Google Maps, New England style

[cos]

I just got the Google Maps version of "You can't get theah from heah!"

I'm planning a road trip for this summer, and using Google Maps to help me figure out distances on unfamiliar variants of cross country routes, and what stops make sense between one place and another. I just tried to get a route from Tempe, Arizona (new home of listgirl) to Hillsdale, NY (approximate site of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival).

This was Google's answer:


"We could not calculate driving directions between Tempe, AZ and Hillsdale, NY."

Comments

[cos]

All of the online directions thingies wieght by road class (they don't, as far as I know, know anything about travel conditions and speed limits specifically, they just classify roads on a scale of several discrete classes). And they're all (or at least the ones I've tried) more or less deterministic. They change over time, probably due to new data or tweaks to the variables, but I've never done the same search with the same site and gotten different results within, say, the same week. And of course I don't want "as the crow flies" routes, these are driving directions. Road classes do matter. I wasn't expecting Google Maps to find the shortest route. I do expect MapQuest to find the most sensible route, because it usually does. Someday, maybe I'll have that expectation of Google Maps, too.

P.S. Many of the most egregious examples of MapQuest finding the sensible route and Google Maps not, are local trips.

[struct.livejournal.com]

I figured online route planners wouldn't use fuzzy logic, and it'd be bad (but amusing) if they did.

My experience with the big three is that they weight road classes too heavily. For instance, getting back to my Austin-to-Taos example, GM, MQ and YM all plotted an Austin-Wichita Falls-Amarillo-Taos route for me, probably because 35 is an Interstate. The straight shot down Highway 84 through Abilene, Lubbock and Clovis is the better way to go however, as I found out through personal experience.

The other problem with road classes (and this might explain in part the local route problem) is that a given road class can be a help or a hindrance depending on the time of day. For example (and here again I speak from personal experience) the Kennedy and the Dan Ryan are the best way to navigate Chicago northwest-southeast, except between the hours of 7:30-9:30a and 3:30-6:30p, in which case you need to avoid them like the plague because they turn into parking lots.