know there is a faster way, but I want to go via this road. The number of times I’ve patiently entered multiple points to force a certain route, only to have it ‘optimise’ it for me, on route, without a clear notification, is incredibly frustrating. It’s not always about the destination, sometimes it’s about the journey. And no, I don’t care that it’s 7 minutes slower!!

sigmonsays 7y ago
the best is the complicated left turn on a busy intersection to save a 1 minute. Litearlly, the other route is a minute longer. It seems like a clash of computers versus reality. The reasons a route is optimal is still not known to a gps system.

bootsbootsboots 7y ago

Honestly i'd love a simplest route option, with minimal turns, especially for areas i dont know well. I'm ok if my driving route takes 5 min longer if I dont have to take a left turn on that 4 lane road, or the weird y intersection, or the very quick left turn followed immediately by the right turn that requires getting across 3 lanes of traffic

ssss11 7y ago

The left turn (or in my case in Australia, right turn) problem is huge and my biggest issue with google maps (and I expect the others are the same but I don’t use any others). I don’t want to take a backstreet only to pop out at the freeway where I need to turn over 6 lanes with no lights.... I feel it’s getting worse, it’s like google maps is trying to get trickier about where it sends you but the outcome for me seems to be getting worse.

Thorentis 7y ago

Like others, I'm glad to see somebody else has noticed the turn issue with navigation. Minimising difficult turns (left/right depending on where you are in the world) across multiple lanes would be fantastic. Many a time I've need to navigate somewhere fast, so even if I could've found my own way there I'll use Gmaps to find the "quickest" router around traffic, etc. Sometimes it works great, others I find I'm having to make a difficult turn across 4 lanes of traffic on both sides of the road, and I'm stuck there in peak hour for 5 mins waiting for a break. Google only optimised for distance and traffic I was in. (I.e. The traffic on both the roads was fast moving, but entering the fast moving traffic took a long time). Optimising only for the speed of traveling in traffic as opposed to entering it (from a turn) can cause this. Another pet peeve of mine, is if you're doing a long distance road trip, you sometimes want to see where the next stop could be. That is, you haven't planned it, but your destination is set to somewhere 7 hours away and you'd like to stop within the next hour. There's no easy way to see where a good place could be. I want a "road trip" mode where you can bring up something a bit like those road side signs that tell you the distance to the next 5 towns or whatever. So on your phone you tap an info button, and get distance and time to the next x townships that are on your route or a short detour away.

jzwinck 7y ago
Microsoft Streets & Trips had this feature around 1997. It also had the feature your parent asked for where it would optimize a route with more than two locations (travelling salesman). Yes, 1997, so you needed a laptop in your car and a person other than the driver to operate it, but it worked.
bradknowles 7y ago
There used to be an app for this exact problem. I think it was called “Up Next”, and it looked at your direction of travel and what was known to be on or near the road, within a given set distance. They made a point of having all the information from all the road signs in their database, and knowing exactly what was available at which exit, which direction you’d have to turn when you got off, and how far you’d have to drive after the exit. When my wife and I did more road trips, we used to make quite a lot of use of that one. Not sure whatever happened to it, but I haven’t used it for years.

madeofpalk 7y ago

> There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. I use Google Maps for cycling directions, and I get frustrated that I can't tell it to avoid big roads.

toper-centage 7y ago

Google has recently started to tip its toes in something I've been wanting for so many years: mixing transit and cycling. But it's still mostly useless. For now Google suggests I cycle to the train and then take the train and then change to the subwat, and then walk the rest of the way. But what I want is to take my bike _inside_ the train with me, commute only in transit that allows bikes, and then bike the last mile.

Liskni_si 7y ago

> Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. There are some hidden gems out there. I've been using Locus Map Pro (Android app) for all my cycling and geocaching needs for the last few years, and some of the things you mention do have solutions in it. The app is not at all beginner-friendly, there's like a million various options and functions, but if you're willing to spend time configuring it, usually you can have it do whatever you want. > I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area When planning a route, it's possible to choose whether to generate navigation instructions, and this can be chosen for any part of the route separately. It's also possible to delete individual nav instructions or manually add new ones. > I can't compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map The route can be saved and then shown/hidden on the map, and there's probably no limit on how many routes can be shown. Color and line width is configurable, too. But yeah, it will be quite a manual process, unfortunately. > There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns I think that if the navigation engine is switched to BRouter, it's possible to assign different weights to left/right turns. But I have to admit that tweaking these parameters is too much even for me. At this point it's also worth mentioning that it only uses OSM routing engines (GraphHopper, BRouter, YOURS), so it can't take traffic into account. Which is fine for my needs (cycling), as I'd rather see the Strava heatmap (and I can!) than live traffic data. :-) (I'm not affiliated with the project but I do use it a lot and have built an add-on against their API, so I'm a huge fanboy.)

rsync 7y ago

" ... 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".

mwcampbell 7y ago
About pausing media playback versus fading down the audio, on iOS, this is controlled completely by the OS, but on Android, it's up to the media player. There's an audiobook player for Android called Smart Audiobook Player that does pause its playback when something else cuts in. For me, this usually happens when I do something that makes the TalkBack screen reader [1] speak while playing an audiobook. [1]: I'm legally blind.

specialist 7y ago

* Side trips, eg find coffee then resume main trip.