[LINK] Google Maps on the SMH

Richard Chirgwin rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au
Sat Feb 10 10:14:13 AEDT 2007


Linkers,
>
> For most people, the journey from the Shelbourne Hotel at 200 Sussex 
> Street to Google's Sydney headquarters across the road at 201 Sussex 
> Street would be a 30-step, 30-second trip.
>
> But according to Google's new mapping service, the recommended route 
> would see you take a 10.4-kilometre scenic detour that involves 
> crossing the Harbour Bridge twice.
>
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-gives-a-bum-steer/2007/02/07/1170524144806.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

This made me curious and I started fooling around with Google Maps, 
Multimap and Whereis.

While the SMH story is funny, we should note that Google isn't unique in 
running strange directions. I captured so many screen grabs that I 
suspect I would have copyright trouble posting them all to a blog, so 
here goes in words. Try the routes for yourselves if you want to see the 
maps.

Sydney Airport to Lilyfield
Google: via Eastern Distributor and the Cross-City tunnel
Whereis: same
Multimap: via King Street, Newtown
(none of these are optimal; two are out-of-the-way and involve 
unnecessary toll roads; King Street was written by Dante as the seventh 
level of hell, the only place where I have encountered a gridlock 
traffic jam at 3am).

Sydney Airport to Leichhardt
Google: As above
Whereis: for some Leichhardt destinations, Eastern Distributor- 
Cross-City Tunnel. For others, via Enmore (good). The tipping point is a 
50m block in Leichhardt between William St and Allen St.
Multimap: Via Enmore.

Sydney Airport to Haberfield
Google: via Eastern Distributor and Cross-City tunnel (unbelievable - 
several km out of the way, two tolls, very slow)
Whereis: via Lewisham (good)
Multimap: via Enmore (fair)

Sydney Airport to Broadway: Google gets confused and takes you to a 
place near Gunning
Sydney Airport to Enmore: Google takes you to the North Coast
(these last two were a treat)

Bankstown to Liverpool: Google could not find a route!

I also tried some local searches for Rozelle to Leichhardt, which are 
nearly adjacent. Some quite simple tasks returned very silly results 
from everybody - if you're interested, see the various routes the maps 
take from Hornsey Street, Rozelle to Norton Street, Leichhardt...

If I were to look at how mapping and directions are discussed in 
advertor ...  sorry, special newspaper technology features, you would 
think that accuracy were the order of the day; and that Google's 
brain-freeze was simply a problem with beta software. It ain't so...

A final point: the mappers all work out travel time by distance; so we 
have what is, at best, a half hour trip (Airport to Lilyfield) listed as 
taking anything down to 11 minutes!

Cheers,
Richard Chirgwin



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