I understand mapping the shortest routes, tollways vs non tollways, ect but how is programming like google maps able to determine the amount of time your commute will take due to traffic patterns and congestion?
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The system stores the map as a set of intersections and lines in between them for the roads. It does this even for things like on ramps. (In computer science this is called a graph).
As people drive over all these little segments using their maps, they send information back to the map system saying how long it took them.
Once the route is chosen, it can look up all the little segments and calculate a time.
That’s the basics. There’s more they can do, like estimate time at lights, or keep track of how much time it takes over the course of each day, and it can estimate ahead of time what it will be like.
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