Google Maps Can Now Show You the Most Fuel-Efficient Route (fastcompany.com) 56
Google has introduced a number of new "eco-friendly routing" tools to Google Maps, including the ability to view the route that's most fuel-efficient, and how much you can save on fuel with a slight detour. Here's a list of the new features rolling out for consumers, as reported by Fast Company:
1.) When you search for flights on Google, you'll see the CO2 emissions for each flight, with green badges for the lowest-footprint options. The tool also calculates emissions per seat; first-class seats have a larger footprint since they take up more of the plane.
2.) If you search for appliances like furnaces in the U.S., you'll now see suggestions in Google's Shopping tab for the most cost-effective and sustainable options.
3.) Google Finance now shows sustainability scores for companies, based on data from the nonprofit CDP, and the tool will soon also include a sustainability score for your whole portfolio.
4.) If you search for hotels, you'll see information about the sustainability of different hotels.
5.) In cities that offer bike navigation directions, a new "lite navigation" option will soon be available that lets cyclists easily see their progress, ETA updates, and elevation along the route without having to leave their screen on continuously.
6.) Information about bike and scooter share locations will expand to 300 cities around the world.
7.) Nest is offering a new service that will let you shift heating and cooling to the times that the grid is cleanest or the energy is least expensive. Another option will let consumers buy renewable energy credits for the energy they're using at home.
8.) In new pilots in Israel and Brazil, Google is testing the use of AI to optimize traffic lights. In early results, the intervention saves fuel use (and time, waiting at lights) by 10% to 20%.
2.) If you search for appliances like furnaces in the U.S., you'll now see suggestions in Google's Shopping tab for the most cost-effective and sustainable options.
3.) Google Finance now shows sustainability scores for companies, based on data from the nonprofit CDP, and the tool will soon also include a sustainability score for your whole portfolio.
4.) If you search for hotels, you'll see information about the sustainability of different hotels.
5.) In cities that offer bike navigation directions, a new "lite navigation" option will soon be available that lets cyclists easily see their progress, ETA updates, and elevation along the route without having to leave their screen on continuously.
6.) Information about bike and scooter share locations will expand to 300 cities around the world.
7.) Nest is offering a new service that will let you shift heating and cooling to the times that the grid is cleanest or the energy is least expensive. Another option will let consumers buy renewable energy credits for the energy they're using at home.
8.) In new pilots in Israel and Brazil, Google is testing the use of AI to optimize traffic lights. In early results, the intervention saves fuel use (and time, waiting at lights) by 10% to 20%.
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Back on topic though. This functionality is the taste of what should already be provided as a public service. We need to organize a PAC to legislate vehicle tracking for every vehicle so we can cut down on emissions and not make it difficult to get the data. No, I am not going to act kindly. The time for action is now.
I do like the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if there's an appreciable difference between the most fuel-efficient route and the fastest route (what they've been providing for years), in the vast majority of cases.
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The most efficient route depends on your vehicle.
If there is a big hill en route, an EV can recharge on the descent, while a stinky car cannot.
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Just how much energy is recovered on the downhill? Google is not my friend, I tried that and found a bunch of articles that boil down to "it depends".
The energy recovered with regenerative braking is generally quite tiny, and energy recovered while keeping pace with traffic going downhill would have to be lost in the noise of driving habits, traffic, or even the wind speed and direction at the time.
Regenerative braking effectively costs nothing to implement on mass produced cars so it's no mystery why it i
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Just how much energy is recovered on the downhill?
Basically so much that fuel usage is similar regardless if it's hilly or flat.
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similar
Right, but how "similar"? Can this be quantified in some way? Can someone give me numbers they can back up with some kind of analysis?
Regenerative braking is not nearly the deal it is made out to be. I sat in on many discussions on regenerative braking abilities, efficiencies, and limitations while attending university studying electrical, computer, and software engineering. Regenerative braking doesn't work that great at low speeds, and a motor optimized for being a motor doesn't make a great generator
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Just how much energy is recovered on the downhill? Google is not my friend, I tried that and found a bunch of articles that boil down to "it depends".
You can recover about 2/3 of the energy you put in to climb the hill. Of course, friction losses (rolling resistance and air resistance) are basically the same, so the net depends mostly on how fast you're going, which determines how much of the energy consumption is due to those. If you're going slow (say, < 40 mph), then friction losses are very small and you'll see that you've recovered 2/3 of what you spent to climb the hill -- and that the cost to climb the hill is very close to what a physics text
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Hybrids achieve optimum fuel efficiency on surface streets. Sports cars achieve theirs on uncongested freeways when traveling at a constant 65 mph (sorry, leadfoots!).
Aside from a road with no at-grade intersections, probably the best kind of road for fuel efficiency is one with roundabouts, because you don't have to waste kinetic energy stopping at red lights or stop signs.
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Hybrids achieve optimum fuel efficiency on surface streets.
All EVs handle stop-n-go traffic well. Some perhaps a bit better than others.
