The renowned app, Google Maps, has recently become more motorcycle-friendly, in the sense that it offers a “motorcycle” option available, for the moment, only in Eastern Asia
If you’re living in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan or the Philippines and you own a motorcycle, you might want to know about the latest feature introduced by Google on their well-known mobile navigation app – Google Maps – the bike-friendly option. This was launched on Wednesday, July 18th.
Google Maps has become one of the best traveling partners for everyone who wants to know what’s the best route to get from point A to point B (or any other letter in the alphabet). The app shows you different routes using several transportations means, such as by car, by public transportation or simply walking. However, it appears that these were not enough in a fast-growing world, where more and more people choose to travel by riding a bike or by motorcycle, which is why the digital giant decided it was about time to implement a change.
This new feature takes into account that the travel times you usually spend by motorcycle are different from the ones by car. The travel times will now be more accurate based on motorcycle speeds.
“Previously, motorbike riders would often do a mental calculation to estimate their arrival times based on a combination of walking and driving routes,” the company’s spokesman said in a statement.
Also, bikers will get routes that cars are not allowed to travel on, as well as routes to help bikers avoid certain roads that aren’t designed to be motorcycle-friendly.
Following a specific route while on a motorcycle can be quite a challenge, since you can’t look at the map every 10 seconds as you do when driving a car, so bikers have to rely mostly on audio instructions. The new feature on Google Maps bases most of its instructions on landmarks, thus making navigation more convenient for motorcyclists.
Whether this feature will launch on a global scale or now, we don’t know for sure, as Google hasn’t confirmed this yet. But considering that one of their greatest competitors – Waze – has already made a public announcement saying that their own version of motorcycle feature will be available worldwide, we can only guess that the same will happen to Google Maps.
