Catching Satnav Errors On Google Street View 312
Barence writes "Most of the satnav companies allow users to report errors with their maps, but do they ever get fixed? PC Pro's Paul Ockenden uses Google StreetView to highlight glaring and dangerous flaws in Tele Atlas maps — which are used by TomTom and Google Maps itself — but the company has failed to respond to numerous reports of map errors posted over the course of several years. 'About half a mile from where I live, a Tele Atlas-based satnav will instruct you to turn off at a junction where there's only an on-ramp,' Ockenden reports. 'I've witnessed some confused and dangerous driving at this junction as people try to find the non-existent exit, so I wouldn't be surprised if major mapping errors like this are a danger to road safety.'"
Data Posioning.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Drive Southbound on Route 3 in MA with a route in your GPS that has you headed South on I-495, and you'll be presented with three routes that tell you to get off Route 3 well before I-495 despite the fact there's a perfectly good direct ramp there.
How'd this happen? Your GPS is pre-programmed with the "fact" that that offramp is constantly backed up and therefore you should seek alternate routes. However, that's absolutely not true. How'd this mistaken info get there? Residents of the area intentionally caused traffic disruptions on the days years ago when GPS mapping companies were in the area so that people would be routed further away from their homes. The trick worked, and the mistaken info remains on the maps.
There's got to be a better way to confirm the existence or non-existence of such must-avoid intersections.
User maps... (Score:4, Interesting)
The original GPS maps were confirmed by Google-like driving of every road in the nation with a GPS enabled vehicle that recorded where it was and the fact that there was in fact a road there. Now, with the ability to build 2-way communication GPSes, why can't maps be generated by "I didn't know there was a road there... what's the name of the road you used there?" interactions that upload the results to a central server? This would be a great way to map the private roads many people use to connect from the public street to an office or mall.
Next step for innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is what i would like to see. More options in planning trips. What is the safest route that avoids, for instance, single lane mountain roads or highways with no median. Or how can I get from a to b without going through neighborhoods. Google lets you change your path, but you must know what the conditions are like before hand. This would be very expensive to implement, but would differentiate better than celebrity voices.
There is also a next step for creative companies.
Re:Data Posioning.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:User maps... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats how Navtaq got their data. Google used to use Navteq, which for where I lived provided very accurate and up to date data. Ever since they switched to Teleatlas, it was a step backwards. The maps are outdated (changes from 2-3 years ago aren't present), and there are glaring errors everywhere. Mind you, I live in an area that hasn't changed much in the past 20 years, these errors shouldn't be there to begin with.
Then there are the routing errors. There is an intersection around the corner from me that Google thinks one can't make a left turn at (you can). So Google routes you straight through the intersection, makes the first possible u-turn, then back tracks to the intersection to turn right.... yeah... really.
Sadly, the only nice thing about switching to Teleatlas is that it added block numbering to the maps which is handy in urban areas. It also added TOO MUCH information, like obscure/outdated names for parkland, and internal reference numbers for roadways maintained by the state (ex: the Garden State Parkway is known internally by the state as Route 444, it is not posted on the highway itself). All this added information just leads to driver confusion as its really not relevant for navigation purposes
crowsourcered (Score:3, Interesting)
Google has highly credible drivers and TomTom has uhhh me...
Thats why I want to build a site called lets say, "streetcred", showing who the heck I am.
Then all my online contributions will be measured for correctness...
Shamless plug.
Add speed limits in your area project. [wikispeedia.org]
BTW, you can only use Google-Street-view N times per day. They know people like you want to "mine" their data
(Lincoln MA Gear Ticks use Google Street View to mine data) [wikipedia.org] and they throttle such activity! Too bad....
Re:Give up on these jokers (Score:2, Interesting)
hahahah
Yea, cause OSM is better than ... well no other data source actually.
OSM data fucking sucks, sorry to burst your bubble. The fact that it was based on data from the fed makes you think it should be somewhat accurate, but the data it uses is old and ridiculously inaccurate and its simply not popular enough to be updated by enough people to have all the bad imported data corrected.
Give it 10 more years, and get some tools for OSM that bring it to the mainstream, OR get Google to switch to it so they devote their mapping data to it and it'll matter.
I'm ALL for it as I've been wanting to use the OSM data for mapping in my own software but its just far too inaccurate and incomplete to be useful.
Tele-atlas and the others use the same data, but pay more people than OSM has contributors to fix their maps and add missing data like one ways, lane counts, speeds and all the other stuffs.
OSM will be a toy until someone like Google or Apple jumps to it after someone like Tele-atlas or navteq tries to rip them off.