The BEV, battery-electric vehicle, will have only a battery for an energy store which means it will be quite large. This means power to the wheels quickly. That is assuming it got a good charge that morning, the battery hasn't been worm terribly with age, or is in some poor weather that can put a heavy load on heating or cooling. If in good shape then it's better than a sports car. If not then it can look like it took someone
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When I hear people say they don't like roundabouts, I think of the book "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.
Zero-fuel Route (Score:3)
I wonder if there's an appreciable difference between the most fuel-efficient route and the fastest route
Yes. My 25-hour long-distance north-south car journey became a 140-hour cycle ride via a different route on the other side of the Rockies. While it does avoid using any petrol it's clearly much slower. If you want to go really extreme though it's a 524-hour walk and it picks a different route again.
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I wonder if there's an appreciable difference between the most fuel-efficient route and the fastest route
Google doesn't just show the fastest route. When the time difference is marginal they will almost always preference a direct or shorter route. E.g. I navigate now to the my wife's school and Google will suggest I drive square through the city. The other option which is 2min faster but 4km longer is to drive out to the highway, and around to the other side of the city. I almost guarantee that uses less fuel, than stop starting through countless traffic lights and crawling along at 30-50km/h
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Most cars are most efficient around 55 MPH / 90 KPH, so the fastest route that uses high speed roads is unlikely to be the most efficient.
This could have an interesting effect on traffic. Google Maps sometimes routes me through the countryside to avoid accidents on motorways and stuff like that. Those are rare events though. If a lot of people start using fuel efficient routes they might stop using bypasses and instead driving through the areas those roads were meant to take traffic away from.
Re: I do like the idea (Score:2)
Also interesting: fuel is typically a small percentage of car ownership, it's just the one you see the most often. Cars dropping in value from miles driven typically costs the most per mile, not fuel. (Assuming you aren't driving a $2,000 20 year old Civic.) So, optimization of route by distance is still likely the most cost efficient.
Re: I do like the idea (Score:2)
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Not always, because highways are generally the fastest routes with the highest speed limits, but not the most efficient - going 55mph consumes more fuel than going 35mph (and it isn't made up by the time saved). And doing 35mph on a highway is generally a Bad Idea.
So the most fuel efficient route might keep you off the highways and o
AI to optimize traffic lights? (Score:3)
How much for the VIP never get an red account?
Re: AI to optimize traffic lights? (Score:2)
First they would need traffic light data. Right now, that is secretly held by cities/counties.
How about the Cheapest Route? (Score:2)
If I want to go across Toronto in anything other than the dead of night, chances are I'm going to be caught in construction or traffic and I'm going to be spending a lot of my time sitting in my car waiting. Probably the most gas efficient route is to use the 427 toll highway but that's not cheap (which is why it's not heavily loaded and avoids sitting in your car with the engine running) - using it will add at least $10 to the cost of the trip. To use it from my house in the west end of the city to my fa
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Maybe you meant the 407? the 427 wasn't tolled, the last time I was on it. (Admittedly some years ago.) The 407 is very expensive per-mile, something like 5x more per mile than anything near me in Western PA.
We used to drive the 407 from its western end to the Pickering area, getting away scot-free because at the time, the 407 had no bilateral with our state for tolls. I'm not sure I would chance it today.
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Sorry, you're right I meant the 407.
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If I want to go across Toronto in anything other than the dead of night, chances are I'm going to be caught in construction or traffic and I'm going to be spending a lot of my time sitting in my car waiting. Probably the most gas efficient route is to use the 427 toll highway but that's not cheap (which is why it's not heavily loaded and avoids sitting in your car with the engine running) - using it will add at least $10 to the cost of the trip. To use it from my house in the west end of the city to my father's (23.5km), just east of the middle will cost $12.16 according to the online cost calculator. I know a lot of other cities in North America have exactly the same options.
So, I can't think that very many people will use this tool if the answer results in a higher pocketbook cost even though you are saving putting a bit of carbon in the atmosphere.
I guess your option would be to select both "most fuel efficient route" and "avoid toll roads". Hopefully that will still be possible, as it is now.
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I would guess that most people using Google Maps (as opposed to Waze) aer navigating around the GTA because they're unfamiliar with it, meaning they're not daily drivers. the 407 is expensive for daily drivers, but for a tourist or business traveller just trying to get around the GTA, the 407 is dirt cheap.
It's strange, because you
Garmin could have done this (Score:2)
a) shortest distance, or
b) fastest time.
What is needed is a third choice that calculates a relatively direct route, using main roads where possible, but with the important condition of a minimum of stop lights, stop signs, left turns, pedestrian crossings, and other impediments to driving at a reasonable (moderate) and constant speed for the grea
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I shaved about 5% off my commute by ignoring Google's recommendations for the final bit of my trip which Google had me doing lefts at long lights from a side street onto a main artery.
Presumably the algorithm doesn't factor direction of travel with average wait time, so the main traffic with high volume rarely waiting overwhelms a few cars from the side streets trying to feed in through a left at the intersection.
