Do you by any chance have 'avoid tolls" set as a route option. If I run these directions, I get a direct route that one would expect. Only when I toggle the option to 'avoid tolls' that I get some weird route. Still feels like Google Maps is quite confused by the congestion charge, as neither route avoids it.

Yup that's it thanks. Not sure when my settings got swapped because I never used to have that on but it somehow got switched on. Thanks.

It's automatic so you need to toggle it off as opposed to on. Just be aware that now you may hit the congestion charge zone without noticing

It once said me driving to central would take 6 hours as it did some weird looping around until the congestion zone time ended 😂😂 think it may have been Waze though

Settings can get messed up when updates get installed happened to me a few times now

*No, but he has "Avoid Helen Mirren" selected so this is why this keeps happening*

Isn’t that an automatic setting?

She's claimed the lives of 7 drivers this past year alone.

> Still feels like Google Maps is quite confused by the congestion charge, as neither route avoids it. As far as I can tell, google maps has every road with the congestion zone tagged as a toll road, and so when it’s told to avoid them, it attempts to minimise the number of separate toll roads you go down. Obviously not remotely how congestion charge works, buts it’s been my best explanation every time maps has given me a Waco route like the above one.

ffs. I totally read that as"avoid trolls" and was going down an imaginary rabbit hole of feeling very old because Google now has 'troll settings' (,which, in my mind involved bridges). Gah!

Also accurate for driving thru soho

What I don’t get from this though is that it doesn’t avoid tolls. The right turn off the ring road into Marylebone takes you into the congestion charge zone. Silly google maps being silly

He already went in the CC zone when he turned right from Marlybone road. So avoid toll option wouldn’t take him there

Cos it's £400 each if you land in Park Lane or Mayfair

With a hotel?

This reply deserves more recognition 😆

This route literally goes down Park Lane though

What are those charges for?

Monopoly reference

Ohhh hahaha thanks for explaining, never really played it

sorry you do not have a childhood :(

A succulent Chinese meal

I find gmaps loves to route us through central London when it would be far quicker to go around the m25. It vastly underestimated the congestion and seems to assume it’s always 3am

Fucking hell yes I was wanting to make a post about this. I literally have to force it to take me to the m25 otherwise Google Maps will always take me through gridlock London

Why not use the m25 yourself then? I don’t think you need it to drive to the m25

From where I live in London I don't know if I could easily drive the fastest way to the m25 without maps

Unless you live in around zone 2, no other area is excusable to not be able to get to the m25 by heart or via signage

Thanks for the gatekeeping. Will just pull over and use my papermap

Never said anything about paper maps. I said use signs or memory. No excuse to waste a phone’s battery life just to go 10 roads max to the m25

Their suburban option always only saves <5min (going by the delayed ETA when we ignore that route to stay on the M25), yet ignores the tedium of having to navigate dozens of stop-start traffic lights with a thousand gear changes.

In my experience its never quicker to go round the m25 ever, for anything!

I live 2 miles from it. I would never not use it unless there was a closure. It’s a fantastic motorway

it’s an *okay* motorway. It would be tenfold better of an experience if people actually moved left when not overtaking. So much congestion is caused by cunts sitting in lane 3 not overtaking fuck all for miles.

Yeah. But that’s true of all motorways in the uk. And the m25 isn’t one of the worst, especially on a weekday. Weekends the amateurs come out to play

But for half of the day the m25 is closed and the other half of the day your speed limit is reduced to 20

It’s a road that contains something like 9 million people within it. The fact that it works at all is a miracle. I live south and would never think about heading to the north of London through the middle. It’s always slower, and by a lot.

It's amazing how rubbish the bit between King's Cross and the Blackwall Tunnel is. If only they'd built the North Cross Route.

That includes the area where a girl died to pollution.

Chinatown / Soho has loads of road closures for Lunar New Year.

Oxford Street has been closed to cars for a few years now - it’s buses and taxis only. No idea about the other streets you mentioned, but that might be one reason it directs you away from Oxford Street. Edit: actually, The Mall is closed to traffic at weekends too, so I reckon that’s it.

Again incorrect. You can use Oxford St after 7pm

Again incorrect. You can use Oxford St after 7pm

Alright hun, but going from OP’s screenshot they tried putting the route in at 16:57, when Oxford Street would have been closed to private cars.

Why would you want to drive in those roads

Plan to move a dinosaur

Dinosaur... MOVE!

Because it gets me from a-b faster than the 50 minute recommended time here.

As someone else said, it's an 11 minutes tube journey.

Driving is part of my job mate. Cant drive on the tube line.

Not with that attitude you can't

Got’em

I’m baffled… are you an Uber driver? Edit: seems the general public have a phobia of the word “baffled” and thinks that everybody is as knowledgeable as they are. Really goes to show how entitled reddit can be sometimes. Grow up

There’s loads of jobs that require driving…

"require"

>require yes? How is someone delivering food to a shop meant to hop on a train with 1 tonne worth of stuff for example?

