Don's Home Maps
Under Construction 
Maping Software (2008 review)
             Creek  Mtns Lake Exit Multiple
             Names       Name nums Sizes Counties Size
MapQuest 1     y     n     *    y      y      y  690x526 * requires zoom 2 for lake names
Yahoo          n     n     y    y      n      y  620x500
Google         n     n     y    n      ?      n  705x725
MapsOnUs       n     n     n    y      y      n  338x338      good for secondary road,
                                  had new street when above did not.
Map @ MSN      n     y     n
MS TerraServer n     y       Aerial Photos & Topo maps - Labels Natl Forest
khtml World Map
1. Mapquest found towns (e.g. Concord in Lancaster Co., PA) which others did not.
See Examples

Directions - Travel Times
When getting directions from JFK airport to my son's wedding near Rhinebeck, NY
Google, Mapquest and Yahoo all gave different routes with different times.
When I changed the google route to match mapquest the time was close to
the shortest google time, but still shorter than the mapquest time.


According to some of the older reviews I found on the web Google used to give longer times.
I know I used to be able to beat the google time easily, however recently (2012)
google times are shorter.

The question is are they just using the speed limit or averaging
for slow traffic or allowing time for coffee breaks on long trips.
See tests below.

A 2008 blog Why use MapQuest for long trips? | Human-Computer Interaction @ IU says,
people use MapQuest of long trips because it gives better local information for
areas people are not familiar with.
But, MapQuest has changed in the last 4 years.

A 2010 article in PCWorld gave Google and 8/10, Bing a 7/10 and MapQuest 6/10
Google Maps Vs MapQuest One-on-One Comparison at driving-directions.org

A 2008 forum comment at askville.amazon.com  says,
For the last year, I had been traveling a lot and for every trip,
I made sure to compare the directions of Google maps and mapquest.
More than 95% of the time, I ended up choosing mapquest because
it not only gave me the shortest route but also gave me the fastest route 
besides giving me good time estimates.

My tests Dec., 2012

I-80 where there is little traffic from NJ to Western PA
 from 41 Vreeland Ave, Totowa, NJ to 862 Perry Hwy, Mercer, PA
  Google 356 mi 5:24  = 66 MPH
MapQuest 350.9 mi 5:42 = 62 MPH
  Bing   350.9 mi 5:00 = 70 MPH
If you drive 73 MPH you get 4:53 driving time.  With two gas/coffee/bathroom stops
of 15 min. each you get 5:23 which is the same as google's time. 

Washington D.C. I-495 Capital Beltway - Speed Limit 55 MPH
4095 Powder Mill Road, Beltsville, MD  to 7200 Old Keen Mill Rd., Springfield, VA 
         South                      North
  Google 33.8 mi 38 min = 54 MPH  43 min. 47 MPH
MapQuest 33.5 mi 42 min = 48 MPH  45 Min  45 MPH
You get the same results for average time with different time of day and days of the week.
Google maps now show time in current traffic under the average time.
 Examples      South    North
 10 AM Fri.    38 min 
  2:30 PM Fri  38 min    46 min
  4:00 PM Fri  38 min    52 min
  6:20 PM Fri  41 min    50 min
 11:15 PM Fri  38 min    43 min
 (It looks like they never post a current traffic time faster than the average)
 
Google will show you traffic at a given day or time.
Click the traffic dropdown in the upper right. Click traffic again.
Example for New York City
Click change in the Live Traffic legend at the lower left to change the day and time.


At Are the travel times on Google maps calculated by according to the speed limits?
- Yahoo! Answers in 2010 they said,
"Distance and average speed, they can't take into account time spent at
traffic lights, fuel stops, traffic accidents (if any).

See How Google Traffic Works: Where Traffic Data Comes From & How Google Maps
are Updated with Traffic Views

iPhone 6
In 2012 Apple dropped google as the source for their maps app creating a lot of criticism.
They have been working to fix it.
Tests by  Ars Technica in Oct. 2012, recommended the google maps in a web browser.



Aerial photos - Aatellite imagery:
Google Earth 
Live Search 
nj.gov/dep/gis/newmapping.htm NJ Aerial Photos from 1930

Calculate Distance at Gmaps Pedometer
veloroutes.org/bikemaps/ distance and elevation gain
MapMyRun.com/

411.com/find_neighbors
Find Home Values at Zillow


Find the latitude and longitude of street addresses in the US at
 GPSVisualizer.com, BatchGeoCode.com

Find adddress of a spot, Latitude/longitude of a point at
itouchmap.com/

Find the latitude and longitude of street addresses in the World at maporama.com

Resources for determining your latitude and longitude at N. Arizona U.

Find distance between two points given Lat/Lon at N. Arizona U.

Calculate distance and bearing between two Latitude/Longitude points
using Haversine formula in JavaScript


Magnetic Declination at: National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)

Directions

US Maps

Hiking topo maps

World Maps

City Lookup

MapsPlanet

Country Maps

Examples:

Lonely Planet
National Geographic
Ancestry.com
WorldAtlas.com
U. Texas

CIA World Factbook
Info Please: Europe: Italy
Expedia: Italy
Univ. Texas: Italy
Yahoo: Italy,
about.com: Italy (Uses CIA maps)
Virtual Tourist: Italy
Historical Maps Historic Atlas Resource - Europe

Map CD's and Printed maps
Historical Maps of the World

See also:
Location and Mapping with smart phones and tablets
25 Maps That Will Change The Way You See The World
Kelso Cartography
The map Room: A weblog about Maps
Geography and Demographics
www.macmaps.com/ (Mac related map sites)
Mapping Information (Coordinate Systems, software, symbols, ...)
Geographic Information System (GIS)

Return to Reference or Travel
last updated 6 Dec 2012