Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Want directions for getting from Point A to Point B? Google can get you there, eventually.

Following up on some of the comments about where to go for my PhD, I reckoned that with location, location, location being everything, it would be wise to figure out where all these places are. One good metric is the trip back home. With Hamilton, Ohio as the destination, I pulled up some driving directions on Google Maps from Charlottesville, VA and Durham, NC.

Through the clever use of screen shots and MS Paint, I have prepared for you an easy illustration of why I hate Google Maps (even though they are my favorite mapping service).

Stupid people like me would assume that a mapping system would return the same directions from one point to another. This would mean that once two paths with identical destinations converge, they would remain together. Obviously I’m not smart enough for those Google folks. It’s better by far to let the little lines converge, diverge, converge, and diverge before finally converging at the end.

To be fair, most of the map services fail my test.

Let’s use the Charlottesville to Hamilton journey as a base for comparison using distance and estimated travel time:

Google: 472 miles, 10 hours 17 minutes
Yahoo: 554 miles, 8 hours 14 minutes
Expedia: 475 miles, 7 hours 54 minutes
Mapquest: 456 miles, 7 hours 39 minutes

Deviate much?

Although I didn’t link to it, there are two other sites worth looking at: maps24.com, and yahoo maps beta. Not that these maps have better directions, but they at least have some better options. The yahoo beta seems to give the same directions as the regular yahoo maps, but the maps are more interactive and allow multiple points to be included in the calculations.

Maps24, which suggested a 526 mile, 8 hour 58 minute route to which I cannot figure out how to link, lets you insert waypoints and average speeds to adapt to different driving styles. It also has very interactive cool maps, except they are buggy as hell and aren’t working right now. What’s more, I’ve gone through and changed my speeds with no resulting change in results. Maps24 is getting the ideas wrong. The implementation is utterly lacking.

Of these 5, I don’t exactly take any of those routes, even though I think I’ve pretty much tried all of them plus others. The Maps24 result is really frustrating because I know I can get point-to-point in about 450 miles and 7 hours.

So, if the folks at google, yahoo, expedia, mapquest, maps24 or anywhere else are listening, here are some suggestions:

1.) Let the user make suggestions. Sometimes I want to pull up specialized directions just so I can send them to someone else. The mapping algorithms can create shortest or fastest routes, but sometimes I need the easiest based on my experience. Similarly, I want to be able to define a route and be told the estimated mileage and travel time.
2.) Google in particular needs to better learn locations. With expedia I can search for a location without an address such as “Clemson University.” That usually generates a list from which I can choose the correct destination. The same goes for airports, arenas, stadiums, and the like. The maps should be able to understand a specific place like “Richmond International Airport.”
3.) Let the map learn from the user. For example, Google says I should make a 472 mile journey in over 10 hours. Barring a major problem, it will take less than 8. Let the system calibrate travel times to my personal experience. Maybe it can even ask questions like “are you driving by yourself and planning to stop every 5 hours, or will there be a woman with a tiny bladder who will make you stop every hour for a potty break?”

In other words, just listen to me and personalize the systems.