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A fair number of HN takes are snark and critique I think these days, it's a bit more reddit now? I think folks underestimate just HOW MUCH data google maps has

A fair number of HN takes are snark and critique I think these days, it's a bit more reddit now? I think folks underestimate just HOW MUCH data google maps has and how many users it has, and the integration / scale is impressive particularly as some parts of the system are real time. They seem to update both street view and satellite data pretty frequently, and you can go back in time in sat vie as well, so we have a geo and time dimension now. When I do routing I can route by walking, transit, driving etc. It seems to know every train / bus route and stop and even schedule. It seems to have most businesses. With street view I can zoom from space to a street and see a storefront. This is stuff the CIA spends $20 billion on and gets a crappy product only 3 users at a time can use in a room.

durnygbur 5y ago
> When I do routing I can route by walking, transit, driving etc. It seems to know every train / bus route and stop and even schedule. Not only that but they seem to route through the "most popular" or "most attended routes" crowdsourced by their unaware users. Meanwhile others just calculate the "best time" or "shortest path" routing.
- eythian 5y ago
  I've wondered about this. I sometimes use it for biking if I'm going to an unfamiliar part of the city, and its biking directions sometimes end up a bit weird, like taking a path that, while slightly shorter, is a bit more uncomfortable (crossing somewhere with busy traffic for example.) I've also noticed that it doesn't know about many easy to cross places that everyone uses and will suggest a longer route to an "official" U-turnable spot. So, for the sections of the route I know I often ignore its directions and go my preferred way and just let it catch up. Assuming that many other people around here are making the same choices as me (perhaps a big assumption in some cases, definitely not all), it still has kept recommending the less-preferred routes.
- sdoering 5y ago
  One thing I regularly encounter is a typical "Tragedy of the Commons" problem with Google Maps. When they do route me, they often tend to route me through residential areas (in Germany these are often traffic reduced areas with respective speed limits). I imagine it is, because these routes tend to be very slightly shorter and often also at least a few seconds shorter in average duration. I tend to use these "Schleichwege" (short cuts only locals know) as a local - but find me using them more and more when I use Google Maps in areas that i am just not familiar with. In bigger cities I (anecdotally) see Google routing lots of traffic through these areas that were before mostly quite with only a few locals using them as short cuts. Now many more people are being routed through to combat the typical road congestion and for google to be able to mostly avoid traffic jams for the users. When considering, that residential streets are not build to encounter this much traffic, they tend to degrade quicker - making the situation even worse for people living there. I do not have a solution - or even made my mind up what to finally think about this. But this is one "data" point more for me to consider when thinking about costs and benefits to society from such a solution like Google Maps.
  - lucumo 5y ago
    In The Netherlands these shortcuts are usually removed or made less attractive. For example, closing a street halfway, so people can still reach both ends, but can't pass through. Or they build a retractable bollard that will delay traffic during high traffic hours. The delay is just long enough that using the shortcut takes longer than just using the main road.
    - sdoering 5y ago
      I would actually love solutions like these. But sadly oftentimes they are not put into place even when the residents fight for it. Additionally the costs of such measures are afterwards invoiced to the residents in most municipalities as they are allowed to have the residents pay for work on the infrastructure. I remember my father and our whole street fighting (including a court case) against the city because they wanted to rebuild the street at the bottleneck (there was a mud path connecting our street to another one leading to the highway. The neighbors feared a massive traffic increase (and rightly so). They lost. The city connected the residential area with the other street. And to add insult to injury afterwards all residents had to cover the costs of this measure.
- slownews45 5y ago
  The routing has gotten a bit worse I think. On a drive I do a fair bit it has me do an unprotected left onto a busy 4 lane road with a blind approach from the right. Miserable. If it kept me on the other main road 10 seconds longer I'd be merging at a light. There is new "fuel efficient" and other modes - I've wondered if this is throwing it off somehow.
foxfluff 5y ago
On the contrary, I see gmaps having map and satellite data that has been and still is out of date for years now. OSM has much more detailed data and is up to date here. So I really don't see what's so impressive about gmaps. The only major advantage they have is the ability to scoop up data from users, as well as the network effects that lead to people posting their photos and other stuff on Google. As always, I'd rather have all map data be free & open. It's not cool that all this effort is concentrated in the hands of one company who can do whatever they want and prevent you from doing cool & useful things with the data. Crowdsourced data should belong to the crowd.

