Google Maps asks you to enable location services to get live traffic updates. It uses your phone’s GPS and tracks speed and location. Similarly it tracks other Google Map users who are travelling in the same area. It combines everyone’s GPS data, analyzes it and sends back the traffic information to every user. This is how you get latest traffic updates while travelling. In simple words people travelling on the same road are helping each other with Google Maps acting as a medium. But how does Google Maps reroute your trip?

Rerouting your trip

Google Maps saves the information that your mobile has provided while you were on a trip. It combines all the data that it has collected over the years and provides predictive estimates of the traffic in your area. For example, Consider you are heading to some location. When you leave the house, traffic is flowing freely, with zero indication of any disruptions along the way. Google Maps combines traffic predictions and live traffic conditions. It will let you know that if you continue down your current route, there’s a good chance you’ll get stuck in unexpected gridlock traffic about 30 minutes into your ride. Which would mean missing your appointment. As a result, Google Maps automatically reroutes you using its knowledge about nearby road conditions and incidents. This helps you to avoid the jam altogether and get to your appointment on time.

COVID-19 Impact On Google Maps

Due to COVID-19 restrictions around the world, predictions took a hit. Because Google Maps combines data of the past few years and provides us the prediction results. But for the last few months traffic is very less and combining past years data doesn’t provide accurate results. So Google has changed their strategy. To account for this sudden change, they have recently updated their models to become more agile. It means they automatically prioritize historical traffic patterns from the last two to four weeks, and deprioritizing patterns from any time before that.

Final Thoughts

Predicting traffic and determining routes is incredibly complex. But Google has done very good in predictive and providing very good ETA results. Google Maps reroute you based on historical data of the area and live traffic information provided by fellow travelers.