Smita left her office late in the evening and boarded an auto-rickshaw for her 30-min trip back home. After a long day at work, instead of relaxing and catching up on her chats, she was constantly checking Google Maps to ensure that the driver was on the right route.
At Google Maps, we have focused on building India-first features to deliver a more relevant and reliable experience for our users. Through our extensive research across India, we found that a lot of people limit their mobility due to safety-related concerns. Today, we're excited to announce a new feature - Stay Safer - for passengers like Smita, traveling in taxis and auto-rickshaws, to give them peace of mind, or avoid being taken through a longer route.
Now, after searching for your destination and getting directions, you can enable this experience by selecting the “Stay safer” and “Get off-route alerts” option. If your driver deviates more than 0.5KM from the Google Maps suggested route, your phone will buzz with a prominent notification, and you can tap it to see where you are compared to the original route. Then, you can also choose to share your live trip with friends and family directly from that screen so they know you are off route and can keep track of your journey, and take appropriate action, if required.
It has been inspiring to work closely with users across India to develop, test and launch this feature. At Google Maps, we are committed to helping make journeys safe and hassle-free and look forward to bringing more experiences like this to India and beyond.
It has been inspiring to work closely with users across India to develop, test and launch this feature. At Google Maps, we are committed to helping make journeys safe and hassle-free and look forward to bringing more experiences like this to India and beyond.
Ready to give it a try? The feature is now available to Android users in India using the latest version of Google Maps.
By Amanda Bishop, Product Manager, Google Maps