Interesting, in Estonia it is quite the opposite. Waze is almost always better at routing than google maps. Just this summer I had a car trip to one of our islands where google maps directed me down a road that got increasingly worse. We almost reached the coast but got stuck 50m before the campsite when the road turned to sand.
What I don't realize is how Waze, owned by Google, has more
roads (like 50% more, easily) and has house numbers compared to google maps, which has no house numbers and barely any roads, here in Lithuania.
You've noticed Google Maps do this? I personally find Google will take the simpler routes even if sometimes a faster route comes up while driving. Sometimes on a longer drive I'll see it is showing a greyed out route I could take that is sometimes even 5-10 minutes faster but it won't suggest it to me.
No whereas with Waze it is a lot more aggressive and it will take faster routes and shortcuts even if it means taking a gravel road to save 30 seconds.
Waze has given me a lot of stupid advice in the last couple years. It will take me off a freeway, requiring many lane changes in heavy traffic, only to route me onto a clogged surface street and back onto the freeway after an exit or two. It usually fails to save me any time, and causes a lot of headaches. I stick with Google Maps now unless I need the police and hazard warnings(long road trips mostly).
* I am not used to Waze UI I often missed my exit or turns..
* Waze often has a delay telling me when to turn (very often I get a turn signal just 100 feet away).
So my plan these days is use Google Map as always, but study the direction, try to learn the road, and optimize on my own if I need to repeat the trip again. My dad says a good driver needs to know how major road works. Years ago GPS wasn't a thing and people got by without problems. Last year's Labor Day weekend I spent the holiday with my friends in Lake George. On the third day I had zero cellular connectivity most of the time on the road, but lucky me I already learned the road (since we have been driving in and out the place multiple times during the day), I was able to get by with little problem.
YMMV. Google sent me to shortcuts that couldn't be called roads at least 3 times since i've been using it.
They also have a tendency to make you stick to the main - congested - roads. You won't notice unless you're a local to the area though, so let's say that's good enough.
Waze in my experience seems to have more realistic ETAs and is better at routing around traffic jams. Even though it's built on Google Maps.
However I'm in Romania and I do long weekends in mountain retreats in the middle of nowhere. As I said, YMMV.
Google maps algo is terrible. Especially when it comes to toll roads and interstate highways in the US.
For example, there is a section of i95 that is single lane for a few miles due to construction. DoT has signs up saying avoid 95 and take i495 (it's a bypass interstate highway for 95). Guess where Google tells you to go? Waze is a little better because it actually defaults to i495.
I've also noticed that Google will try to put you on toll roads more often than not.
I found waze pretty bad at directing you to your target and pretty amazing at locating jams. I stopped using it for directions when I visit Israel although many people there use it religiously. Google maps on the other hand was great at taking me there, but less so knowing about the road conditions. After the buyout I noticed Google maps gets a lot better at knowing if the road is blocked by traffic and how long a stretch of jammed Road takes to clear. I think that marriage worked well, at least for my driving experience.
Google Maps always gives perfectly-accurate directions to where I live. Waze does not give accurate directions to where I live. It goes out of its way to force drivers to enter a gated community that's adjacent to my complex. What's even worse is that the entrance to my complex and the entrance to that gated community are on separate arterials [0], and if you try to enter my complex through the main entrance, Waze will instruct you to make a U-turn out of my complex and go into the gated community. Google Maps does not do that.
As such, I text every driver picking me up at my place to tell them to use Google and only Google and to not use Waze (and I tell the name of the street they need to enter my complex from). I watch them on the map, and if I see that they have disregarded my message and do things that only Waze would instruct them to do (like pass by the entrance to my complex, and/or turn onto the arterial the gated community is on), I cancel the ride and call another.
[0] Here's a map, just to show you how terrible Waze is:
ROAD A |
---|---------------------------
| ...G......... |
R | . GATED . | R
O | . COMMUNITY . | O
A | . .................| A
D | . . MY .| D
| . G COMPLEX .|
D | ..... =| B
| . .|
| ..||.............|
---|---------------------------
ROAD C |
Without fail, no matter what direction you are coming from, Waze will insist you turn onto Road A and go through the gated community. Google actually knows that the main entrance to my complex is on Road A (and sometimes, on rare occasion, it'll pick up the side entrance on Road C, but I don't count on it) So if I see a Lyft or Uber driver, after I text them telling them both not to use Waze and to only enter my complex from Road B, a) pass by the entrance on Road B when driving northbound on Road B, b) turn right on Road A when driving southbound on Road B, c) fail to turn left on Road B when driving westbound on Road A, or d) turn left on Road D when driving eastbound on Road C, I just cancel on them and request another driver.
Interesting that Waze has an option to avoid unpaved roads, but Google Maps app doesn't.
Last weekend Waze directed me onto a private airport's runway. On the return trip, I switched to the Offline Maps app, and it led me to a dead end. Haven't ever seen 2 screwups by 2 different apps on 2 different routes in one day.
Google Maps has more efficient driving routes. I've been using Waze for years, but recently switched back to Google Maps for this reason after I noticed Waze taking me a much further route to save about ten minutes but use a lot more fuel.
Waze pointing out police and road hazards has saved my bacon a lot. Sometimes it routes me wrong, but sometimes I distrusted it's recommendation to go through a side street, only to slam into a huge traffic jam that it was routing me around.
Nowadays, I use Waze but look at the route, and if it is overcomplicated, I look to see if it did it for obvious reasons (traffic jams).
Apple Maps is pretty awful for me, it doesn't give enough detail on turns (like what lane to be in), and its POI database sucks. Too many times I've typed in the name of a place that's local and its first suggestions are in another state hundreds of miles away. In non-US/European countries, like if you're driving in South America, don't even bother.
I like to joke that Google Maps/Waze purposely route you different ways to the same places to make you helpless and in need of GPS so you will keep using them.
reply