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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.
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
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'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".
Apps that do just that are starting to appear...Check out Waze if you haven't seen it yet. They've built entire country maps from scratch with their client (they started with a base map first in the U.S.)
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.
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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'
Thats how Navtaq got their data. Google used to use Navteq, which for where I lived provided very accurate and up to date data. Ever since they switched to Teleatlas, it was a step backwards. The maps are outdated (changes from 2-3 years ago aren't present), and there are glaring errors everywhere. Mind you, I live in an area that hasn't changed much in the past 20 years, these errors shouldn't be there to begin with.
Then there are the routing errors. There is an intersection around the corner from me that Google thinks one can't make a left turn at (you can). So Google routes you straight through the intersection, makes the first possible u-turn, then back tracks to the intersection to turn right.... yeah... really.
Sadly, the only nice thing about switching to Teleatlas is that it added block numbering to the maps which is handy in urban areas. It also added TOO MUCH information, like obscure/outdated names for parkland, and internal reference numbers for roadways maintained by the state (ex: the Garden State Parkway is known internally by the state as Route 444, it is not posted on the highway itself). All this added information just leads to driver confusion as its really not relevant for navigation purposes
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.
They certainly use it to update their own maps. The line for my street rain through my back yard before we got streetview (probably 200 yards south of where it was supposed to be), now its right on top of the asphalt where it belongs.
I would bet their updating their one-ways and lane assignments (turn only/HOV/ect) as well.
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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.