Google Maps vs. Apple Maps vs. Waze

Several weeks ago I got stuck at the bottom of Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy, Utah waiting to get up to Alta ski resort on a snowy Saturday morning. On most days the traffic to get to the ski resort is fairly mild. Throw in a snowstorm the night before and a lot more people will try to go skiing because of the fresh powder. If there is too much snow then avalanches become a problem and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has to ensure that the road is safe for others before letting anyone up the canyon. This is the situation my wife, son, and I found ourselves in.

My son decided to run a very simple test: which smartphone application provides the most accurate estimation on when you will arrive at your destination? We had 3 smartphones in the car and so one checked Google Maps, another Apple Maps, and the last one Waze. Pick the one you think provided the most correct answer and then continue reading. The answer may surprise you.

Having been stuck in a similar situation before, we all had a rough idea of how long it would take us to get up to the ski resort and so my son rattled off the time from Google Maps: 51 minutes. Normally it would only take us 10 minutes from where we were at the time. Next he checked Apple Maps and it said 21 minutes. That was the answer we wanted to hear but we knew it was too optimistic. Finally he checked Waze and got a 41 minute time, but with a caveat. Waze redirected our route and used some side streets to get us the middle time. We did not want to change our route and stuck to our intended path up the canyon.

We got to the bottleneck of traffic and saw how Waze would have routed us around it. We also saw that had we followed the new path, we would have been redirected and not been allowed up the canyon. Police were standing in the middle of the intersection and not allowing cars from the alternate path to proceed through the intersection towards the ski resort. This is an anomaly and nothing in Waze would have know about the redirection.

We continued up the canyon at a slow pace because of all the cars wanting to go skiing. Ultimately Google Maps gave us the most correct number as it took us 49 minutes from the point we checked all 3 apps for estimated travel times.

Is this proof that Google Maps is better than Waze and Apple Maps? No, it is just one case. Normally I would have guessed that Waze would do a better job as that is what I have been told. Ultimately each trip can be different and affected by a number of variables. For this trip, Google Maps performed better than the others.