Google Opens Up Mapping Platform To Widen Road Coverage, Invites More Contributors
Google announced Tuesday that it is opening up access to more participants to contribute to its Road Mapper feature to add missing roads to Google Maps worldwide.
Since the release of Road Mapper in 2021, assistants have mapped more than 1.5 million kilometers of roads and enabled more than 200 million people to navigate using Google Maps.
“Their contributions have made a real difference to people’s lives worldwide. We’re excited to announce that we’re opening up access to more contributors so we can continue to improve our maps,” the tech giant said in a statement.
Road Mapper is an invite-only platform where people participate in challenges and draw roads missing from Google Maps. They draw the geometry of the road using satellite images.
“There are still many challenges to complete, but we are confident that with your help we can make Google Maps the best it can be,” the company added.
In June 2013, Google acquired Waze in a $966 million deal. Its social features, such as a crowdsourced location platform, were valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google’s own mapping service.
In June of this year, Google Maps rolled out Immersive View in four new cities—Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice—and expanded the feature to more than 500 iconic landmarks around the world, from Prague Castle to Sydney Harbor Bridge, on Android and iOS devices. .
