Where?

[dc]

What the hell’s going on with some online maps at the moment? I checked out Google Maps a little while ago, and I wouldn’t ever use them for information about somewhere I didn’t know thoroughly. Looking at a couple of locations I know in Glasgow produced some fairly peculiar results, one of which was the appearance of an “Inverquhomery Road”, which is unknown — by that name, anyway — to anyone in the area.

Great Western Road is a major road in Glasgow. It starts at the edge of the City Centre, at the end of West Graham Street, and runs all the way out to Dumbarton. It is one of the major arterial routes in and out of the city. This is the road Google Maps labels (for some bizarre reason) “Inverquhomery Road” for a great chunk of its length. Still, Google Maps is a Beta, so some problems are not unexpected.

I was astonished, though, to find Great Western Rd. labelled “Inverquhomery Road” on the map provided at Yell.co.uk when I was checking the details of a particular church. (The marker showing the location of the church is wrong, too, incidentally.) This map is provided by MultiMap, which isn’t connected with Google as far as I know. What is going on?

Comments

[wibbble]

streepmap.co.uk, the map website I use the most, finds exactly one Inverquhomery Road - up near Aberdeen. (Streetmap.co.uk has an excellent 'search by road name' feature, which is vital when you're trying to find out where potential flats are in a city you're not too familiar with.)

Route 66 2004 also only turns up that one Inverquhomery Road. (In fact, that's the only street with 'Inverquhomery' in the name at all.)

I suspect that Google got their mapping data from the same source as MultiMap, a source which isn't as good as Streetmap.co.uk or Route 66's data.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Yes, Streetmap.co.uk is much better — and I did the “search by road” thing too, and got the Aberdeenshire result. :o)

[wibbble]

Google has a much higher 'cool factor', though: the satellite imagery, the live scrolling, and all that stuff. Plus the web services API which lets people do cool things like the Google Maps Pedometer (http://www.sueandpaul.com/gmapPedometer/).

You could maybe email them and point out the inaccuracy - their service is useless if the data's wrong, so they might fix it.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is undoubtedly true, although I'd sacrifice "cool" for accuracy with maps any time. The Inverquhomery Road thing was only the most obvious weirdness; there are plenty of bizarre things in the Glasgow maps (including a very peculiar depiction of railway lines in the city centre).

I did email them, a few weeks ago, no sign they've paid any attention.

[madame-queeny.livejournal.com]

Techmad said I should point you in the direction of one of my eBay sales, he thought you may be interested. Finishes tonight!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5015755393&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did look at that. If I had the cash...

[rhionnach.livejournal.com]

I have one of those somewhere.