durnygbur 5y ago

> When I do routing I can route by walking, transit, driving etc. It seems to know every train / bus route and stop and even schedule. Not only that but they seem to route through the "most popular" or "most attended routes" crowdsourced by their unaware users. Meanwhile others just calculate the "best time" or "shortest path" routing.

eythian 5y ago
I've wondered about this. I sometimes use it for biking if I'm going to an unfamiliar part of the city, and its biking directions sometimes end up a bit weird, like taking a path that, while slightly shorter, is a bit more uncomfortable (crossing somewhere with busy traffic for example.) I've also noticed that it doesn't know about many easy to cross places that everyone uses and will suggest a longer route to an "official" U-turnable spot. So, for the sections of the route I know I often ignore its directions and go my preferred way and just let it catch up. Assuming that many other people around here are making the same choices as me (perhaps a big assumption in some cases, definitely not all), it still has kept recommending the less-preferred routes.
sdoering 5y ago
One thing I regularly encounter is a typical "Tragedy of the Commons" problem with Google Maps. When they do route me, they often tend to route me through residential areas (in Germany these are often traffic reduced areas with respective speed limits). I imagine it is, because these routes tend to be very slightly shorter and often also at least a few seconds shorter in average duration. I tend to use these "Schleichwege" (short cuts only locals know) as a local - but find me using them more and more when I use Google Maps in areas that i am just not familiar with. In bigger cities I (anecdotally) see Google routing lots of traffic through these areas that were before mostly quite with only a few locals using them as short cuts. Now many more people are being routed through to combat the typical road congestion and for google to be able to mostly avoid traffic jams for the users. When considering, that residential streets are not build to encounter this much traffic, they tend to degrade quicker - making the situation even worse for people living there. I do not have a solution - or even made my mind up what to finally think about this. But this is one "data" point more for me to consider when thinking about costs and benefits to society from such a solution like Google Maps.
- lucumo 5y ago
  In The Netherlands these shortcuts are usually removed or made less attractive. For example, closing a street halfway, so people can still reach both ends, but can't pass through. Or they build a retractable bollard that will delay traffic during high traffic hours. The delay is just long enough that using the shortcut takes longer than just using the main road.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    I would actually love solutions like these. But sadly oftentimes they are not put into place even when the residents fight for it. Additionally the costs of such measures are afterwards invoiced to the residents in most municipalities as they are allowed to have the residents pay for work on the infrastructure. I remember my father and our whole street fighting (including a court case) against the city because they wanted to rebuild the street at the bottleneck (there was a mud path connecting our street to another one leading to the highway. The neighbors feared a massive traffic increase (and rightly so). They lost. The city connected the residential area with the other street. And to add insult to injury afterwards all residents had to cover the costs of this measure.
slownews45 5y ago
The routing has gotten a bit worse I think. On a drive I do a fair bit it has me do an unprotected left onto a busy 4 lane road with a blind approach from the right. Miserable. If it kept me on the other main road 10 seconds longer I'd be merging at a light. There is new "fuel efficient" and other modes - I've wondered if this is throwing it off somehow.

foxfluff 5y ago

On the contrary, I see gmaps having map and satellite data that has been and still is out of date for years now. OSM has much more detailed data and is up to date here. So I really don't see what's so impressive about gmaps. The only major advantage they have is the ability to scoop up data from users, as well as the network effects that lead to people posting their photos and other stuff on Google. As always, I'd rather have all map data be free & open. It's not cool that all this effort is concentrated in the hands of one company who can do whatever they want and prevent you from doing cool & useful things with the data. Crowdsourced data should belong to the crowd.