The key element is you.' The Washington Post. 'How mapping software gathers and uses traffic information. 'How Google Tracks Traffic.' The Connectivist. 'How Google Builds Its Maps – and What It Means for the Future of Everything.' The Atlantic. 'How Does Google Detect Traffic Congestion?' Houston Chronicle. 'The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data.' Official Google Blog. These real-time reports appear as individual points on Google Maps, with small icons representing things like construction signs, crashed cars or speed cameras. Drivers use the Waze app to report traffic incidents including accidents, disabled vehicles, slowdowns and even speed traps.

With its acquisition of Waze in 2013, Google added a human element to its traffic calculations. If Google Maps doesn't have enough data to estimate the traffic flow for a particular section of road, that section will appear in gray on the traffic layer. Īs more and more drivers use the app, the traffic predictions become more reliable because Google Maps can look at the average speed of cars traveling along the same route without misinterpreting someone's morning coffee stop as a traffic jam. Google Maps continuously combines the data coming in from all the cars on the road and sends it back by way of those colored lines on the traffic layers.

When Android phone users turn on their Google Maps app with GPS location enabled, the phone sends back bits of data, anonymously, to Google that let the company know how fast their cars are moving. īeginning in 2009, Google turned to crowdsourcing to improve the accuracy of its traffic predictions. However, sensor data was largely limited to highways and primary roads because the sensors were typically installed only on the most heavily traveled or traffic-prone routes.

ĭata from these sensors can be used to provide real-time traffic updates, and, once collected, the information becomes part of the pool of historical data used to predict traffic volume on future dates. Using radar, active infrared or laser radar technology, the sensors are able to detect the size and speed of passing vehicles and then wirelessly transmit that information to a server.

Early versions of Google Maps relied only on data from traffic sensors, most of which were installed by government transportation agencies or private companies that specialize in compiling traffic data.

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