Hey, this was going to be a paid sponsorship, however, I decided just to post the link because I think it's a great idea. City Smart Toys is an urbanist parent's dream, with great educational toys for kids to learn about how a city should be designed. I particularly liked the Urban Play Mat, which is the car free version of something certainly enjoyed as a kid. Check it out at the link below and be sure to read the video description for access to my Patreon and Instagram! citysmarttoys.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqlfMvV2r9mmgd0lJ6UNqoyJ-Ask2ptzULFdqq3MfUtKl_t0ERa
What a excellent showcase of how something we use and take for granted can shape our perspective on transportation. Most of these problems never came to mind for me. The first about parking is seemingly the most obvious but we even ignore this issue when talking about how "convenient" driving is. Well done! I hope we don't have to wait long for the next video ;)
The feature that I want is a mode that shows all transit lines and stops prominently, as if they were the main roads. Frequently I don't want to go to a specific place so much as I want to go to type of place. I want to be able to see at a glance where I can get to easily by public transportation.
For me it would already be enough if it would be possible to switch the lines on. But even that is not possible, if you activate the public transport-layer it just shows rail-networks in big cities. Why not show every bus line? The information is there, but could not be shown. And it is also triggers me, that motorways are shown as the backbone of a country, while train lines are just these ultra thin grey lines no one ever sees.
this is why i try to map public transport on OpenStreetMap, if people make sure to keep their areas up to date that is to my knowledge the only way to get a good overview of all the public transport available.
Not sure if that's actually true but I feel that putting cars first and public transport and railroads especially as second or latter is caused by how this works in the US. Comparing to most European countries the US has no reasonable public transport nor good railroad connections for people.
@@BobbyBike unfortunately quite possible. I've found openstreetmap has really good walking and biking maps, and the public transit map seems to be good in theory but in my city at least it's terrible
It seems to be hit and miss. A few days ago I saw a bike as a mixed mode. Today, I don't see the option anymore and the bike directions were downgraded.
Google Maps genuinely never suggests I take my local train line. There is a bus service that runs parallel, and it's faster to the nearest city by like 3-5 minutes, which is presumably why Maps prefers it. However, the train is scheduled to have good connections at said city, with a nice and comfortable cross platform transfer. The bus' schedule is offset by half an hour, which means connections include a half an hour wait, but Maps suggests it every time.
It's possible google doesn't know it is a cross-platform transfer, and looks at the 2 minute connection time and decides you can't make that connection. Would be better if google showed risky routes with tight connections as options, whilst warning you that they might not work.
@@MrRobket Weirdly, the connection time is 10 minutes. The second train begins and ends at that station, so it's already there when you arrive, waiting out its buffer time.
What i often see happenings with google maps is that it routes bikes in the same way as cars. I.e. drive out of the blok to the main road and then enter the block again. But with a bike or pedestrian the more ideal routeis to avoid the main road ad take a small parallel road with less cars, crosslights and nicer views. The only way i found to force google to do it is to plan a route with points of interests in between. Often this also matches the 'bike routes' in my country.
I agree with many of these points, but I have a few personal pet-peeves. 1. Low-contrast color scheme. I find Open Street Map does a much better job on this. 2. It keeps messing with my zoom level when I search for places. Fine if I search for a country, zoom out to show the whole country, but if I search for e.g. restaurants I will have already positioned and zoomed the map to the area I'm interested in. This is possibly my biggest annoyance with the app. I keeps trying to 'help' me in ways that I find very unhelpful. Ok, turns out they had fixed 2 of my 4 pet-peeves. They were: mode to show cycling paths more prominently (again, don't like the color choices) and the map overlay button not being available when you've selected a destination without deselecting it (now I can swipe down and it'll be shown).
the low contrast used to be even worse. They had to roll back an update because you literally couldn't make out the streets on high brightness screens.
Recently Google maps has been going "eh, close enough" and taking me to outright wrong addresses - fully saying "you've arrived" and showing some random unit nearby. I reported this over and over - in my state, where you are allowed to defend your property with lethal force if someone walks in, this is a potentially life-ending bug. Some realtor out there is gonna walk into the wrong house and get shot because of Google Maps. I've reported it over and over for months - no response from Google.
