Why did Google’s traffic maps suddenly start to suck?
Last month I noticed Atlanta area live traffic suddenly started showing large gaps on my iPhone. Before, the I-85 south of Atlanta would be all green most of the time, or there would be gray areas which I presumed to mean there was no data available. It was easy to pick out slow areas because they would appear yellow as usual.
Now, Atlanta live traffic is almost totally small sections of green with large areas of nothing at all. This display problem is occurring on both my iPhone and on my desktop, so it seems to be a problem with Google Maps. For interstates, this is really a problem because it’s difficult to tell if it’s the yellow color of the interstate, or a slow area.
Here are two images taken at nearly the same time of approximately the same area. First is the iPhone version, second is the desktop version. Check the gaps, especially in the desktop version:
Atlanta’s not the only area. I noticed the same problem in NYC and Miami.
Here’s a pic of Atlanta from last year, courtesy DigitalEarthBlog. Notice the non-gappiness!
I posted this on Google’s forum (which somehow looks very derelict), and did get a response from another user. He says that Apple has confirmed it’s a problem with Google data.
Come on Google, people use this daily on their commute! Please don’t suck!
Mickey
I was wondering about the same thing myself. I use the traffic data quite a bit, and the gaps have been driving me crazy. Good to know it’s a problem and not a weird new “feature” (and therefore it’ll be fixed), but it’s frustrating in the meantime.
Woody
Wow, thanks for stopping by Mickey! Maybe if you blog this on your site, we can get enough coverage for Google to notice and fix the problem!
BTW, your site is great!