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Catching Satnav Errors On Google Street View
Barence writes "Most of the satnav companies allow users to report errors with their maps, but do they ever get fixed? PC Pro's Paul Ockenden uses Google StreetView to highlight glaring and dangerous flaws in Tele Atlas maps — which are used by TomTom and Google Maps itself — but the company has failed to respond to numerous reports of map errors posted over the course of several years. 'About half a mile from where I live, a Tele Atlas-based satnav will instruct you to turn off at a junction where there's only an on-ramp,' Ockenden reports. 'I've witnessed some confused and dangerous driving at this junction as people try to find the non-existent exit, so I wouldn't be surprised if major mapping errors like this are a danger to road safety.'"
Drive Southbound on Route 3 in MA with a route in your GPS that has you headed South on I-495, and you'll be presented with three routes that tell you to get off Route 3 well before I-495 despite the fact there's a perfectly good direct ramp there.
How'd this happen? Your GPS is pre-programmed with the "fact" that that offramp is constantly backed up and therefore you should seek alternate routes. However, that's absolutely not true. How'd this mistaken info get there? Residents of the area intentionally caused traffic disruptions on the days years ago when GPS mapping companies were in the area so that people would be routed further away from their homes. The trick worked, and the mistaken info remains on the maps.
There's got to be a better way to confirm the existence or non-existence of such must-avoid intersections.
The original GPS maps were confirmed by Google-like driving of every road in the nation with a GPS enabled vehicle that recorded where it was and the fact that there was in fact a road there. Now, with the ability to build 2-way communication GPSes, why can't maps be generated by "I didn't know there was a road there... what's the name of the road you used there?" interactions that upload the results to a central server? This would be a great way to map the private roads many people use to connect from the public street to an office or mall.
A great new ice cream place opened up a few years ago on the far side of a field that's behind the neighbor's houses that I can see out my window. Now, here's the problem... Google Maps keeps putting the restaurant icon on the wrong side of the field, leading people who are looking for the ice cream place to drive up my residential street looking lost. Plot the icon on the satellite map, and you'd think it's a shed behind a house... nope that's not right.
And make your own maps with open street map
...there is no sig...
That's why I always like to use the satellite photos on Google Maps, to make sure that access roads on the map are actually there. Streetview helps too, especially since the map doesn't indicate whether an intersection with a major road has a full traffic light, or if I'll be stuck on a dinky little road trying to turn onto a six-lane highway with my view blocked by overgrown bushes.
'About half a mile from where I live, a Tele Atlas-based satnav will instruct you to turn off at a junction where there's only an on-ramp,'
FYI: That moderately sloped grassy area along most on-ramps is commonly known as an "alternate off ramp".
When google maps first came to australia, i decided to have a look at the route from my wife's (then gf) house to my house. It mapped out a route that instructed me to drive off a bridge into a street below the bridge as the "shortest" route.
In subsequent versions of that map it was corrected.
Here is what i would like to see. More options in planning trips. What is the safest route that avoids, for instance, single lane mountain roads or highways with no median. Or how can I get from a to b without going through neighborhoods. Google lets you change your path, but you must know what the conditions are like before hand. This would be very expensive to implement, but would differentiate better than celebrity voices.
There is also a next step for creative companies.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Because cars are not driven by computer, any driver that is remotely conscious of his surroundings would be able to spot the difficulty with trying to utilize paths that are clearly not intended for anyone to utilize.
And any driver who is liable to cause an accident because of this sort of thing is likely already a public menace for driving without due care and attention in the first place, so I do not think that this creates any significantly additional opportunity for traffic accidents beyond what already exists.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
TomTom looks at you as a dangerous crowsource-er.
Google has highly credible drivers and TomTom has uhhh me...
Thats why I want to build a site called lets say, "streetcred", showing who the heck I am.
Then all my online contributions will be measured for correctness...
Shamless plug.
Add speed limits in your area project.
BTW, you can only use Google-Street-view N times per day. They know people like you want to "mine" their data
(Lincoln MA Gear Ticks use Google Street View to mine data) and they throttle such activity! Too bad....
Long distance travel is pretty easy; there is ample signage and you rarely have to make more than a few direction decisions along the way. It's dense urban routefinding that's the problem - you can potentially have to remember an incredible serpentine route with a turn every twenty seconds, all sorts of special-case turn restrictions, and no signs pointing the way to the specific place you're headed to.
Back when I used Delorme Street Atlas to navigate (Version 5 at the time, I think) it once told me to take a sharp right down a boat ramp and drive across the Mississippi to the other side. Fortunately it was daylight when it happened; I wondered at the time what might have happened if it was nighttime and foggy.
Street Atlas for years had a bad habit of directing me in rural areas to take abandoned (or dismantled) bridges and Level 3 service roads (think cow path with less maintenance.) I don't know if it ever got better or even if it's still around, I gave up on it some years back.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
Driver: Hm, where is my turn...
Michael Dorn GPS: Prepare to turn right.
Driver: But there's no exit here....
GPS: Accelerate to ramming speed.
Driver: Good thing I took the Prius...
GPS: Today is a good day to die!
That's why I like and use Waze for my smartphone. Free client available for many GPS-enabled smartphones, free up-to-the-minute traffic, automatically reroutes you to avoid that traffic, routes you the quickest way at any given time. You can log into the web server and fix any map problems yourself if you like, or simply flag problems and an 'area manager' will get to it when they can if you're in an area that already has area managers. You can even create maps from scratch if you don't have a basemap available in your area, which is exactly what many people have done in many countries all over the world. In some cases you have to hang in there until critical mass is reached, but in many places that time has already come and gone and Waze is working wonderfully. Definitely worth checking out. I don't drive anywhere without it, literally, as you never know when it'll save you some time. And sometimes a LOT of time.
Go read the documentation on openstreetmaps.org. Map companies put incorrect data in there on purpose to detect and prevent copying. This is why someone at OSM didn't just write a script to copy the whole thing at once, and why their maps have to be created manually.
These directions used to tell you to turn right at 7th street, then left at G street. The street view left hand turn into the chain link fence and non-existent road was particularly hilarious but probably not dangerous.
I reported this back in March and checked on it a couple of times, but only just now when I checked was it fixed. So it probably took three months or so for it to be corrected. Probably not too bad considering how big Los Banos is. In this case looking at the satellite view would have saved me a few minutes, as the sat view would have conflicted with the old map that had G St running from 4th through to 7th.
Those colorful paper diagrams your parents used
When I was younger and went hiking quite a lot, I'd save up the extra and buy the cloth maps at inch-to-the-mile scale from Ordinance Survey. They actually weren't much more expensive than the paper maps, but had equal resolution (excellent quality lightweight cloth) and could survive bad weather and bad handling a lot better. I don't recall seeing a cloth map in a very long time.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire