I noticed this the other day, I turned my Google Maps GPS on, put in destination. It told me the trip would take 9 hours. I drove ~8-10 over the speed limit, hit almost no traffic, it took a bit under 9 hours.
How does it calculate time? I would have thought going 8 over the limit for 9 hours would have meant I would have gotten back over an hour earlier, no?
In: Technology
Apps like Waze and Google Maps (who bought Waze a few years back) use crowd sourced traffic data. What this means is that it takes the average speed data of everyone that is travelling on that road and using their app. If the average user is speeding, then that is the data it is using to calculate the time it will take.
Before you press “Start” when getting driving directions, Google Maps uses posted speeds and current traffic conditions to calculate trip and arrival time data. It adjusts from there using real-time traffic data and your current speed (which is aggregated with everyone else’s speed to create the traffic condition maps) as you are driving.
How many times did you stop for breaks and fuel? GPS arrival times don’t include any stops. It calculates a straight though trip based on posted speeds.
If going over the speed limit is the norm for a stretch of road Google maps will know, they can calculate to traffic speed regardless of the speed limit.
This is what happens when traffic is moving slower than expected as well.
It has all the data from all phones and cars using its service and knows exactly how long the average drive. Knows there are traffic jams based on peoples phone locatio and them getting tied up. It has been tracking car travel data and with google earth driving on every road taking pictures it has a pretty good database for everything road related
The ETA is also constantly updating – it will not show that you “arrived earlier than expected”.
Latest Answers