Looks like wasting time sitting in traffic is going to be a thing of the past, thanks a recent update to Google Maps Navigation for Android. Now, if you’re driving and there is traffic up ahead, the Google Maps Navigation app will automatically route you around the congested roads. Appropriately, the new feature is called “Route Around.”
Route Around gives drivers the most efficient route, automatically taking real-time traffic into consideration. According to Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of consumer services, “People drive more than 35 million miles a day while being assisted by Google Maps Navigation. The Route Around feature currently saves users two years of drive time every day, or about 12 million miles per year.
Prior to the update, the app had the ability to display traffic information, but you had to manually input an alternate route. Route Around replaces the old method of navigating a driver to a route that was technically the quickest, but didn’t take traffic conditions into consideration.
Google Mobile for Maps recently hit more than 150 million users, adding more than 50 million users since last summer. You get turn-by-turn driving directions, offline maps, and even traffic and weather overlays on your navigation maps all for free. Google Maps has always had driving directions, but by adding Street View and turn-by-turn navigation, it is fast becoming the go-to source for directions.
“Forty percent of all Maps usage is mobile,” Mayer said. In fact, there have been days this year where mobile usage was actually greater than the desktop usage for the application.
For companies looking for a more robust way to increase driving efficiency, the best real-time vehicle tracking system in the industry is FieldLogix. The Google Maps and Garmin navigation interface are the most user-friendly in the market. You can save favorite map views, view real-time traffic, view satellite images, and watch your vehicles as they move throughout the day.