You must have seen a recent report where it was evident that a person was successful in creating fake traffic. Basically, what he did was that he loaded about 99 phones in a small trolley and he took to the streets somewhere in London for a morning walk.
Now, this made it look like there were 99 active phones on the road which meant that Google Maps showed that the road was jammed with traffic. However, we can clearly see in the video that there was no car on that street at all.
Now, this springs up the question as to how Google could avoid such a situation and also how Google Maps detects traffic jams on-the-go. This also raises a question in your mind whether you can trust Google Maps if it shows that there is traffic on the road. So let’s find out how exactly does Google detect traffic on the Maps app.
How traffic jams data is collected?
As per Google’s response, the company refreshes continuously based on anonymously tracked user data, traffic sensors, and satellite data. This means that it relies on these data to track if someone is on the road or not. Google Maps shows green, orange and red coloured lines on the road where green means clear roads while red means high traffic.
Also, you might have seen Google Maps showing “slower than usual” traffic movement. This is based on a certain number of drivers going at a slower speed than usual. If these drivers go back to normal speed, Google Maps then removes the slower than usual alert.
Google also shows you accidents, roadblocks, construction and other data with certain accuracy too. This is also shown when the majority of drivers have to slow down at that point or take a diverted route. Also, Google relies on people reporting such incidents and if more people are reporting such incidents, the faster it will report about the same.