Elinor Mills drew a fun (I guess) assignment at CNET: hitting the road to test competing driving directions from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Mapquest. She notes the inconsistencies, and one consistent failing: all four of them are optimistic and unrealistic about how long the trip should take. The test involved local driving in San Francisco, where unpredictable traffic can stretch out a trip. But I have noticed the same thing on longer routes. Recently my wife and I planned a driving trip between New Jersey and North Carolina. It's a 450-mile span, and Mapquest promised to get us there in seven hours plus change. Google and Yahoo! were not as preposterous, but their versions of the trip were also starry-eyed. Why this tendency, I wonder? Is it a marketing ploy—fast directions are good directions? Over time, the tactic merely breeds distrust.
Driving Directions and Unrealistic Timings
Reader Comments
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Carl -- That's true, but driving 60 miles every hour is an unrealistic prediction. The AAA driving club assumes 50 miles for each hour of highway driving, and that's without rest stops. By that standard (which is widely accepted, I think), a 450-mile trip should be predicted to take 9 hours without breaks or traffic jams. Seems like it would be possible to offer a range of time expectation, or alternate timings according to good/bad traffic, impatient/leisurely driving, or other breakdowns.
3. I don't necc. agree with this points. rest stops are one fair thing to factor, but longer stops (as much of my family is wont to take) are another. i know i'm not the norm but even when i drive long routes (Montana to Alabama 2x this summer), the only times i stop in a day are for gas and bathroom visits.
It is reasonable for mapping services to give you the driving time and let your factor in more time for whatever nondriving stops you'll make. Though ticketing has curbed my enthusiasm, I drive a constant 4+ the limit and find all maps services to be conservative in their timing. peace and thanks for the news, though.
4. In contrast to the article, I actually find the Google estimates to be too long. They seem to be using something lik 50-55 mph as the highway average, which is fine for long trips that need gas stops. But for my usual under-60-mile trips, it is about 15-20 mph too slow.
5. Like Scott, I've found not infrequently that Google Maps reports longer-than-realistic driving times. Recently I got directions from one end of the state to the other, a fairly straight shot (i.e. not a complicated route), and Google Maps told me the trip, which ended up taking 5.5 hours, would take 7. Boy was I relieved when I checked MSN Maps and and MapQuest and both gave me a much lower (and more accurate) figure.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jordan Running
6. I actually disagree..... I used to use mapquest alot before GPS and the trip times are usually much longer then the actual trip. I typically drive to Boston from NYC, and Mapquest quotes 3 hours 46 minutes.. That is approx 60mph... In most instances I usually follow traffic, some times over some times under but mostly with traffic... MA has a posted speed limit of 65. It has never taken me longer then 2 hours and 40 minutes.... I don't expect the sites to account for rest stops (which they could not possibly do), but a little more accuracy would be appreciated.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Boris
1. I would think that the site would calculate based on the speed limit of the road. So if the trip is 450 miles in length and the speed limit of the entire road is 60 MPH in theory it would take you 7.5 hours to complete the trip. I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect the driving sites to know traffic patterns. You would have to enter additional information such as time and day of week if you would want that information.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Carl Willis