Transit and Traffic information on Google Map Singapore now

Good news everyone! Google Transit Information and Traffic Information is now available on Singapore Google Map. Woohoo! Google and LTA announced the collaboration recently at a media event inside Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station.

Both services have been available on Google map in other countries for quite some time. I still remember showing off my iPhone Google Map to my friends by going to New York and turning on the Show Traffic feature. The traffic features are very useful to drivers. It shows you roughly the traffic condition of most major roads. This will help drivers plan their route wisely. You can access the Google Map traffic on your iPhone, Android or any smartphone with Google Map Apps. Or you can also use your mobile phone browser to view the google map traffic.

Green means smooth traffic, Orange means moderate traffic and Red means heavy traffic. Only the major roads and expressway have this traffic overlay. Although the traffic condition is usually accurate, I do find that there are times when the map shows Orange line when there are hardly any cars along the road. But the red line is usually very accurate. When they display red, it is usually jammed up. Apart from information from LTA, Google is also using crowd sourcing where they gather anonymous data from Google Map users to analyze the traffic condition.

Directions on Google Map now includes directions for public transport in Singapore too. The public transport directions includes MRT, LRT and Buses. You can set your departure or arrival time and google map will come up with the best route and the estimate travel timing.

While these features are useful on the mobile phone, the best experience is still on the Google Map Singapore website where you get more options like historical traffic condition and Traffic Incidents. You can also easily change the route given by Google by dragging the route to the road you want to use.

So what does it means for local mapping websites like Gothere.sg and Streetdirectory? Luckily for everyone, the partnership between Google and LTA is non-exclusive. Which means that the data from LTA is also accessible by other companies. Which isn’t that bad. But bear in mind that Google has a much wider reach. Google map is preinstalled on all Android and iPhone. That is one thing that the local companies need to worry about.