Chaos on German autobahns as Google Maps wrongly says they are closed | Hacker News Reader

Chaos on German autobahns as Google Maps wrongly says they are closed

theguardian.com

42 pointsadoyle17 comments

I am amazed at Googles ineptitude here. Wouldn't you put some kind of warning or notification in place to notice an unusual amount of user reports and turn this feature off if necessary or block it in a specific region?

This is a service which is supposedly responsible for about 11 billion in Googles revenue [1] and apparently has no Spam protection.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-poised-11-billion...

Waze, owned by Google, does this by asking other drivers to confirm reports on the ground. I don't recall Google Maps doing this.

Android auto has incorporated this 'feature' in maps.

I get the feeling these two systems don't talk at all.

I've used GMaps for navigation while on vacation in remote areas and the routing will be completely different than Waze, even when settings are made identical when it comes to time-vs-distance, avoid tolls, etc. Waze is much, much better.

I use maps from android auto. I have never had Waze. I get requests on my screen to confirm an obstacle, a traffic jam or a police speed check is still there. I'm not claiming it is shared code, just shsred 'features'.

Google Maps does this in the US. But I've heard that it has different features in different places.

> Chaos on German autobahns as Google Maps wrongly says they are closed ... and some people cannot use their brains and have to rely on Google to do it for them.

If the task is to create fastest route between German cities avoiding current and future traffic and also avoid road closures. How would you use your brain to solve it in reasonable time?

Because that isn't actually the task. you don't need the fastest, just "good enough".

So you'll pick the major highways and follow any detour signage like you would have in the old days.

In the area where I live traffic planners have shored up all the inefficiencies that led to those apps saving you time in the past. Road diets. Right turn only out of side streets with a hardened median preventing a left or straight route. Speed bumps. Downright punitive light cycle timing (I’ve seen almost 5 minutes before). You often fare far worse in fact taking those labyrinthine google maps/waze circuits through these residential side streets and shed time just sticking on the major arterials and highways.

If google maps told you a main road was closed, would your first instinct be to suspect that google maps is lying to you for the first time since you started using it? I'd sooner suspect a meteor landed on the road.

Especially as Thursday (the day this happened) is a public holiday in Germany, where bigger projects that require a complete closing of the highway (e.g. demolition of an old bridge) are often done to impact traffic as little as possible.

i don't use Google Maps for guidance. Google Maps was never built to do this. It was added as a "feature", but still does not work well, for the data it collects.

Was the chaos on the Autobahn? The article say it was on alternate routes. Was the Autobahn blessed with light traffic as a result?

Yes, as clearly stated in the linked article.

Missed that "traffic was mostly flowing freely". Thanks.

iPhones only. For a brief, shining moment, there was an Android-free Autobahn. Express lanes to the Apple Store.

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