What data feed does Google Maps use?

[GodAtum]

i've given up on Google maps. When there was no service between East Croydon and Victoria, Google still showed that route when planning my journey.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Whether or not they are pushing themselves as that, parts of the railway industry actively sees them as that. The general view is that they should not bother engaging with anyone other than the mammoths of Google or Microsoft as few customers will gain an active benefit from it. Of course, they fully expect that the mammoths will be fully engaged with the one version of the truth ethos and be one of the best citizens of it... this thread has actively proved otherwise.

That's a really interesting comment! Google is so inaccurate in certain cases, that I'm really surprised to hear that people in the industry expect it to be accurate, otherwise you'd think they would have engaged to sort out some of the problems. Are you able to elaborate about which parts of the industry you feel see Google as the ultimate journey planner? RDG, TOCs, NR or a combination?

 

[paul1609]

Something I've noticed with Google maps is that it invariably shows the road journey as being quicker than the equivalent rail journey. I've even known this happen when the train I'm using for the bulk of the journey is scheduled to travel at 125 mph for a large part of the journey and ISTR that the maximum speed limit on public highways is 60-70 mph.

Note that I live within 5 minutes walk of my local station and the journey time to the interchange from where I catch the high speed train is 9 minutes

The reality is that unless your journey is point to point on a high speed route the majority of real journeys will be faster door to door by car than by public transport, obviously there are some notable exceptions but even for me living 30 mins drive from HS1 the number of destinations I cant get to faster by train than by car is quite limited even when the train option is Eurostar. For longer journeys you should also bear in mind that the car time doesnt include breaks.