Great video, you touched on a lot of frustrations that I’ve been ranting to my friends about lately. I love your point about how car directions don’t include parking time factored in. I think it also creates a sense of entitlement with drivers - the app says they’ll make it at a certain time, but when they have to spend and extra 15 minutes parking and walking to their destination they arrive late and feel like the city is “intentionally” making it hard for them to drive.
In my metro area, and in many metro area's I've visited across the US (SLC, D.C, Chicago, St Louis), the Transit app is by far the best and most consistent option I have found, with good multi-modal directions, updates from service providers, accurate timetables, live tracking that works with transit agencies' software, while also having the fallback of tracking other app users' locations. While it does not address the issue of allowing comparison between driving and converting non-transit users, it is a true competitor to Google Maps for anyone even willing to consider alternative modes
Important and insightful video! I've never been particularly fond of Google Maps but I've never even realised some of the concerns raised here. With all platforms being more or less sucky I often end up using Google Maps, Openstreetmap and a local route planner all for the same trip. Not really the optimal state. Also love me some Baden, it's fun to go "wait a minute, I know that place" at every second shot
Yeah, I grew up using maps but mostly as a driver. It was always better than Apple Maps and so I never thought about it, until I started using the train/biking more. I wanted to walk about Open Street and some of the other transit apps, but that's sadly would've made the video too long. And yes, haha, I am based in Heidelberg so I mostly get footage here. That said, I hope you say some shots from other parts of DE/World as well 😁.
Yeah, I just sincerely wish that it was better and that I did not need a third party app. I want also that normal non urbanists can interact better with our transit systems.
Something really important Google Maps lacks is the ability to define roads that have restrictions that only apply to specific vehicles, say bus only etc, especially if it's just in one direction. There's a road in my town where one direction is restricted to buses only, but it's marked on Google Maps as being a one-way street in the opposite direction, so a bus driver (for example a rail replacement bus driver) not local to the area using directions will be routed a much longer route through town because Google Maps doesn't know it's a bus and _can_ actually use that road. This also has the effect of a rather confusing route when the transport company tries to use Google Maps's APIs to show a bus route on their website using an embedded map, it shows an incorrect route because it's plotting the route as if it's a car and so it can't take this section of bus-only road.
I use Google Earth a lot, and something that bothers me is it used to have county lines but got rid of them for no reason. It also used to let you check boxes for what types of places have their labels show up, but now it's just one single toggle for all place labels
what tech companies need to understand is that we dont need time estimations for transit that is not important!!! I need arrival times at the stop FIRST and foremost!!!!
What a great idea for cities marking parking spots. This data is also readily usable from Open Maps. 🙂 This will set realistic expectations for directions for drivers and reduce the need to drive around looking for parking areas. Also, your parking walk idea is already implemented but just for bikeshare programs so this should be really easily to implement since a lot of parking data is already available.
My biggest problem with google maps, when looking for transport times is that even though I am standing on a bus stop, Google decides to calculate walking to the next stop and taking the same bus from there. This usually adds 10-15 minutes to the trip for no reason and shows either the next connection or the connection after that. This did happen in multiple cities within Europe, but usually only on 1 or 2 days. We should be able to set a walking pace. For example, if I need to change between metro lines, Google thinks the change takes 4 minutes and thus suggests the next connection. However, if i would walk waster, i can reach it within 2 minutes, either catching the earlier train or even earlier bus. In case of a bus, the trips can somehow shrink from 40 minutes, to 25, just because I switched faster between metro and then between the bus and caught the earlier connection both times.
Just to back you up, I'm in Birmingham England and while GM is fantastic for driving (albeit there's the odd error about where destination entrances are, and you need to do your own research into where you can park) it's quite unreliable for the buses. It appears accurate until you discover that it hasn't picked up on a detour or moved bus stop, for example. And if you can't trust it, you won't use it.
There are maps other than from google. Some are even free, but almost all are significantly better than google maps. Google has slept through the times, it seems to me that they don't invest in developing their software at all anymore and most of it is very outdated and bad.
interesting as here in the Netherlands you can notice that Google does still invest in there maps system. Bit to be far quite often Google and other tech companies quite often use the Netherlands as a test location. the combination of a very dense cyber network, a lot of different type of transport use, people willing to test them out in daily use. does help.
