Comments on: How Google Maps Live Traffic Works: Crowdsourcing

By: Gabriel Lehto

Gabriel Lehto — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0000

Awesome!! This really genial!
Here in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo this service works fantastically well! Actually brazilians (paulistas) have almost 2 cel per person (there are 210million cels here)… so I think it turns this system even better!

By: Hank

Hank — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:16:00 +0000

I would be interested to see a response to that – how do they filter out foot traffic?

By: Hank

Hank — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:16:00 +0000

I would be interested to see a response to that – how do they filter out foot traffic?

By: Hank

Hank — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:16:00 +0000

I would be interested to see a response to that – how do they filter out foot traffic?

By: Tnc

Tnc — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:38:00 +0000

I had the same query while stuck in traffic this morning. Upon getting on the highway from Verdun, google maps instructed me to take a different highway route, which I ignored. Sure enough, I stumbled on a road block on once I got off and drove on Notre Dame, and began googling how gmaps was able to source this information.

I was never aware until now that the color coding on the streets corresponded to traffic conditions. I will pay more attention to it from now on.

By: condorcounter

condorcounter — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:31:14 +0000

So this is great! However what if you are a pedestrian? A cyclist? On the bus or train in a dedicated lane or next to a highway/road?

It does seem it needs a fair number of people to make it effective, only a few roads in Ottawa (like the Queensway) ever show traffic. And Riverside Drive near Smyth often shows red, even though it is almost empty. Is it because Google thinks the speed limit is 80 or 100 and it is only 60?

By: condorcounter

condorcounter — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:31:14 +0000

So this is great! However what if you are a pedestrian? A cyclist? On the bus or train in a dedicated lane or next to a highway/road?

By: Mr. Speedy

Mr. Speedy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:28:05 +0000

You're welcomed iPhone Fan!

BTW, my friend "bgrier" wrote an article on the Future Shop Tech Blog, which he contributes to, about crowdsourcing after I sent him the Google Blog post link. Check it out at http://www.futureshopforums.ca/t5/Tech-Blog/Who...

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:05:53 +0000

The blog also says “the iPhone Maps application, however, does not support traffic crowdsourcing” so I guess you're not contributing as much as you'd like. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that 'crowdsourcing' is just one source of data combined with other more traditional data sources (probe vehicles, traffic detectors, etc.).

By: Kai

Kai — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:32:42 +0000

Yeah, I do this often… It's a design flaw but I'm sure they have an algorithm that weighs faster moving traffic and lower number of data more heavily than lots of slow moving signals.