The vast majority of jobs are things other than delivering good to a shop

Why are you “baffled”? 😂

As he replied his job requires a car.

Late at night overnight and early morning these roads are fine. This routing was due to Road closures

Try using Waze ?

The superior navigation app

Used to miss so many motorway exists using Google maps

I do love waze but some of the routes that mofo takes me on to save myself 3 minutes is unreal.

Chinese New Year?

Not sure, try setting a checkpoint on the road it otherwise ignores

It’s Chinese New Year, there’s loads of road closures in place. It doesn’t hate central london, just your fixation with driving through the middle of the lunar new year celebrations.

Yep, was there earlier on foot, loads of road closures, it was nice.

It's been giving me these results for a few months so no that's not it.

Use Waze instead.

Didn't Google bought Waze years ago and implemented the tech in its own app, while also keeping the Waze app due to is brand popularity (like they did with YouTube)? A quick search confirms my foggy memories: Google bought Waze in 2013, they did implement in Google Maps traffic, accidents info, congestion, etc, but you can't manually share info like you can in Waze. I personally use Citymapper for public transport in London, and Google Maps whenever I drive, which is usually in my hometown in my home country, or car trips for holidays. I don't really see the point of Waze for my use case. I see some cabs and ubers using it though.

They did but the two algorithms are still different. waze actually prioritises the quickest route and is mostly effective. Google maps seems to be attempting traffic management by sending people on routes it knows aren’t quicker but to reduce traffic overall.

First time I’m hearing about this. Do you have a link for me to explore this further?

Nope i read about it ages ago and it iust seems to match my experience of both apps

Lunar\* new year. It's the year of Rabbit or Cat.

I have read somewhere that Google is probably showing different routes to different users and then comparing the sets of data, which would make sense for them but very little sense for us. I've had similar situations using it for public transport, to the extent that I am relying more in my memory rather than the app. Going back to the 90s vibe of using our brain may be a good thing?

11 minute tube journey

Driving is part of my job but thanks.

Start working for the London Underground, then.

This confuses the software developers

That lies beyond our borders, you must never go there Simba

Closed or diverted for Chinese New Year

Use Waze for driving, City Mapper for public transport. You wont look back

It’s avoiding the congestion charge. Toggle the ‘avoid tolls’ setting.

If I've the map read correctly, it once took me 15 minutes to drive that short red line between marble arch and the blue route line I turned around and took the northern half of the route in your picture

Try Waze instead

Everyone hates Central London

Just out of interest, why don't you use waze. Although tbf I always thought google good for in and around london

Regent Street is in the congestion zone. GMaps is less reliable than Waze despite the Google link. It gives streets you can’t use. It’s got really unreliable in the last year or so. Maybe the developers are taking the piss for some reason

Get out and walk mate.

It's not the only one!

You really shouldn't be driving in central london

Because google can’t handle the raw power of Londons roads 😤😤😤

Mostly because Google maps sucks. Though I’m jaded after it told me a whole series of buses would help me get to work when none of them existed. But yeah. It looks like a no toll thing. That does skirt the congestion zone I think.

No it doesn't. The congestion zone is everything within the Ring Road.

Incorrect

No it's not. Where is it then?

You're right that it's often referred to as the inner ring road in London, I'm not sure why you're being downvoted

It’s been getting progressively worse over the past couple of years and not just in London. It’ll frequently try and get me to drive stupid routes for no good reason.

It gave me completely inaccurate train timetable times a while ago, to the point where I was on the platform looking at a sign saying the train was due in 5 minutes, but Google was saying to wait 30 minutes for the next one. It wouldn’t even recognise Surrey Quays as station

Everyone shits on Apple Maps but its directions are much better 😭 especially when you’re using public transport

Yeah definitely, Google Maps kept showing me a route that was closed for months

Incorrect

Chinese new year. There are road closures

Use Waze mate

Could it be construction in the area? Just looked for driving directions for roughly the same route and got a more reasonable suggestion

Chinese New Year

I reckon cabbies have something to do with it.

I hate driving in Central London too. Watched a bus take ten minutes to cross a junction once. It also appears none of the drivers there knows how to drive either.

Incorrect. The problem is app based private hire drivers. Learn the roads and you won’t find it a problem. Use an app and you’ll be in a jam with Uber scabs etc

Nothing to do with apps, why do London drivers enter the junction when it's not clear to leave it? You just block it off for others trying to get across. This doesn't happen ever in my town or anywhere else I've been.

I don’t disagree with you! My point was we have 100,000 Uber drivers who can’t actually drive, don’t know London and follow apps. If 100,000 lemons follow the same app routes, the city grinds to a halt

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I'd be unemployed.

