which allows Google to predict real-time traffic on a particular patch of a road around the world. Google Maps App user constantly send anonymous bits of data to Google providing information like driver’s location, itinerary, speed etc. Google extensively uses data from its smartphone users to refine the traffic prediction. The most intriguing of these features is the real-time traffic information. On top of the base layers of maps, Google has added many other capabilities including turn-by-turn navigation, business locations, search while navigation etc. Having done this for years, Maps has achieved a very high level of accuracy. Apart from technology, Google also employs a small army of people to manually correct the information collected from these different sources. They have built proprietary technology to combine all these disparate data sources together to generate the most accurate maps. Google uses a variety of sources to collect data including satellite imagery, geological surveys, municipality maps, third-party surveys and of course, street view cars (5M+ miles covered). Over the years, Google has made many acquisitions to beef up its data portfolio and technology.

How was Google Maps built? Google Street View Cars With over 1Bn+ monthly active users, Google Maps is one of the most used consumer application. They have collected more than 20 Petabytes (20M+ GB) of data and are still collecting more information to constantly improve the maps. Over the last decade or so, Google has dedicated enormous resources to build a searchable map for the entire earth.

Google earth real time street view