Google Maps may soon display the cost of tolls to travel a route: it already exists on Waze, it should also arrive on Maps
For years now, Google Maps has been informing travelers around the world about the presence of toll roads along the route to get to their destination. So motorists, motorcyclists, truckers and so on can decide in the planning phase of the trip which route is better, also in function of a possible payment.
Often everything is reduced to the choice between the fastest route, usually subject to the payment of one or more tolls, and the one instead a bit longer, because for example it presupposes the passage of mountain roads, but free and sometimes even scenic. It is a matter of opportunity, of wallet when the toll is an important part of the trip, and of course of time available in most cases, but sometimes you find yourself choosing "in the dark" when for example Google Maps, perhaps the most used travel system in Europe, proposes two alternatives both subject to payment: which one to choose, without knowing how much one costs and how much the other?
Tolls estimate coming soon on Google Maps
We might soon have an answer to this question thanks to a novelty that should arrive on Google's navigator, which for years has been reporting the presence of toll booths for payment on a given route but not how much the payment amounts to. It's certainly useful to know beforehand if you have to pay to drive on a road, but knowing beforehand how much is even more useful and can sometimes make the difference between one choice and another.
As emerges from the latest rumors circulating on the net, Google is conducting surveys among those who are part of the Google Maps preview program, in order to understand directly from those who use the app how they would like the function to be implemented.
From those who are getting the chance to learn more via the survey conducted by Google we learn that the new feature in store for Maps will show an estimate of the cost of tolls to get to your destination via each proposed route, all in the preview phase. The new feature would make the choice even more conscious and accurate information shown by Maps, making it much more obvious the trade-off between a faster but paid route and a longer but free one.
And who knows, maybe one day you'll be able to pay via Maps
If the novelty will be implemented on Google Maps in the same way as it is presented on Waze, a navigation app that has been in the hands of Big G since 2013, the figures displayed will still be estimates of actual prices, estimates that would still give a welcome indication to those who are preparing to plan a trip.
In Italy, in fact, the cost of the toll varies little depending on factors such as day of the week, time of day, amount of traffic, but elsewhere, even within Europe itself, the price of the toll is influenced by so many elements that it is difficult to predict exactly.
But if the tolls arrive on Maps and Google manages to make agreements with the various companies that manage them, who knows, you might not be able to pay the contribution comfortably through Maps and avoid the exhausting queues at the toll booths, perhaps under the sun.