Added a bit of distance but saved a lot of time, and probably gas too since there's less brake/
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but with the important condition of a minimum of stop lights, stop signs, left turns, pedestrian crossings, and other impediments to driving at a reasonable (moderate) and constant speed for the greatest distance.
Yep, I see the same problems. It doesn't appear to matter which GPS navigation app/utility/whatever I use they all fail to look out for optimizing out left turns.
The preference for major roads is not necessarily a plus for me. Any turn onto a major road tends to be stressful unless there is a stoplight or entry lane. I'll see navigation software take a preference for a major road which will tell me to take a left turn to get on, then another left turn to get off, with no stoplight to stop oncoming traffi
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Ironically Garmin's non car offerings provide a large variety of route options. The Garmin motorcycle GPS my cousin owns allows you select how much cornering and elevation change your route should have. The Garmin cycling GPS from my co-worker allows to select the type of road surface to travel on and if to avoid cars.
I think they've effectively given up on cars thanks to Google and are now solely focused on health / sports / hobbies.
First class seats (Score:1)
The space taken up by first class seats doesn't affect their carbon footprint - although their (modest) extra weight probably does.
Planes have a weight budget, and if they're carrying fewer passengers because of first/business seats, it means they can carry more cargo. Which means fewer cargo flights.
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This feature is for those that are concerned about their personal contribution to CO2 emissions. The accuracy of this calculation is going to be horrible for the reasons you mention. It's about feeding a consumer desire to get more people using the app over the competition. I doubt they put much effort into the accuracy of the calculations.
I remember reading an article about a transatlantic flight that had only three passengers. This was made out to be a big deal about wasted fuel. The story was someth
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You simply look at the average for a particular route, and ignore rare events like the one you describe.
The calculations are likely pretty accurate, because the technology is now quite mature thanks to electric vehicles. Route planning for EVs takes into account things like elevation changes and the speed of the road, to give a pretty accurate estimate of the energy needed.
Obviously the specific EV being used makes a big difference as they all have different efficiency characteristics, but those are not too
Optimized traffic lights in Los Angeles (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2013, Los Angeles completed a lengthy program to synchronize all 4,400 of its traffic lights. You can read about it here:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
It didn't take A.I. Can A.I. improve upon what LA did?
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In 2013, Los Angeles completed a lengthy program to synchronize all 4,400 of its traffic lights. You can read about it here:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
It didn't take A.I. Can A.I. improve upon what LA did?
It's just marketing speak; what LA did could easily be sold as "A.I." these days, if it's being controlled by computer and not human it seems like someone will plunk the "A.I." label on it even if all the computer is doing is following a simple, pre-programmed algorithm.
lol (Score:2)
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Hoarding effect (Score:2)
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It already tracks traffic and uses traffic patterns to generate optimal routes. It would only happen one time, and now it knows that route is congested at that time.
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> People will follow the most fuel-efficient routes
Most people will follow the fastest route
Nope (Score:2)
I just checked and there is nothing in the directions about fuel efficiency, it is exactly the same as before, time and distance.
Check for yourself! https://maps.google.com/ [google.com]
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Check for yourself! https://maps.google.com/ [google.com]
I had the exact same experience. I even went so far as to install the maps app on my iPad. Still no dice. If this is limited to Android devices (which I have no way of checking), they are going out of their way to avoid stating this.
I have suspicions about accuracy. (Score:1)
I have many questions.
When you search for flights on Google, youâ(TM)ll see the CO2 emissions for each flight, with green badges for the lowest-footprint options. The tool also calculates emissions per seat; first-class seats have a larger footprint since they take up more of the plane.
Is this estimate going to take into effect the plane type? Even then the fuel burn on something like a Boeing 737 varied quite a bit based on the age and options. An airline with Boeing 737 planes could be operating classic, NG, and MAX models. They had different engines, wings, and some airlines opted to refit their planes to get more efficiency. Will the CO2 emissions have a range to indicate the possible error because of the different fuel burn for different models of the same a
yet no EV support? (Score:2)
I haven't seen any of the old companies support EVs, but I would guess that one of them might buy abetterrouteplanner.com and perhaps integrate with some of the live information they have about available chargers on plugshare.com.
Could be really useful when you are not driving a Tesla.
Google knows better (Score:2)
So, google is replacing my critieria with its criteria for what I should do, want, and buy?
Re: Google knows better (Score:2)
You must delete your comment. Google never told you to say that! :-D
Easiest Route (Score:2)
They need a low-cognitive-load setting (Score:1)
There's a fairly simple route that we tend to prefer, getting to a major highway and then taking interstates most of the way there. It can be summed up in about a dozen steps (turn right here, merge here, exit here, etc.).
Asking Google Maps for the fastest route had us going over all manner of tiny back roads out in the middle of nowhere before, eventually, getting to the interstate, somewhere arou
Why has it taken so long? (Score:1)
This feature was available in AutoRoute, back in the '90s.
I am somewhat surprised that this is not standard, nowadays.
Good (Score:1)