I think google should add a feature to search for a parking lot. Based on other users they can maybe even calculate where they are most likely to find a parking lot. They could also say at some point you should look out for a parking lot and they send you through streets that have parking lots and not to your destination
I've found that Google Maps on mobile does not make it easy to access bus routes in my area. They are there, but I have to click into several menus then not back out of those menus and deal with a tiny screen to actually see the routes. It makes the tracking app infinitely better than Google Maps, but the tracking app feels like Google Maps from 10 years ago, not designed for use by one hand, for instance.
so often it'll say smth like 45 minutes for me - despite living a 7 minute walk from a 12 minute train. because the train doesn't leave for another 26 minutes... like.. that's not the travel time tho is it??
Seems the mix-mode thing is partly region locked. Here in the UK, I've only got a car connection options that sucks bc I'd love to see the festiblity of biking to the train to get to town over the bus. I'd never thought about the car parking part, it seems obvious in retrospect. I'd love to see Maps improved to be realistic to encourage modal shift.
Yeah, it's a super strange feature. I wonder if they're testing it or if they think it's not ready for primetime? I used to have my bike on the train daily. It was so damn efficient and I never had to worry about waiting for a bus. And yes, parking absolutely needs to be included because right now driving looks wayyy too fast compared to other modes. Anyways, thanks for the comment... Cheers!
I've found some particularly bad examples of this in London (UK), especially if your best option via public transit involves switching to / from Thameslink.
it's funny that in some cases Google does seem to test new solutions/features quite often here in he Netherlands. So there .nl version of Maps does quite often have them but you do not see them outside of the Netherlands. It's not just Google but quite often the tech industrie uses the Dutch mobile market as a open test lab. It's not perfect but you do see that they are testing out the feature. So maybe there is hope. It might help that they have a good competition that are also doing the same.
This does not match my experience in New York at all. I don't see phantom trips listed for the bus and train routes that I use; and delays are marked right next to the originally-scheduled arrival time.
If lack of parking was visible on Google Maps that might cause a raucous in some towns, like mine (Halifax, Nova Scotia) where they like to ignore the issue, preferring to support the 2% who use bikes instead of car drivers. (2% is probably generous, it's probably more like .5% at most, even kids don't ride bikes anymore since helmet laws were introduced)
Moovit is often better than Google Maps for public transit in many places. As an OpenStreetMap contributor, I can say that integrating this information from what the agencies publish is often laborious, so it tends to become outdated. Transit agencies will not make it easier for apps other than their own unless required by law.
Where I live the areas are better mapped with open street map, though google maps is still decent. It can be a big issue as to devoting all resources to just one provider, say Google Maps in this case. People use other apps like Apple Maps or Waze, and say if you're visiting a country like China, I bet Google Maps is pretty useless. Wondering if there is a way to use (or find) the map that is the most comprehensive in a given area and provide a good navigation provider. For me this would be using Open Street Map for biking with Google Maps navigation would be great.
The multimodal option for me only uses biking for the first leg, which is pretty pointless for me (15 minutes walking to the transit hub) and just like the car option ignores parking. Still for getting into the city this might be helpful. I recently used a bike-train-bike option, which I couldn't even get it to use - but to be honest that's probably a bit obscure, as one of the bike trips was 40 minutes. About real-time data: That's something, even the DB app fails on regularly, while the local transit agency (in my case HVV) has the data in their app - ironically even on trains run by DB…
Bike routing isn't much better: Google doesn't understand the concept of "30 km/h zones", which Google Maps avoids, even over riding on a fast main road without a bike lane. And in rural areas, it does complete nonsense like sending you though the forest, because there is no data if any path is even usable by bike. Just tried a tour I've done several times: The first option is okay, but a bit longer than needed. The second is a suicide mission (riding on a road with 7000 cars and no bike lane), which should also currently be closed for reconstruction (bike lane will follow next year). And the third is an attempt at the "shortest route", but randomly uses forest trails, while avoiding official bike routes - a more intelligent version of that is, what I am currently using.
Hey, danke für deine Comment! Was du sagst mit die 'first leg' ist für mich auch ein Problem. Google entscheidet wann ich Multimod benutzen kann, und das geht nicht. Sorry, dein English ist viel besser als mein Deutsch aber ich muss auch üben :). I hope that made sense.
I know that in my home town (Leipzig) it's the cities fault, that google maps shows wrong public transit information, since the city doesn't give google the data so that everyone has to use the L Move App
It's not always perfect for driving, either. I tried to plot a long road trip, and it only let me add six stopping points. I need to figure out an alternative to map out my trip, and I'm toying with the idea of going analog.
