The New Google Maps Update Lets You Find Parking Spot

In the bustling streets and busy roads, it’s never easy to find a parking spot. We often see people struggling to find a parking space in the metropolitan cities like New York, L.A and Chicago. This is perhaps the most annoying thing to do especially when you are already getting late. Google Maps however, has something up for you that can make it a lot easier. The new Maps update allows Android users to find a nearby parking place on the go.

While navigating towards a destination, the app shows you a list of all the parking lots and garages that fall in the vicinity. You can find this list by tapping on the newly added Find Parking option on the Directions card. Once you have found a parking spot, it is automatically added to your trip. After you have safely parked your car, it also shows you the walking directions towards your destination. With this new update, Google has also revamped the Parking Difficulty Icons that were introduced earlier this year in 25 top metropolitan cities of the world. This stunning feature lets you check the availability of parking space on a location even before you are headed to that particular place. You can also save your parking location on the app just like before.

Also read Customised Google Maps Integration iOS.

Support And Availability

The Parking Difficulty feature was launched by Google for its Maps application earlier this year in the month of January. It is available on Android and iOS platforms. The feature was initially launched in the United States but Google has now expanded to 25 other cities. These are some of the world’s most popular metropolitan cities like London, Manchester, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Rome, Paris, Milan and Rio De Janeiro.

On contrary to this, Find Parking feature is launched quite recently and is available only in the 25 cities of the United States including New York, Boston, Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Orlando, San Diego and San Francisco. Also, it has only arrived on the Android platform as of now and it’s still uncertain when this would be coming to the iOS version of the app.

How It Works?

To provide a high level of accuracy, Google is using advanced Machine Learning algorithms and historical parking data. Based on that, it makes highly accurate predictions about the availability of a free parking spot. The parking difficulty depends on various factors like the type of area, time, crowd density of the area and the real-time traffic data gathered from the drivers roaming in that area at a particular time.