But I recently moved to a new area, and the logistics of the move required me to get a car. With all the new places to learn, I started leaning on google nav more.

But every time it makes a route for me, it seems like it's fighting against city planners. It will constantly direct me through little 1 way streets through residential neighborhoods if it thinks it can save .1 mile or 30 seconds.

As a concrete example, in my neighborhood the city planners have set up one road as the obvious exit, all the other roads have no lights or restrictions on turns. Navigation never uses that route, and prefers darting across lanes of traffic and turning during times it's not allowed.

My partner and I joke about how many uturns it suggests. There's a route I sometimes take where it suggests I make a 270 degree turn off a highway exit across 4 lanes of traffic.

In short, google drives like an asshole. It makes erratic decisions. And it routes people down roads that aren't meant to carry lots of traffic.

I'm sure there's some counterargument that this kind of navigation is load balancing and more efficient. But to me, I feel it makes things unpredictable and less pleasant to exist in a neighborhood.

is there any consensus on this stuff?

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[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There’s a highway near me with tolled express lanes that google always wants me to use instead of the non-tolled lanes which are often jammed with traffic but the suggestion is near constant even in light or no traffic
google will have me zig zag through side streets and quiet neighborhoods making left and u-turns across traffic instead of just using a perhaps slightly (< 2 minute or < 1km difference) longer but more direct route with 1 or 2 turns

The path / route finding algorithm is usually ok but will excessively choose a complex route over a simple one especially if it has determined it is the shortest by time or distance in absolute terms without looking at which is easiest, something that I’m sure that is hard to factor.

I think there is something to be said about google spreading more and more traffic out of its intended areas. I think I’ve seen in certain areas more enforcement and notices to restrict through-traffic but I don’t know about its effectiveness