Hi, I am Sheetal, level-8 Local Guide from Delhi.
I started being a part of Local guide community 3 years back and I have been making frequent contributions as and when I am free. In last one year, I have been a part of a couple of Meet-ups hosted by our community members. Links of those meetups are provided at the bottom of this post.
Thanks to the overwhelming contributions by our global Community, we Local Guides have covered majority of the City / Urban areas. This has definitely brought a revolution like change in the way people travel and commute. We have helped millions of people reach their destinations with a high degree of accuracy without having the need to ask for directions at every second junction.
A student concentrating on studies in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh (India) now know the exact location of the examination center where he need to report. And all this just on his mobile. He/she also gets to know what all facilities are available at the examination center, All thanks to the great reviews shared by our community. We remember, in earlier times students needed to travel to their exam centers in advance so that they do not get late for their exam or even miss them completely. There are a lot of other transformations that Google Maps with the help of the Local Guides. You do not need call or visit a place to know whether it is open or closed.
Though cities and towns have been at the benefiting end of these contributions our rural / semi-urban areas still remain majorly uncovered. There’s a lot of information that can be put up on Maps like the condition of the roads in a street.
Let’s take an example:
If we have to suppose travel to a village in Haryana State (India) named Bhathera. We simply search the google maps and it comes with a result page showing like this.
However, the actual location of the residential area of the village is as below:
The Main problem begins when someone asks for the driving directions and begins following the directions.
The segment of the suggested route in red box is not even a Road but just a Trail path created by Tractors movement in the agricultural fields around the village. In rainy season it becomes even worse. Very dangerous segment for the both Two/Four wheeler vehicles. When people hit this segment on their way to the village, simply relying on Google Maps, they feel very bad. As the detour involves a lot of additional miles travelling.
I think a better focus on rural areas will not only provide a platform for the people to transform and the users a better service.
Another example of the issues with Google Maps regarding Rural area is below:
Here I asked the Google Maps the driving directions from Delhi to my village located in Delhi itself (though in rural area). Now people who use Navigation to this place for the first time, generally end up in a deserted Field. The actual place as depicted in the red box is at different.
These are some of the examples where we need to do a lot of work to make the Maps accessible to even more masses.
My main reason as to why I wish to join the Connect Live is to get some insights into the future plans of the Googlers and the Maps team how and what they are planning in this direction.
I hope I get the opportunity to meet some of the top brains from our community who have been doing tremendous job and learn from them and try to replicate some of it in the rural areas here in India.
Thanks once again
Sheetal
Links:
Meet-ups where I participated: