Google Maps Now Predicts Bus Delays With Machine Learning

The number of people moving to cities continues growing. The statistical databases from the United Nations suggested that for the very first time throughout human history, the earth’s population will be more urban than rural. A few decades later, following the mass movement of the global population to cities, traffic jam would become even worse. However, with technological advancement, not only can public transport commuters enjoy a more enjoyable and predictable ride, but carbon emissions levels can also be significantly reduced, which contributes to a slowdown in climate change.

Google Maps has recently announced a new feature – live traffic delay forecast for buses, which uses machine learning to project bus delays in hundreds of cities across the globe. The system, first deployed in India, will allow commuters to receive information on bus locations even in places without real-time data from local transportation agencies.

Google Maps fuses different sets of information including distance; time traveled as well as individual events to make predictions without depending on bus schedules offered by public transit agencies.

In a blog spot, Alex Fabrikant, Research Scientist at Google Research, elaborated on how machine learning models powered Google Maps to predict the time duration before your bus arrives more precisely compared to bus schedules.

To develop the model, the researchers extracted training data from sequences of bus positions over time, which are provided by public transit agencies, and aligned them to car traffic speeds during the trip on the bus’s path. After that, sequence models take into account all anticipated stops as well as bus deceleration near stops, specifically the distance and time required for a bus to decelerate and stop.

The tech giant has also released an update with an addition of transit crowdedness predictions, which will show how jam-packed your next public ride is going to be. This will be in effect in nearly 200 cities around the world.

Google Maps will now tell you how crowded your bus or train will be

Within the last 12 months, significant updates have been announced to make the experience of traveling by public transportation more enjoyable.

Last year, Google Maps introduced a feature that would provide users with detailed directions through all bus stops. A lot of features have also been added in the past few months such as augmented reality walking directions; Google Assistant that will allow commuters in New York City to use voice commands to ask when their next bus will arrive; Google Pay that can be used to purchase transit tickets online.

According to a report published by The Wall Street Journal, Google Maps was home to millions of fake business profiles. Shortly after the article started to spread, Google published an article on its blog, acknowledging the problem and saying that the corporation was working on better ways to tackle it. The tech giant also added that it had already taken down over 3 million fake business listings last year.