Perspectives

Have you ever noticed the amount of homogeneity that exists in the roads of the western world? I am pretty familiar with California and spotting a motorbike is as rare as spotting a mosquito. It seems like vast majority of them are, infact, on the same type of vehicle ( a car) and hence are most likely to take the same route/direction given two places. And so Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and all of these guys have just one type of route. Fair enough.

Bring India in and the equation changes quite phenomenally. Just like our people, vehicles on our roads are of various types. Between two and six wheels, we have all the kind of Vehicles known to man kind running on our roads and each one of them is as important as the other.

Now, let me build a hypothesis on top of that previous statement. Arguably, The same person travelling between the same two given places may take a different route depending on the kind of vehicle he is on.

I, for one, prefer the side roads (gallis) and small roads that are less polluted and less crowded over main roads when I am on a motorbike. I am willing to ride a few hundred meters extra if I can skip a few junctions/signals which are a big bottleneck on traffic speeds. But when I am in a car, I would rather stick to the main roads because the condition of side roads are unpredictable. Plus, you never know if that big gravel truck is parked blocking the entire street. But, whenever I take the cycle, I really want to avoid main roads completely if possible, because, they are simply not safe.

There are very many ways to get to a place. Sometimes, you want to take the fastest route, Sometimes the shortest. But the kind of vehicle never used to play a part. But, now it does. At Yahoo! India maps. Search for a route and watch out for buttons on the right pane. Choose the one that fits you well and drive safe and with a smile.

So, the online maps battle is not being fought just between Google and Mapquest. We also have Ask Maps on the hood. (along with MSN and yahoo! and a bunch of others). It surely does not win over the other map services yet, but they seem to be the only ones so far to have “Walking directions“. Although (what they have implemented is) no “rocket science” technology wise, We still have to cheer them for first to market.

Walking directions are significantly different from (GMaps’s) “Avoid highways”, when properly implemented.

• Walking doesn’t (Infact, shouldnt) need to take care of One ways.
• Walking should strictly be the shortest. It needs to avoid every other consideration, how wide the road is, speed limits, How many lanes etc.
• It needs to take care of which side of the road to walk and Zebra/pedestrian crossings and subways. I dont think zebra crossings is an easily available information and don’t think Ask considers it. For instance, that is not how I cross over from Yahoo’s one building to another.
• What about (underground) subways? What if the subways have many exits? What about stairs along bridges and ramps? I can just climb up the stairs right? Again, Lack of data.
• How can you possibly walk 115 miles? I mean, not unless you are Forrest Gump mindlessly running around. Features need to make (human) sense.

This is a spectacular feature that has been in my mind for a long time. It is nice to see Ask making it happen, but needs to improve. This along with “Cycling” and “public transportation” and a combination of the three should be fantastic.

What do you think?