Google Maps Now Predicts Traffic
April 17 2008 / by Accel Rose
Category: The Web Year: 2008 Rating: 4 Hot
Google
Maps has now added a
traffic feature that allows you to see the level of expected
traffic for a given time on a given day. This marks the first of
what I believe will be many prediction components or layers to the
Earth platform. 
I expect we’ll soon see more robust traffic forecasts displayed by Google. Later on, I’m betting the company will integrate visual forecasts of local crowd traffic, business hours and even recurring annual/holiday events at given locations, perhaps using a combination of time of day, Google Street View footage and geo-tagged flickr photographs to build up these prediction composites.
Eventually, it seems rather likely that Google Earth will develop a robust time toggle feature, as predicted by David Gelertner in his seminal work Mirror Worlds (an absolute must-read if you’re interested in Google or the future), that will save us all a great deal of travel time, gas money and grief; not to mention point us in the direction of useful and fun events.
