Google Maps announced today that it will add a new mud-mode to its industry-leading navigation app so that drivers can bypass muddy unpaved roads when navigating through rural areas. With this new feature, drivers will be able to filter out driving directions that route them down the soft and muddy unpaved roads that occur when snowmelt and spring runoff turn them into slippery quagmires. The new mud-mode feature will also be available in the Google Maps app year-round so drivers can filter out all dirt and unpaved roads from driving directions if they choose.
Until now, Google Maps was unable to differentiate between paved and unpaved roads, treating the two as equivalent when it computed driving directions. But anyone who’s lived in Vermont, Montana, or states where unpaved dirt and gravel roads outnumber paved ones will tell you that this was a gross miscalculation on Google’s Maps quest to rule the road as the United States #1 driving navigation app, let alone in the world.
“I can’t tell you how many times Google Maps has directed me down dirt roads in the middle of nowhere when they’re slick, soft, and waterlogged during mud season,” says Kato Zimmerman, of Starksboro, Vermont. The last thing I want is to sink to the axles when the road has turned into a mud pit in April. Most drivers know to use paper maps that depict road type and surface for getting around in Vermont instead of Google Maps, but this new mud mode feature will probably change that.”
This new Mud Mode capability, namely the ability to differentiate between paved and unpaved roads, was achieved by using AI technology developed by Google Labs and satellite imagery. It was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which wanted it for road navigation in Eastern Europe and other conflict zones, where muddy roads frequently delay the movement of heavy equipment.
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