I do encourage everyone to contribute corrections to OSM though! The more the marrier!.
Re:Spy satellites for the masses (Score:4, Interesting)
They certainly use it to update their own maps. The line for my street rain through my back yard before we got streetview (probably 200 yards south of where it was supposed to be), now its right on top of the asphalt where it belongs.
I would bet their updating their one-ways and lane assignments (turn only/HOV/ect) as well.
Re:Ah, Android Navigation (Score:4, Interesting)
Back when I used Delorme Street Atlas to navigate (Version 5 at the time, I think) it once told me to take a sharp right down a boat ramp and drive across the Mississippi to the other side. Fortunately it was daylight when it happened; I wondered at the time what might have happened if it was nighttime and foggy.
Street Atlas for years had a bad habit of directing me in rural areas to take abandoned (or dismantled) bridges and Level 3 service roads (think cow path with less maintenance.) I don't know if it ever got better or even if it's still around, I gave up on it some years back.
Re:Data Posioning.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know you were being sarcastic, but just for shits I looked it up and Teleatlas has an office in Concord, MA.
Concord Office
150 Baker Ave Ext
Concord, MA 01742
There's only one explanation: Sabotage!
Skewing the traffic data to make the commute to/from work faster.
Hell, I'd do it.
Re:Ah, Android Navigation (Score:3, Interesting)
Good times.
Re:Data Posioning.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Data Posioning.... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't always count on seeing the loop in every area. By me they put them in the ground before they lay the asphalt so that they can save on costs. But the problem with that method is that not all of the loops are exactly where they should be.
GPS NAV in Korea (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish we had that kind of GPS navigation in the US. *sigh*
Re:User maps... (Score:3, Interesting)
There were obviously using some old public domain data, because a bunch of highways appeared that haven't actually existed for decades.
Re:Swing and a miss... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or start an ice cream shop wherever Google says there is one.
Genius
They're incorrect on purpose (Score:4, Interesting)
Try MotionX on iPhone . . . . (Score:1, Interesting)
After acquiring my iPhone, the thought of using it for car navigation, at least in a pinch, was too good to pass up. Although MotionX charges a fee for turn by turn directions, it works great and with far fewer errors than Tom Tom's maps. I brought it home to Ketchikan, AK where the Tom Tom's maps are useless (big datum error has all roads shifted south quite a ways) and it (Motion X) worked perfectly. I used it in the Pacific Northwest over a period of about a month with nearly perfect results, save for downtown Seattle where, had I not actually known where I was going from having lived there for a few years, it would have steered me pretty far afield.
In any event, it is nice to have for those times when I need directions, but didn't think to bring the Tom Tom along. I just hold the iPhone (in its Otterbox case) high up on the steering wheel with one hand. It keeps my head up and both hands on the wheel. I like the maps as much, actually more, than the Tom Tom map prenentation.
Also, I too tried sending Tom Tom some corrections regarding my Seattle area neighborhood when I lived there. The Tom Tom maps never updated to reflect my (easily verified from a satellite view) suggestions.
Note: I have absolutely no connection to MotionX whatsoever, other than having purchased a retail copy.
Google fixed the error I reported... (Score:4, Interesting)
These directions [google.com] used to tell you to turn right at 7th street, then left at G street. The street view left hand turn into the chain link fence and non-existent road was particularly hilarious but probably not dangerous.
I reported this back in March and checked on it a couple of times, but only just now when I checked was it fixed. So it probably took three months or so for it to be corrected. Probably not too bad considering how big Los Banos is. In this case looking at the satellite view would have saved me a few minutes, as the sat view would have conflicted with the old map that had G St running from 4th through to 7th.
Map errors kill people, at least in Oregon (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Give up on these jokers (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are in Australia and have a garmin gps in your car you can go here [osmaustralia.org].
There may be osm files for other gps and countries but I have never looked...
Cloth was better than paper (Score:4, Interesting)
Those colorful paper diagrams your parents used
When I was younger and went hiking quite a lot, I'd save up the extra and buy the cloth maps at inch-to-the-mile scale from Ordinance Survey. They actually weren't much more expensive than the paper maps, but had equal resolution (excellent quality lightweight cloth) and could survive bad weather and bad handling a lot better. I don't recall seeing a cloth map in a very long time.
Details and Zoom Levels (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, it's more of an annoyance than a bug but I really wish computer maps (all of them) would allow more detail to be shown while zoomed out. I understand why that might be a problem in urban areas but for those of us who live/travel in rural areas it would really be nice not to have to zoom so far in just to see the name of the only other road within 20 miles of me etc.