Comments on: Google Maps Now Suggests Alternate Routes

By: Ryan Ray

Ryan Ray — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:46:31 +0000

Exactly!! This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. If it were only available on the iPhone now .

By: joelpt

joelpt — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:34:25 +0000

It would be cool to see that kind of data put to use in optimizing traffic signal timing.

By: Purvesh

Purvesh — Mon, 25 May 2009 04:13:59 +0000

Google is doing great!! they are making our lives easier everyday…being new in NJ/NY area i often use the drag n drop of alternate route, and avoid tolls, etc. now, the alternate routes feature really makes it almost perfect!! love google maps…

By: free online games for kids

free online games for kids — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:17:56 +0000

Yup, that would be a useful feature to have – to track traffic jams etc. It’d be nice if they could include suggested routes for public transport as well – I tried it, but doesn’t seem to be able to provide suggestions. I’d usually have to go to the public transport providers’ sites to get what I need.

By: Jon Link

Jon Link — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:43:49 +0000

I don’t get it… This is really old news.

By: Bill Sheppard

Bill Sheppard — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:31:55 +0000

We don’t need sensors on every corner, we just need to feed back information from the cell phones already on the streets to see how fast they’re moving. Nokia already has a pilot project to do this, but you have to be running the app – would work much better if Google could link up with one or more of the carriers and obtain the information directly (and anonymously).

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:48:51 +0000

We built a mapping mashup using Google’s mapping API to calculate the cost of driving based on fuel prices at the origin and likely refueling points along the route (www.cost2drive.com)

Be nice if they include this functionality in the free mapping API so people can compare fuel costs as well as distance and time.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:01:38 +0000

People still use MapQuest?

By: Michelle Blum

Michelle Blum — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:40:25 +0000

Does this mean it would reroute me around traffic now? Cuz yesterday google maps put me right in the middle of some bad Portland traffic. That would be a cool feature.

By: Craig Agranoff

Sat, 23 May 2009 13:34:50 +0000

this is a pretty cool feature, as during our last #pizzatweetup from http://www.worstpizza.com the place was on the map wrong, and everyone seemed to get lost.

By: Andrew D. Smith

Sat, 23 May 2009 13:24:36 +0000

I would love to see Google go one step further with this and explicitly compare the costs — in both tolls and car expenses — as well as the time. Such a feature wouldn’t add much in the vast swaths of the country where toll roads don’t exist, but it would be a handy addition for toll-heavy parts of the country.

By: this long

this long — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:50:53 +0000

oh, this is supposed to be new. anybody working in field should have known, long back.

By: Basic Functionality Is Still Too Much Functionality « The Divine Blurb

Basic Functionality Is Still Too Much Functionality « The Divine Blurb — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:52:52 +0000

[...] Maps today released a feature to suggest alternate routes more than 4 years after its initial debut. Not taking into [...]

By: The Divine Blurb

The Divine Blurb — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:59:13 +0000

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By: Waldo

Waldo — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:01:23 +0000

Hopefully the suggested alternative route will be better than the alternative routes that I get from my rental car’s GPS. Last month, while in LA, it wanted (err… more like demanded) me to go over 100 miles (not a typo +100 miles) to avoid a 5 mile back up.

By: Nael El Shawwa

Nael El Shawwa — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:48:56 +0000

Really cool. To me Google Apps are the standards I compare my work to when designing usable intuitive applications. Since we are on the topic of routing, check out this cool demo of custom routing. Ever wanted to route through a building? across a parking lot? or even between buildings? http://www.googlemapsdev.com/

Great for university campus maps!

By: courtney benson

courtney benson — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:47:05 +0000

Great idea, ur so right on. I can’t think of anyone who drives who would not want this. Let’s see who get’s there first.

By: Hezi

Hezi — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:09:20 +0000

some may disagree, but the truth is i really like google tools.

By: Clayton

Clayton — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:01:11 +0000

Google maps has literally changed my life. It’s so easy to use, and they keep making it more intuitive. I want to make love to Google.

I hope they add this to public transit. Sometimes it has alternate options based on departure time, but often times they suggest a route that is not “informed.” I live in Chicago and it will often favor buses, but I know from experience that if part of your trip can be on an el train it’s better to take the el train. I’d like to be able to nudge it that direction so it can fill in the gaps with buses.

By: noobssss

noobssss — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:47:50 +0000

that is soooo old news.. that has been happening for over half a year…

By: Falafulu Fisi

Falafulu Fisi — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:28:29 +0000

I think that Google is using OR (Operations Research) techniques for this capability. Such route finding optimization is available from ILOG (an IBM company), where they have been world leader in the domain of OR softwares for many years (still today). I think that the next revolution in route finding optimization arrives, when there are sensors installed on corners of every street, so that so that the status of the traffic can be relayed back to the software to be included as a variable in the optimization task. There is no point in suggesting a shorter route from A to B in which the traffic is heavy/slow, whereas an alternative route A --> C --> D --> B is much longer (distancewise) but there is hardly any traffic (ie, it is almost empty). So, it would be much faster to take A --> C --> D --> B rather than A --> B. ILOG can handle these types of multivariable optimizations.

By: Daniel Adams

Fri, 22 May 2009 22:21:03 +0000

Google is just too clever, they update make so many services and they always make new so many new features!

By: James Stark

Fri, 22 May 2009 22:12:09 +0000

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