For problem 1, it should be helpful to point out where heavy traffic can / can't go and / or park / stop, but don't think that ever happens, because there are very rarely signs on the road already for heavy traffic. For problem 6, yes, you didn't show issue 6, but what about (wheelchair) accessibility? There is a way to sort of indicate this, but not fully, to be fair, the different transport autorities don't always know themself what's accessible tough.
OK. I've never seen a mixed-mode option, so I went and looked, and ... it's not there. Neither on mobile nor on PC. On the other hand, I'm pretty much exclusively using maps for city public transport; it's almost flawless in my experience, certainly better than other apps have been for me.
Google maps has become such trash. I like how it randomly reroutes you without asking permission or continually asks permission even as you deny it over and over. Google, it's fine, I'll driver for 3 extra minutes to save a $12 toll. I love how you literally cannot get it to avoid parkways which you can't legally drive on in certain vehicles. Or how it just refuses to route you certain ways even when it's quicker.
"maps tells you what it thinks is the best route." This is all modern UI and it's trash - I hate it. Before like 2006 or so, the philosophy was, give the user as many options and as much power as possible. Now it's take away as much as you can from the user and only allow them to do what you want. Even typing these days literally makes people dumber through extremely limited vocabulary and interfaces. Funny thing is, no dev tools work this way.
The video’s title is misleading. It shows all the reasons why Goggle Maps is not accurate. It does NOT show how to fix Google Maps for example by changing settings etc. Please change the title.
who invented this fetish for saying "biking" instead of "cycling"? is it just a deliberate "FU" to motorbikes? that's what I think of every time I head "biking". It's not how people naturally speak of cycling where I am and sounds like a bit of slur or something :P
Hey, this was going to be a paid sponsorship, however, I decided just to post the link because I think it's a great idea. City Smart Toys is an urbanist parent's dream, with great educational toys for kids to learn about how a city should be designed. I particularly liked the Urban Play Mat, which is the car free version of something certainly enjoyed as a kid. Check it out at the link below and be sure to read the video description for access to my Patreon and Instagram! citysmarttoys.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqlfMvV2r9mmgd0lJ6UNqoyJ-Ask2ptzULFdqq3MfUtKl_t0ERa
What a excellent showcase of how something we use and take for granted can shape our perspective on transportation.
Most of these problems never came to mind for me. The first about parking is seemingly the most obvious but we even ignore this issue when talking about how "convenient" driving is.
Well done! I hope we don't have to wait long for the next video ;)
Hey, thanks for the comment! And yes, I'll try to get the next one out sooner... 😁
The feature that I want is a mode that shows all transit lines and stops prominently, as if they were the main roads. Frequently I don't want to go to a specific place so much as I want to go to type of place. I want to be able to see at a glance where I can get to easily by public transportation.
For me it would already be enough if it would be possible to switch the lines on. But even that is not possible, if you activate the public transport-layer it just shows rail-networks in big cities. Why not show every bus line? The information is there, but could not be shown.
And it is also triggers me, that motorways are shown as the backbone of a country, while train lines are just these ultra thin grey lines no one ever sees.
this is why i try to map public transport on OpenStreetMap, if people make sure to keep their areas up to date that is to my knowledge the only way to get a good overview of all the public transport available.
Same, sometimes it also makes it easier to see what transit I can take when going to a specific location
Not sure if that's actually true but I feel that putting cars first and public transport and railroads especially as second or latter is caused by how this works in the US. Comparing to most European countries the US has no reasonable public transport nor good railroad connections for people.
@@BobbyBike unfortunately quite possible.
I've found openstreetmap has really good walking and biking maps, and the public transit map seems to be good in theory but in my city at least it's terrible
Just wanted to add to this, that Google Maps has generally a lack of mapped walking or biking paths further degrading the routing.
Good to know that Google Maps has the option for mixed trips. This is such an important feature.
Haha, if that's the one takeaway from this I'll be happy!
It seems to be hit and miss. A few days ago I saw a bike as a mixed mode. Today, I don't see the option anymore and the bike directions were downgraded.
Google Maps genuinely never suggests I take my local train line. There is a bus service that runs parallel, and it's faster to the nearest city by like 3-5 minutes, which is presumably why Maps prefers it. However, the train is scheduled to have good connections at said city, with a nice and comfortable cross platform transfer. The bus' schedule is offset by half an hour, which means connections include a half an hour wait, but Maps suggests it every time.
