Ask HN: Does Google maps command traffic?
We were in the same car having two phones on Google maps. We had the same destination plugged in.
At an intersection the two phones disagreed about the turn. I am wondering whether Google sends people to different routes in order to split the traffic and get everyone home faster.
1 comment
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 13.0 ms ] threadSuppose route H -> D passes through intermediate point I.
In cases where most of my concern is directions for the are local to my destination, I've looked at directions H -> D and known they were crap due to knowing that the portion from I -> D contained poor segments. In those cases, getting directions from I -> D tends to improve the poor segments.
As distance increases the search space for routes increases and I strongly suspect Google limits the amount of computation it runs before returning a result. In other words, the route Google provides for A -> B is not idempotent...as is shown by your anecdote.