Google Nav Checks Traffic?

[masters]

Just realized that Google maps on my Driod checks traffic to see which route is the least congested.

Did not know this..

 

[moot]

I am aware of this feature, but am curious google nav reroutes you to take a less congested route?

 

[Sicko]

It won’t automatically reroute you but if you hit the menu button -> route info -> then press the center icon at the bottom of the screen it will look for other routes and display travel times as tabs on the top of the screen.

It doesn’t seem to pick more than one alternative route but every once in a while it will pick a 3rd. The travel times seem to be pretty accurate. I use it everyday

 

[Aaron636r]

You can see the traffic areas by going to layers and selecting traffic. Great feature and has always been dead on in my area.

 

[Aaron636r]

* Green: more than 50 miles per hour
* Yellow: 25 - 50 miles per hour
* Red: less than 25 miles per hour
* Gray: no data available

 

[strobez395]

My cousins husband works for TomTom and apparently google maps use TomTom's old software and their traffic updating is horrible...just saying what I heard.

 

[jsh1120]

My cousins husband works for TomTom and apparently google maps use TomTom's old software and their traffic updating is horrible...just saying what I heard.

Interesting. Plausible. I'm not surprised that Google is using some third party GPS software. It would be a very large wheel to reinvent. As to whether it's horrible, I doubt Tom Tom characterized it as such when they sold it.

 

[strobez395]

Well TomTom actually switched their technique to traffic updating, its done realtime by users while they drive. Its actually a pretty cool concept. BMW's are using TomTom's new software, and nope I'm sure they didn't classify it as horrible haha he was just explaining to me the gps that the droid is using is veryy behind in technology and he would not suggest relying on it. I drive quite a bit so I took his word, so until they pull some updates on it I'll still have my Garmin running. Although I have been keeping both my Garmin and Droid on for some trips just to compare, its interesting the different routes you're told to take. One of the big problems is that the map data is so out of date, many streets are missing, road names have been changed. With the new GPS' you can look up anywhere and if something is wrong you can send an email and they update it for the next map set they release for download each year. Just some info I was told that i found interesting.

 

[RobertDroid]

Here's a description of how Google gets the traffic info:
Official Google Blog: The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data

 

[moot]

It won’t automatically reroute you but if you hit the menu button -> route info -> then press the center icon at the bottom of the screen it will look for other routes and display travel times as tabs on the top of the screen.

It doesn’t seem to pick more than one alternative route but every once in a while it will pick a 3rd. The travel times seem to be pretty accurate. I use it everyday

Thanks for the reply. Is time to destination reflected from the info. gathered by traffic times?

I don't drive, so I can't check for myself. But I am rather curious!

 

[justbob]

While you're playing with navigation & maps, make sure you hit the "Extras" menu item and play with some of the stuff from Google Labs too. Currently, there's a mileage scale and "Layers" button that I find pretty useful.