It's possible google doesn't know it is a cross-platform transfer, and looks at the 2 minute connection time and decides you can't make that connection. Would be better if google showed risky routes with tight connections as options, whilst warning you that they might not work.
@@MrRobket Weirdly, the connection time is 10 minutes. The second train begins and ends at that station, so it's already there when you arrive, waiting out its buffer time.
What i often see happenings with google maps is that it routes bikes in the same way as cars. I.e. drive out of the blok to the main road and then enter the block again.
But with a bike or pedestrian the more ideal routeis to avoid the main road ad take a small parallel road with less cars, crosslights and nicer views.
The only way i found to force google to do it is to plan a route with points of interests in between. Often this also matches the 'bike routes' in my country.
I agree with many of these points, but I have a few personal pet-peeves. 1. Low-contrast color scheme. I find Open Street Map does a much better job on this. 2. It keeps messing with my zoom level when I search for places. Fine if I search for a country, zoom out to show the whole country, but if I search for e.g. restaurants I will have already positioned and zoomed the map to the area I'm interested in. This is possibly my biggest annoyance with the app. I keeps trying to 'help' me in ways that I find very unhelpful.
Ok, turns out they had fixed 2 of my 4 pet-peeves. They were: mode to show cycling paths more prominently (again, don't like the color choices) and the map overlay button not being available when you've selected a destination without deselecting it (now I can swipe down and it'll be shown).
the low contrast used to be even worse. They had to roll back an update because you literally couldn't make out the streets on high brightness screens.
Great video. Maybe in a future video you can discuss how open source projects like Openstreetmap might be good future alternatives?
Recently Google maps has been going "eh, close enough" and taking me to outright wrong addresses - fully saying "you've arrived" and showing some random unit nearby. I reported this over and over - in my state, where you are allowed to defend your property with lethal force if someone walks in, this is a potentially life-ending bug. Some realtor out there is gonna walk into the wrong house and get shot because of Google Maps. I've reported it over and over for months - no response from Google.
Great video, you touched on a lot of frustrations that I’ve been ranting to my friends about lately.
I love your point about how car directions don’t include parking time factored in. I think it also creates a sense of entitlement with drivers - the app says they’ll make it at a certain time, but when they have to spend and extra 15 minutes parking and walking to their destination they arrive late and feel like the city is “intentionally” making it hard for them to drive.
In my metro area, and in many metro area's I've visited across the US (SLC, D.C, Chicago, St Louis), the Transit app is by far the best and most consistent option I have found, with good multi-modal directions, updates from service providers, accurate timetables, live tracking that works with transit agencies' software, while also having the fallback of tracking other app users' locations. While it does not address the issue of allowing comparison between driving and converting non-transit users, it is a true competitor to Google Maps for anyone even willing to consider alternative modes
Google maps told me to walk across a river when looking at transit routes from NJ to NYC.
There was no bridge.
Important and insightful video!
I've never been particularly fond of Google Maps but I've never even realised some of the concerns raised here. With all platforms being more or less sucky I often end up using Google Maps, Openstreetmap and a local route planner all for the same trip. Not really the optimal state.
Also love me some Baden, it's fun to go "wait a minute, I know that place" at every second shot
Yeah, I grew up using maps but mostly as a driver. It was always better than Apple Maps and so I never thought about it, until I started using the train/biking more. I wanted to walk about Open Street and some of the other transit apps, but that's sadly would've made the video too long. And yes, haha, I am based in Heidelberg so I mostly get footage here. That said, I hope you say some shots from other parts of DE/World as well 😁.
Dude we would love to have you over at OpenStreetMap
I still like Google Maps a lot more than other maps, but you are right that it is horrible for transit
Yeah, I just sincerely wish that it was better and that I did not need a third party app. I want also that normal non urbanists can interact better with our transit systems.
Something really important Google Maps lacks is the ability to define roads that have restrictions that only apply to specific vehicles, say bus only etc, especially if it's just in one direction. There's a road in my town where one direction is restricted to buses only, but it's marked on Google Maps as being a one-way street in the opposite direction, so a bus driver (for example a rail replacement bus driver) not local to the area using directions will be routed a much longer route through town because Google Maps doesn't know it's a bus and _can_ actually use that road. This also has the effect of a rather confusing route when the transport company tries to use Google Maps's APIs to show a bus route on their website using an embedded map, it shows an incorrect route because it's plotting the route as if it's a car and so it can't take this section of bus-only road.
