Google Maps provides Free Real-Time Traffic Information in Canada

I assume you are already familiar with Google Maps. You have probably stared at satellite images of your house from space, planned the best route from your current location to a street address, and looked at maps to measure distances. Maybe you've even tried Google Building Maker to create photo-realistic 3d buildings in your city.  Possibly you've noticed the upgraded appearance of road-maps lately, but there is more... Google is now giving you more

Previously only available in the United States, Google Maps has released Real-time traffic information for Google Maps in Canada. I'm happy to say that I saw this one coming, requested it from the Google Maps team, and watched with interest as it was launched in Seattle and featured on the Google Maps blog.

Today I noticed my colleague had Google Maps open in Greater Vancouver WITH traffic information!!! Apparently it launched at about the same time as Google StreetView.

Here's how it works...

To see Real-Time traffic in Google Maps, open up maps.google.com and after the map loads, zoom in a bit and choose the "traffic" button. A legend will appear. Green=good Yellow=ok Red/Maroon=Bad Black=ReallyBad. On the map coloured lines will appear on top of the routes, showing you where the slowdowns are and which roads are flowing smoothly. Experiment with zooming in and out to see traffic for larger or smaller roadways.

Google Mobile Users can also access this information from their Blackberry or other compatible device. From the Menu in Google Maps Mobile, choose "show traffic", let it load and voila, colours on the roads. My favourite feature of Google Maps Mobile is "hitting zero" and having the application guess my location and center me in the middle of the map. Originally this feature used cell phone tower information to triangulate my approximate location and I would see a nice blue circle around me (your position within 1300 meters) as Google did it's best to guess where I was. Usually pretty good, but switching to a phone with GPS brought the guess to withing 3 meters. (9 feet for my friends in the USA). Now if I hit "zero" I can watch myself cruising down the road colour coded for the kind of traffic I'm about to drive into. Google Maps Mobile users can also contribute real-time traffic information from their cell phones by signing up for and logging into Google Latitude.

So where is Google getting all this real time traffic data, did they really dig up all the roads and put sensors in? or are they tracking us with real time military satellites?... no. Google's "Latitude" service allows you to share your location with friends (and Google) using your mobile phone. If you don't have a GPS in your phone you'll still get the triangulation data for your location to share with your friends, but it may not be good enough for contributing to traffic... So anyways, your GPS information is shared with Google whenever you are logged in that will definitely put some "mileage" on your cell phone's data plan. I'm just saying be aware of it if you pay per MB/GB. If the Google traffic robot sees one phone going down the road, it has an idea of speed, but if it sees a whole bunch, it can start being confident of the road's speed. Freeways/Interstates have higher speed limits than arterial roads etc. A little bit of algorithm work to allow stoplights to function without making the whole city look like a traffic jam... and voila.

Today i had the distinct pleasure of watching myself drive down the road, and seeing the traffic information being drawn on behind me as I went. I guess I was the Latitude user with the GPS equipped phone that tipped the scales and gave Google the confidence to draw the traffic on the map. It feels good! Now we have an option to "flipping on the radio" and weathering the annoying advertisements when we see the freeway crawling to a halt.


Cheers, I hope this saves you and your friends a TON of traffic headaches!

I can't wait to see what Google Maps does next...
Greg.

The Value Proposition - Being content with the price you pay

I grew up in a world where the price on the price tag was the price you paid.  Being a shrewd consumer involved shopping around for the same product with a lower sticker price.  Although I did attend an auction or two in my childhood, that was an experience far removed from our weekly shopping trips.  I grew up learning that price was important, but quality was also important so the product would last and not need replacement or repair.  So sometimes paying a little more for better quality meant conserving money in the long run.  I want to pay the least and conserve my money for use elsewhere, but with a growing understanding of where our products come from, I won't knowingly choose a low price at the expense of others or the natural environment.  In this journey from fact to face negotiation, to automated Internet transactions and corporate marketing strategies, It is easy to lose sight of the people on the other sided of the transaction whose welfare must remain a part of the equation.

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In married life, the Internet has allowed us to compare prices without actually having to visit stores (much like the telephone allows), in fact we can compare prices without actually interacting with another person.  It feels like a safe anonymous inexpensive activity.  Ebay started introducing us to live on the wild side by bidding for things at "less than" the asking price.  Until recently this was the extent of our financial education until I met my friend Cindy at work and she introduced me to the idea of "asking for a better price".  "The worst they can say is no" she explained.  So in small ways I began to assert my desire for fairer prices.  Saving $200 on fees associated with buying a car, saving $15 off the price of a pair of shoes.  Spotting inconsequential defects and asking the cashier for a deduction.

Experience has eroded my confidence that retail prices accurately reflect value

I remember being shocked to observe retail markup first hand when i worked at the garden centre.  I saw two things that forever changed my view on pricing. 

1. The first was observing products coming in at a wholesale price and immediately being marked up to a retail price that was 2 times the wholesale.  The $4 items became $8 items, and the $40 items became $80 items.  I was alarmed that at the garden centre 1/2 of every price was basically profit.

2. The second was re-potting plants.  When a plant outgrew its 1 gallon pot, we would pull it out and place it in a 2 gallon pot surrounded with fresh dirt.  So on Friday the shrub was a 1 gallon plant for $4 and on Saturday it was a 2 gallon plant for $7.  In some cases the re-potting would only be half complete, and customers would pass over the 1 gallon shrubs to purchase a 2 gallon shrub (the plants were identical).

I think you will share some of the other experiences I've had; 

• Gas wars where 2 gas stations compete on price and the cost of a litre of fuel drops and drops to ridiculous prices (like 1cent for a litre).

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• Electronics where the retail price drops month after month, while other electronics like the Wii where the retail price remains constant for years.


• Recently crude oil prices plummeted while gasoline prices remained at record high levels for over a year.

Clearly the retail price is not a reflection of value in all cases.  The prices rise and fall despite constant demand and identical products.  The prices you see are not the direct result of a "market effect" but rather the contrived price of marketeers.  In some cases, nobody pays the same price, such as in the case of "yield management" where the airlines use complex formulas in their attempt to extract as much money as possible from each customer for a seat on the same plane.

Very recently on a trip to Mexico, I saw how a silver right for $80 could be purchased for $35.  How? by haggling.  A bead bracelet for $5 becomes 2 for $7 at a cost of $3.50 each.  Now there are the long faces and the sad stories of large families at home in need of money, but don't tear up, it is a game.  In the 5 minutes it took you to pay $7, you supplied 1/3 of the average Mexicans daily wage.  This whole process of haggling over prices felt uncomfortable to me.  As someone accustomed to paying sticker price.  I feel awkward haggling or arguing over price.  Because the "price tag" is what the man asked, I feel compelled to pay it.  After the face I am faced with the tension (maybe unhappiness) that results from having options in the price I pay.  My joy at "finding a good price" is robbed from me when I realize that I could have negotiated a "better price".  When I do haggle for a "better price" I wonder if I got he best price, or did I settle too high?

 

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The only solution I have found to this unhappiness with the prices I've paid is the value proposition.  What is the value of this to me and given this value am I content with the price I paid for this product.  For me the value proposition includes; the price I must pay, the quality of the product, the level of customer service I receive and the social impact of the product through its manufacture and associated labour and waste (explained clearly in "the story of stuff").    If I am content, then it does not matter that someone else got a better price or that the price dropped the next week.  I am content, I make my purchase and (unless there is a deal to refund my money when the price drops) I walk away secure that I made a choice and paid a price I was content with. 

I wish you success in leveraging the "value proposition" for your own peace of mind in purchasing.

Greg.