Today I had three locations to visit for work. Last night I plugged the addresses into Mapquest to figure out exactly where they were located, I thought I knew what the best itinerary would be, but just before I hit the button to get the directions I saw a new-to-me toggle button that said:
"Should we re-order your stops to get the most optimized route?"
Out of curiosity I decided to turn the button on and see what happened. It turns out that Mapquest was smarter than me when it came to driving efficiency. Their way was eight miles shorter than mine. In addition to being shorter, their optimized route was designed such that most of the turns I made were to the right (and all but one of the left turns happened at a stop light with an arrow). That saved me a lot of time sitting in the left lane waiting for a break in traffic so I could turn.
I left the house at 9 in the morning, did my tasks, and was back home by noon. I think this will
not be the last time I take advantage of this feature.
Five years ago today:
Purr-forming
That sounds interesting. I'll definitely have to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteMy stupid GPS (Garman) is known to take us around the block just for the heck of it. So even with the GPS, I will also have a Mapquest map AND a road atlas.
Technology is great until it doesn't work :-)
DeleteA couple of years ago I was going to a baby shower. I pretty much knew where I was going, but I pulled up the address on Google maps to find the closest cross street. If I had completely followed their directions I would have tried to get off the Interstate at a non-existent exit.
wow thanks for the info...what a world we live in these days.
ReplyDeleteI love the map sites with directions. I also take tours via google maps street view.
ReplyDeleteYour idea of taking street view tours sounds like a nice way to spend a couple of hours :-)
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