Comment by aix1
2 years ago
> We had a really nice solution but privacy considerations made it extremely difficult and limited.
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit more on those privacy considerations?
(I guess what I'm struggling with is how cycling is different in this regard from other modalities.)
There are significantly more people using the other modes, especially in active navigation. For example, it’s well known that Google detects traffic through the movement of active users (there was the wagon of phones traffic jam experiment). Imagine trying to do something similar with the amount of cyclists actively using Google with the necessary privacy settings enabled on any given route. It would be noisy but possible, but then on top of that Google is extremely strict with privacy requirements (the exact opposite of what everyone on HN assumes). And once you add all of Google’s voluntary restrictions like anonymity of inferred data and such, it’s nearly impossible to gather any signal, even in major cities.
Edit: By the way, the massive difference in potential users compared to all other modes is also why it’s so hard to prioritise work on cycling inside Google.
This sounds a bit American to me honestly - I would think that in Europe (and especially in Amsterdam) there would be enough cyclists to make the data usable. OTOH, they may not have the necessary privacy settings enabled (I think that's a minority among car users too). Of course it's also a vicious circle: if Google Maps is bad for cyclists, few cyclists will be using it, so you won't get the data you need to make it better. Additionally, I think the proportion of cyclists using any kind of navigation solution is lower than with car drivers...
How many cyclists use Google Maps to navigate? I guess (with no true facts) most cyclists know their primary routes and when going somewhere new have a rough idea and just check for the last part.
Whereas car drivers often use navigation all the time to see traffic and alternatives, which are non-issues for cyclists.
Thus even with many cyclists the information they collect is less.
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The ex-Googler is most likely talking about the product as a whole, across the globe. It would be hard to justify features dedicated to a small group of users overall (with different goals/expectations), especially while keeping privacy (and data sharing). That being said, Google maps works great for cyclists in the US ...
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> Additionally, I think the proportion of cyclists using any kind of navigation solution is lower than with car drivers...
In large part because cycling is fairly resistant to traffic jams
I don't think it's necessary to jump right to data collection, the routing algorithms and incomplete maps are the issue. Of course, you'd need additional data about bike lanes, etc (which could come from crowdsourced data? Maybe that's what you are alluding to?).
As it is, offline routers such as Brouter and OSMAnd do a much better job, and it's pretty easy to convince other cyclists to use them.
Traffic jams are almost never an issue when biking - heavy car or bike traffic can slow you down, but by that point you have at least the same density as car traffic jams for data collection...
Is it that there are more cars? Because I live in Amsterdam, and there's definitely more bikes than cars here, yet bicycle support still sucks. Although it's possible few cyclists use Google Maps because a) it's bad, b) they don't need to, and c) you need a special clip to use your smartphone live on your bike (though that's also true for cars).
Most modern cars have a center console with Android Auto, so you just plug in your phone to USB and it takes over navigation, communication and entertainment.
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What exactly makes the challenge of cycle so much harder than walking? Also is there really 0 ways you could use pedestrian mode data for biking directions? Even if marginally or to confirm hypotheses mostly based on cycling data
Lastly, is there anything stopping you from contributing potential innovations to open source alternatives?
In most densely populated areas near where I live in southern New England, bikes are vehicles that, in most cases, must operate on the roadway. I'd get a ticket for riding a bike across a pedestrian bridge or down an urban sidewalk.