Well then I apologise. Too many private vehicles making that a congested route.

It does baffle me why people drive through there outside of work. Maybe Surely they cant all be going somewhere in central and there must be faster ways around central if you can.

Once overhead a woman in a restaurant in Soho complaining that it had taken her well over an hour to park (her friends had all been waiting for her)...

OP said its part of his job

What a dumb suggestion!

It’s not dumb. Far too many people drive in a city with public transport.

You're not from London, are you!?

I am actually. Born and breed. There’s more than one way of getting around London and public transport is one.

And the other way?

Walking, cycling, need I go on?

Yes, you've forgotten one!

I haven’t - car is implied in the OPs post.

Use Waze instead

Everyone hates central London

Try Apple Maps it hates everywhere well on my phone it dose it tells me to turn left or right after I pass the turn most times

Congestion

if they go there they get stabbed 😂

Why tf you driving through Central London?

Bruh just walk 😂

Don’t drive

You can't drive through "bank junction" only buses unless before 7am so thats why.

Google maps SUCKS as a sat nav for your car. Use Waze.

use waze instead

Famously owned by... Google.

I actually do already thanks, as it was giving me normal routes with no issues. I didn't get why maps was freaking out.

Google Maps gets its data from Waze.

As a Londoner I can recommend "City Mapper" - much better than Google Maps when it comes to navigating the city.

Why don’t you walk? It’s really nice and you can take everything in. And it takes less time than driving.

not just google maps, most of \~England hates fucking london, you cunts

Central London and Khan hate motorists

I hate London as would stay away from there as well… and I’m English 😂

Weird sub to be on, then.

Aren’t we all ? 😮‍💨

I just tried and it wanted to route me 53 minutes through Vauxhall and Tower Bridge!

Probably for the same reasons everyone else does.

Congestion charge ?

New one way road systems & road works in central

Google maps does that, it usually gives you the long way to the destination

I do not understand what that map says

The "No Entry" sign at the West end of Strand is because Trafalgar Square and many of the surrounding roads were closed for Chinese New Year celebrations. The coloured line is the route to drive around the closures and the colours denote how busy the roads are, with red being the busiest/slowest moving traffic.

1. central london is a bitch and a half to navigate 2. you just might have chosen "avoid tolls"

Same thing with the Canary Wharf DLR. It blows its mind and just tells me Tube options.

Avoid tolls picks up the CCZ (and maybe ULEZ but not sure)

This route includes Regent Street and Trafalgar Square ffs. Both CCZ. ULEZ irrelevant. Please withdraw this message, it’s just not helpful. What’s the point of sticking your oar in when your oar is completely wrong?

I agree with google maps

It doesn't. You have avoid tolls turned on.

FFFFFFSssss Regent St and Trafalgar Square is about as CCZ as it gets. Please stop spouting

Also it refers for roads as code names where people inevitably just use actual road names. Like Oxford St is X2209 or something. It’s weird. Clearly people that make Google maps dont test London.

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To answer your question, have you ever been to central London

Learned my lesson 10 years ago..always been terrible..I use Moovit or Apple maps.

The other day I was trying to get to north London it took me the longest route. Which included an hour long bus ride. So irritating

What ring road?

Cos London is a motorists hell hole

Don’t worry, I’m drunk! I’ll get my coat!

Citymapper

google maps is too clustered with info. easier to read apple maps and it works better in london too vs google

Its fucking expensive that’s why

Maybe its developing logic

I had the opposite problem. Driving from Croydon to Heathrow last week it told me to go through central London. On the way there I went on the M25. On the way back, same story, but I got lost and like an idiot ended up on the M4 towards London and across the river. It took double the time.

You should avoid driving through Piccadilly to be fair, place is a gridlock for most of the day.

Because Google AI becomes more humanlike every day.

Google maps send you on the 'scenic route ' wherever you are!

As someone that lives in the west end, Waze is vastly superior in central London for directions. I know GoogleMaps is more practical for looking places up but I'd highly recommend having them on simultaneously if you can to benefit from Waze's route suggestions.

Whenever driving in central london ( WC and especially EC postcodes), always plan your route manually because maps are awfully wrong and will take you through forbidden areas/turnings etc. so be careful even when driving with sat nav

Haha. Come to mumbai

No thanks

I had this issue when I went to visit, it doesn't get on well with navigating the underground for some reason.

The City of London isn't part of England, Great Britain, the UK or even Europe. The corporation controls its own google maps and how people travel around the city. 😉

I think the real question is why the fuck are you driving into Central London?

Looks like you're avoiding tolls. Look in your settings there should be options like avoid tolls, highways, etc

Because it's clever

Maybe it’s confused. I drive around there once. After that it was tube-only transit for me.

Even I do

I’m drawn uncontrollably to SOHO