The team behind Google Maps seems to have been working overtime in recent months. We’ve seen a handful of updates that have turned Maps into a great app for searching for businesses in your area and then communicating with them once you’ve found what you are looking for. We’ve also seen updates that have improved the driving experience for people using Google Maps as their navigation app. Today we can tell you about a new feature update that falls into the second category.
Accident and incident reporting coming to Google Maps
Like Facebook, which owns many different social networks and messaging apps, like Instagram and WhatsApp, Google owns more than one navigation app to help users get where they are going. As well as the famous Google Maps, the other major navigation product owned by Google is Waze. The key feature that distinguishes Waze from Google Maps is its crowdsourced incident reporting, which allows it to offer up to date news on all the traffic incidents users might run into as they attempt to get from A to B.
According to Android Police and BGR, Google is working on bringing this Waze feature to Google Maps. Screenshots published by Android Police show a new button, found when using Google Maps Navigation. Just below the volume button for navigation voice commands, you’ll soon be able to find the new speech bubble with a plus sign button, which will take you to the Add a report menu. From here you’ll be able to file an incident report about any traffic-related issues you encounter on your route.
For now, this feature remains inactive, but Android Police report that it is showing up in a number of countries around the world. Although it does appear, it doesn’t work. There could be several reasons for this type of limited roll-out; it may be that Google has been running tests on the new feature. It could turn out that the roll-out was accidental during a testing phase.
It has long been rumored that Google has been working on an incident reporting feature for Google Maps. Waze users are able to report both accidents and speed traps and leaks in the past have indicated that Google wanted to bring the functionality to Google Maps, too. With a lot of new features arriving on Google Maps in the last few months, and this latest leak, it seems that Google has finally decided to pull the trigger on this Waze-like feature.
When we hear more about a wider roll-out of a fully functional incident reporting feature for Google Maps, we’ll let you know.
