google maps

[dieseluser07]

Has anyone ever checked how accurate the google maps journey times are?

I.e. if you plan a route just before you set off so it has all traffic jams etc built in, how accurate is the timing?

[dieseluser07]

Is there any accurate journey planners? The aa says journeys are even longer than google, dont know which one is accurate

[jammy_basturd]

They are generally quite accurate, but then they are based on traffic conditions at the time and assume you'll not be breaking any speed limits.

It's actually quite clever how they work out the times. They gather traffic information based on how many cell phones are travelling along the road and how quickly they are moving.

[dieseluser07]

How come the AA lists journeys as taking longer even though the distance is the same??

[kazste]

My guess, and thats all it is, is how the real time data for busy sections is used. If say google maps take the data but average the time taken for a section of road in the last hour versus the AA who show the real time data without averaging this could make the difference. Neither way imho would be better than the other as the average would show a trend especially if combined with previous days data for the time in question, and the real time version would account for current issues.

Interesting question on how this works i would think a combination of the two approaches would be best but not sure that could easily be implemented.

Not sure ive helped too much here

[blueST]

I use google maps quite a lot and find the journey times quite conservative. I'm a pretty steady driver when travelling for work and, assuming no unplanned incidents, always beat the Google predicted time by a good chunk. Whereas I rarely match the time the sat nav predicts.

[ZesPak]

Maps is brilliant and I find them out to be very accurate. I use them all the time to plan my journeys.
On the computer at least, you can even select the "typical traffic" for a certain day/time.
So you can say: how long will this journey take me on a typical friday morning.

[randlemarcus]

Agree about Maps, but only having 10 directions slots is a pain in the posterior. I had assumed from the use of Classic View and filling in the missing features all the time, that this might have been made clear, but no

Any not hugely expensive, and aimed at fleet manager level, route planners around?