First previewed for a very limited group of users in August of last year, Google Maps is making toll estimation on your routes official and available to everyone. In addition, users will begin to see enhanced navigation details, perfect for those who are traveling on certain roads for the first time.
For tolls, Google will take a lot of factors into account. As explained in its blog post, “We look at factors like the cost of using a toll pass or other payment methods, what the day of the week it is, along with how much the toll is expected to cost at the specific time you’ll be crossing it.” To start, this information will be available for nearly 2,000 toll roads across the globe. And of course, should a toll-free option be available for your journey, Maps will let you know.
Added navigational details are also being included in the coming weeks, such as improved locations for stop signs and traffic lights. In select cities, Google is even going so far as to include medians and islands, painting a very clear picture of the road in front of you on your navigation screen.
Be on the lookout for these changes coming to your Google Maps app shortly.
Google still provides eta and route alternatives as if I were an HOV driver. Driving eta for regular driver is grossly underestimated in the bar Area in NorCal.
What I really want is a method to avoid a certain bridge, there’s a bridge near me that costs $9 to cross, but another one just north up the river that is free that only adds on like 10-15 minutes from where I live and another one to the south that’s only $5 that doesn’t add much time either. From either of those I can connect to the toll road that I don’t mind using so the “no tolls” option doesn’t work as it would also eliminate that part as well so what I end up doing most times is having to manually add stops that are along the route to either of the other bridges and comparing the time/mileage to see which is better but it would just be easier if I could see routes that eliminated the bridge I don’t want but left all the other toll roads in tact.
It’s a step in the right direction with told, but what I would really like to see are route options for segments of my trip instead of just tolls or no tolls. This would be useful for places with lots of tolls and lots of traffic. For example, right now it will tell me I can take the fastest route for $10 in tolls, but I can take an alternative route with no tolls for 30 minutes longer. But what if I just avoid the next toll but then get back on the fastest route? What I want to know s something like save $5 for 6 minutes longer at various decision points. Then I can evaluate how much I value time vs savings deepening on my time constraints and realtime traffic.
Google felt the heat coming from Apple Maps. It comes at the right time because I stopped using Google Maps when Apple Maps introduced traffic lights and stop signs and thought it was neat, now Apple has the incident report in their app. Will return to Google Maps since that was the only feature I that made me switch to the Apple side aside for now incident reports which I’m sure Google will implement. We love competition!
We have incident reports in Google maps navigation with the phone, its just not present on the android auto infotainment interface (arguably the most important place for it nowadays).
I thought only Waze had it cause I never noticed GM had crowdsource reports like that. Good to know and I agree it should be integrated in Android Auto but…
It’s possible incident reporting isn’t available on iPhone (which I suspect you’re using based on the ability to use Apple Maps). But it came to the android version of the app probably close to 2 years ago now.
I use both an iPhone(13 Pro) and Android(S22 U).
These are my two devices as well! Guess I’m an obsessive phone nerd with too little sense.
“…to include medians and islands, painting a very clear picture of the road in front of you on your navigation screen.”
Ridiculous. You are supposed to be looking out ahead on the road as you drive, not at a screen. Google Maps is great for navigation but stop signs and medians are unnecessary in the app. Pay attention to your driving and not head down into a screen. As far as tolls, be better if Google fixed it so we could pay by phone.
Disagree, when you’re in a dense city with lots of intersections really close to each other, it’s nice to see your turn comes up before/at/after a light or sign, since not all streets are clearly marked or may appear blocked by nature or other structures. Hopefully these will be integrated into Assistant voice directions too
Marked medians can prevent heading the wrong way on a split road in dark conditions.
No one I’ve ever seen use google maps drives staring at the screen. If you’re doing that, then definitely throw it out.
The tolls thing: You think Google has any influence whatsoever with every local jurisdiction in the world to enable Google Pay at tolls?
I agree with him that they should have tried to integrate paying tolls through the app, but there are a lot of logistical issues to work out for that to work well first. I seriously doubt the tollway authorities wouldn’t want this since this has the potential to decrease unpaid tolls and it increases the accessibility of the roadway, encouraging more more people to use the road (more $$$). So the tollways would probably really like this feature and would help getting this integrated. But yeah, the rest of his comment is just simply wrong. Distracted driving is obviously bad, but a good driver uses this information appropriately which is safer for everyone.
It would be a monstrous challenge to work with every jurisdiction to make this happen. Plus, we’re talking about government-run tolls. It would be years, even decades to standardize something like this country-wide, even more so world-wide. Unpaid tolls result in fines higher than the cost of the toll, or even prosecution, resulting in expensive citations, so there isn’t much of an incentive to change this.
Maps is such a crazy-good app, and getting better all the time, I gotta hand it to G on this product. I use the new-ish fuel economy indicator all the time.
Now this is a good and useful update! I hope this works similarly to Apple Maps where it says things like “turn right at the next stop sign” etc. The only big thing still missing is being able to do incident reporting through android auto on the infotainment screen.
Yeah, I hope they add all of this to be viewed while using Android Auto. It’s one of the things that I missed during my brief time on iOS.
“The only big thing still missing is…”
The ability to specify vehicle type, dimensions, weight, etc, and route accordingly. Not every vehicle on the road is a passenger vehicle that can use roads without restriction. Bridges and some roads have weight limits, width/height limits, and/or commercial vehicle restrictions – all of which can impact recommended routes. I’m not saying such a feature should be free – only that lack of it makes Google Maps unsafe to use for many vehicles on the road.
That’s a good idea that I haven’t really thought much of. I think most people operate standard passenger vehicles that can go on pretty much any road (at least in the US). So I am thinking this kind of feature would be more targeted for truck drivers and RV drivers. But you are right, they should also add that feature. I feel like it wouldn’t be too hard for Google to get the roadway classifications right from the DOTs and bake that into the feature you are describing. Will they do it though? Doubtful. Google’s been on their own trajectory these last few years and as far as I can tell, almost never take user feedback into consideration anymore.