I use Google Earth a lot, and something that bothers me is it used to have county lines but got rid of them for no reason. It also used to let you check boxes for what types of places have their labels show up, but now it's just one single toggle for all place labels
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
what tech companies need to understand is that we dont need time estimations for transit that is not important!!! I need arrival times at the stop FIRST and foremost!!!!
What a great idea for cities marking parking spots. This data is also readily usable from Open Maps. 🙂
This will set realistic expectations for directions for drivers and reduce the need to drive around looking for parking areas.
Also, your parking walk idea is already implemented but just for bikeshare programs so this should be really easily to implement since a lot of parking data is already available.
My biggest problem with google maps, when looking for transport times is that even though I am standing on a bus stop, Google decides to calculate walking to the next stop and taking the same bus from there. This usually adds 10-15 minutes to the trip for no reason and shows either the next connection or the connection after that. This did happen in multiple cities within Europe, but usually only on 1 or 2 days.
We should be able to set a walking pace. For example, if I need to change between metro lines, Google thinks the change takes 4 minutes and thus suggests the next connection. However, if i would walk waster, i can reach it within 2 minutes, either catching the earlier train or even earlier bus. In case of a bus, the trips can somehow shrink from 40 minutes, to 25, just because I switched faster between metro and then between the bus and caught the earlier connection both times.
Just to back you up, I'm in Birmingham England and while GM is fantastic for driving (albeit there's the odd error about where destination entrances are, and you need to do your own research into where you can park) it's quite unreliable for the buses. It appears accurate until you discover that it hasn't picked up on a detour or moved bus stop, for example. And if you can't trust it, you won't use it.
There are maps other than from google. Some are even free, but almost all are significantly better than google maps.
Google has slept through the times, it seems to me that they don't invest in developing their software at all anymore and most of it is very outdated and bad.
interesting as here in the Netherlands you can notice that Google does still invest in there maps system. Bit to be far quite often Google and other tech companies quite often use the Netherlands as a test location.
the combination of a very dense cyber network, a lot of different type of transport use, people willing to test them out in daily use. does help.
I think google should add a feature to search for a parking lot. Based on other users they can maybe even calculate where they are most likely to find a parking lot. They could also say at some point you should look out for a parking lot and they send you through streets that have parking lots and not to your destination
I've found that Google Maps on mobile does not make it easy to access bus routes in my area. They are there, but I have to click into several menus then not back out of those menus and deal with a tiny screen to actually see the routes. It makes the tracking app infinitely better than Google Maps, but the tracking app feels like Google Maps from 10 years ago, not designed for use by one hand, for instance.
so often it'll say smth like 45 minutes for me - despite living a 7 minute walk from a 12 minute train. because the train doesn't leave for another 26 minutes... like.. that's not the travel time tho is it??
I mean that seems like a very useful feature actually
@@onlyontuesdays99 On mobile, maybe. Not so much on desktop where you are likely to be planning a future trip.
Seems the mix-mode thing is partly region locked. Here in the UK, I've only got a car connection options that sucks bc I'd love to see the festiblity of biking to the train to get to town over the bus. I'd never thought about the car parking part, it seems obvious in retrospect. I'd love to see Maps improved to be realistic to encourage modal shift.
Yeah, it's a super strange feature. I wonder if they're testing it or if they think it's not ready for primetime? I used to have my bike on the train daily. It was so damn efficient and I never had to worry about waiting for a bus. And yes, parking absolutely needs to be included because right now driving looks wayyy too fast compared to other modes. Anyways, thanks for the comment... Cheers!
I've found some particularly bad examples of this in London (UK), especially if your best option via public transit involves switching to / from Thameslink.
it's funny that in some cases Google does seem to test new solutions/features quite often here in he Netherlands. So there .nl version of Maps does quite often have them but you do not see them outside of the Netherlands.
It's not just Google but quite often the tech industrie uses the Dutch mobile market as a open test lab. It's not perfect but you do see that they are testing out the feature. So maybe there is hope. It might help that they have a good competition that are also doing the same.
This does not match my experience in New York at all. I don't see phantom trips listed for the bus and train routes that I use; and delays are marked right next to the originally-scheduled arrival time.
