Google Maps AI routing feature to help car users avoid narrow lanes in Chennai, Bengaluru, Coimbatore

FILE PHOTO: Google India is rolling out a new routing feature that will help four-wheeler users avoid narrow lanes during their driving trips. 
| Photo Credit: AP

Google India is rolling out a new routing feature that will help four-wheeler users avoid narrow lanes during their driving trips. This feature is rolled out by the search giant only in India, and follows the company’s move to make maps-based navigation effective for two-wheeler users, which let motorcyclists find out shorter routes to their destination.  

Bringing this new feature to market wasn’t easy as estimating road width is a hard job. Developers will need to factor in various hindrances in a narrow street from tree cover to vehicles parked by the side of the road. And then, this has to be multiplied by the number streets and avenues in India. 

“AI is good at addressing these problems to a large extent,” Lalitha Ramani, GM, Google Maps, India said. “So, we’ve now built a new AI model, specifically for Indian roads that estimates road widths. It takes satellite imagery and combines it with street view imagery. And, also take inputs on road type, tree cover, and poles and drains.” 

With these estimates, Google has built an AI routing models that can help car users avoid narrow roads wherever possible. And whenever a user selects the four-wheeler mode, the maps app will ensure the ETA on the suggested route is not significantly longer.

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“Reducing cars on these narrow stretches can make bikers and pedestrians to use these roads more safely,” Ramani added.

In case, the user has to pass through a narrow street to get to their destination, or if their destination is on the narrow lane, Google will add clear call outs in the maps to warn them about narrow sections in the stretch. 

While the very term narrow road can be subjective from the context of different cities. So, Google is continuing to gather feedback on street details to further enhance its AI routing model, the company said.

To start with, this feature will be rolled out in eight cities in India: Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Indore, Bhopal Bhubaneswar and Guwahati. The feature is currently rolled out to   

Apart from this feature, Google is also adding a flyover guidance feature that will give a callout to users about flyovers on their route. This feature will be rolled out in 40 cities across India. And currently, it is not available for iOS and CarPlay users.  

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