If you missed Google’s announcement earlier this year in July, the company said it was making changes to the way incidents were reported for Google Maps across all platforms – including Android Auto and CarPlay. Examples of the new updates have begun to surface online, indicating a wider rollout isn’t too far off.
The update includes a redesigned user interface, which is supposed to make incident reporting easier, and the use of crowd-sourced incident reports from Maps users as well as surfacing reports from sister app Waze.
Google said at the time, “To help keep your fellow drivers informed on the road, Maps is making it easier to report incidents and helpful information, like nearby construction, lane closures, objects and police presence — these reports come from the Maps and Waze communities, and you can even see which app a report came from.”
Where there’s a Map, there’s a Waze
The team followed that up by detailing how Maps would show reports from Waze drivers with attribution in the app.
“This wouldn’t be possible without our partnership with Geo, where we aim to bring the most comprehensive map data to all drivers through bi-directional data exchange (like KoiFish) and ensure our Map Editors have the best tools available.”
While the wider rollout for the slated Google Maps updates was supposed to begin in September, there have been few reports of the feature out in the wild. Recently, however, 9to5Google first spotted a user with a Waze report showing up in Google Maps.
A Reddit user had a police alert show up in their Google Maps mobile app with a little message saying “From Waze drivers” followed by the option to confirm if the incident was still accurate. Hopefully, this is a sign that more people will start seeing incident reports from Maps and Waze drivers in Google Maps.