If lack of parking was visible on Google Maps that might cause a raucous in some towns, like mine (Halifax, Nova Scotia) where they like to ignore the issue, preferring to support the 2% who use bikes instead of car drivers. (2% is probably generous, it's probably more like .5% at most, even kids don't ride bikes anymore since helmet laws were introduced)
Moovit is often better than Google Maps for public transit in many places. As an OpenStreetMap contributor, I can say that integrating this information from what the agencies publish is often laborious, so it tends to become outdated. Transit agencies will not make it easier for apps other than their own unless required by law.
Where I live the areas are better mapped with open street map, though google maps is still decent. It can be a big issue as to devoting all resources to just one provider, say Google Maps in this case. People use other apps like Apple Maps or Waze, and say if you're visiting a country like China, I bet Google Maps is pretty useless. Wondering if there is a way to use (or find) the map that is the most comprehensive in a given area and provide a good navigation provider. For me this would be using Open Street Map for biking with Google Maps navigation would be great.
The multimodal option for me only uses biking for the first leg, which is pretty pointless for me (15 minutes walking to the transit hub) and just like the car option ignores parking. Still for getting into the city this might be helpful. I recently used a bike-train-bike option, which I couldn't even get it to use - but to be honest that's probably a bit obscure, as one of the bike trips was 40 minutes.
About real-time data: That's something, even the DB app fails on regularly, while the local transit agency (in my case HVV) has the data in their app - ironically even on trains run by DB…
Bike routing isn't much better: Google doesn't understand the concept of "30 km/h zones", which Google Maps avoids, even over riding on a fast main road without a bike lane. And in rural areas, it does complete nonsense like sending you though the forest, because there is no data if any path is even usable by bike.
Just tried a tour I've done several times: The first option is okay, but a bit longer than needed. The second is a suicide mission (riding on a road with 7000 cars and no bike lane), which should also currently be closed for reconstruction (bike lane will follow next year). And the third is an attempt at the "shortest route", but randomly uses forest trails, while avoiding official bike routes - a more intelligent version of that is, what I am currently using.
Hey, danke für deine Comment! Was du sagst mit die 'first leg' ist für mich auch ein Problem. Google entscheidet wann ich Multimod benutzen kann, und das geht nicht. Sorry, dein English ist viel besser als mein Deutsch aber ich muss auch üben :). I hope that made sense.
I know that in my home town (Leipzig) it's the cities fault, that google maps shows wrong public transit information, since the city doesn't give google the data so that everyone has to use the L Move App
It's not always perfect for driving, either. I tried to plot a long road trip, and it only let me add six stopping points. I need to figure out an alternative to map out my trip, and I'm toying with the idea of going analog.
You should become a GeoPup
For problem 1, it should be helpful to point out where heavy traffic can / can't go and / or park / stop, but don't think that ever happens, because there are very rarely signs on the road already for heavy traffic.
For problem 6, yes, you didn't show issue 6, but what about (wheelchair) accessibility? There is a way to sort of indicate this, but not fully, to be fair, the different transport autorities don't always know themself what's accessible tough.
Ever heard of aspect ratio?
OK. I've never seen a mixed-mode option, so I went and looked, and ... it's not there. Neither on mobile nor on PC.
On the other hand, I'm pretty much exclusively using maps for city public transport; it's almost flawless in my experience, certainly better than other apps have been for me.
Google maps has become such trash. I like how it randomly reroutes you without asking permission or continually asks permission even as you deny it over and over. Google, it's fine, I'll driver for 3 extra minutes to save a $12 toll. I love how you literally cannot get it to avoid parkways which you can't legally drive on in certain vehicles. Or how it just refuses to route you certain ways even when it's quicker.
"maps tells you what it thinks is the best route."
This is all modern UI and it's trash - I hate it. Before like 2006 or so, the philosophy was, give the user as many options and as much power as possible. Now it's take away as much as you can from the user and only allow them to do what you want. Even typing these days literally makes people dumber through extremely limited vocabulary and interfaces. Funny thing is, no dev tools work this way.
The video’s title is misleading. It shows all the reasons why Goggle Maps is not accurate. It does NOT show how to fix Google Maps for example by changing settings etc. Please change the title.
He's suggested how google fix their maps, not the user. The title is accurate.
who invented this fetish for saying "biking" instead of "cycling"? is it just a deliberate "FU" to motorbikes? that's what I think of every time I head "biking". It's not how people naturally speak of cycling where I am and sounds like a bit of slur or something :P