The upcoming Google Maps feature aims to solve your parking nightmares.
Since a few years now, Google Maps has our travel sorted. You can navigate your destination, locate restaurants, ATMs and gas stations on your way, choose the best route based on live traffic updates. However, there is one thing that has been out of control — anticipating parking availability to wherever you are headed. Looks like Google Maps will now have us covered. According to latest reports, Google is testing a new feature on the maps, which will alert users of the potential parking problems.
According to a report by Android Police, the new feature on Google Maps shows the status of parking availability at the destination. This feature was first reported back in August last year, however, now that the feature is reportedly in its testing phase. Currently, the feature has been made live for a few users.
From the screenshots we can see the parking availability shown as a small rounded P icon. It shows up next to a user’s route duration estimate when they search for driving directions, followed by the directions written in text. The P icon is followed by text like “Parking is usually limited near this destination”. In addition to that, there are three levels to look for, Limited, Medium, and Easy. Limited parking will get the P icon to turn red, and for medium and easy, the icon is blue.
The publication also reports that the parking availability shows up for public destinations like malls and airports and various attractions. The update is currently available to limited people on the Maps v9.44 beta version. And at this time, it can not yet be told if this feature is live for select locations only, all over the US, or if it shows up in other countries too.
Google has been continually launched updates to make a traveller’s job easier. Back in 2014, Google had launched Parking Cards on Google app that allowed users to save their parking cards on their device. Of course not compatible in India, but it is nonetheless a useful feature. The Google app detects when a user steps out of the car, save that location and time as a card. And if somehow the phone gets the location wrong at the time of parking, a user can manually correct it too, right on spot.