Get directions around NSW on Trains, Ferries, Light Rail, and Buses in Google Maps

Locals and tourists alike use New South Wales’ hundreds of train, ferry, and bus lines — to the tune of over 500 million times per year. With so many people looking to make the most of the state’s extensive transit network, we are excited today to announce the launch of public transport directions in Google Maps for NSW.

Just as we added cycling directions two weeks ago, you will now be able to quickly generate public transport directions from point A to point B by simply clicking on the “Get Directions” button and then selecting the public transport icon.

To see how it works, search for a Thai restaurant in Sydney on Google Maps, click on “Directions,” input your current location, choose a departure or arrival time, and then let Google Maps recommend the most convenient public transport options. The results show you step-by-step directions including the best way to walk to a bus stop, ferry wharf or train station — as well as estimated travel time. On the left hand side of the map, you will see each step in the journey; click to see it pinned on the map. If you want, drag Pegman over to the location and scope out what the stop or station looks like in Street View.

Public transport directions are also available on Google Maps on mobile phones, so you will always have access to a trip planner. Using public transport navigation from a mobile has the added convenience of automatically putting your current location as the starting point to determine the best trip to your destination. Simply search for a place to go and click “Directions.”

With Google Maps for Mobile on Android phones, you can also use Navigation to get a step-by-step guide that gives you alerts when it’s the right time time to get off the bus or when to make a transfer. 


Public transport directions will be helpful to get around Sydney, but with 57 bus, train and ferry companies included, people living across the state, in towns large or small, will be able to take advantage of this new feature. 

Whether you use public transport every day or just occasionally, whether you use it as a commuter or as a tourist, we hope that public transport directions for NSW give you more choices in planning your trips.


Posted by Nabil Naghdy, Product Manager, Google Maps

Become an Antarctic explorer with panoramic imagery

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog

In the winter of 1913, a British newspaper ran an advertisement to promote the latest imperial expedition to Antarctica, apparently placed by polar explorer by Ernest Shackleton. It read, "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success." While the ad appears apocryphal, the dangerous nature of the journey to the South Pole is certainly not—as explorers like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Shackleton himself discovered as they tried to become the first men to reach it.

Back in September 2010, we launched the first Street View imagery of the Antarctic, enabling users from more habitable lands to see penguins in Antarctica for the first time. Today we’re bringing you additional panoramic imagery of historic Antarctic locations that you can view from the comfort of your homes. We’ll be posting this special collection to our World Wonders site, where you can learn more about the history of South Pole exploration.



With the help of the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, we’ve added 360-imagery of many important spots, inside and out, such as the South Pole Telescope, Shackleton's hut, Scott’s hut, Cape Royds Adélie Penguin Rookery and the Ceremonial South Pole.

The ceremonial South Pole (View Larger Map)

The interior of Shackleton’s Hut demonstrates the host of supplies used in early 20th Century Antarctic Expeditions—everything from medicine and food to candles and cargo sleds can be found neatly stored inside. (View Larger Map)

With this technology, you can go inside places like Shackleton’s Hut (pictured above) and the other small wooden buildings that served as bases from which the explorers launched their expeditions. They were built to withstand the drastic weather conditions only for the few short years that the explorers inhabited them, but remarkably, after more than a century, the structures are still intact, along with well-preserved examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during the expeditions. Now anyone can explore these huts and get insight into how these men lived for months at a time.

The landscape outside of Robert Falcon Scott’s supply hut conveys just how desolate the area is. For these early explorers, the supply huts were an oasis of warmth and comfort in a cold and inhospitable landscape. (View Larger Map)

This new imagery was collected with a lightweight tripod camera with a fisheye lens—equipment typically used to capture business interiors through the Business Photos program. We worked with this technology because of its portability, reliability and ease-of-use (our Street View trikes wouldn’t be much use in the snow).

The goal of these efforts is to provide scientists and travel (or penguin) enthusiasts all over the world with the most accurate, high-resolution data of these important historic locations. With this access, schoolchildren as far as Bangalore can count penguin colonies on Snow Hill Island, and geologists in Georgia can trace sedimentary layers in the Dry Valleys from the comfort of their desks. So feel free to leave your boots and mittens behind while still embarking on a trip to Antarctica.

Posted by Alex Starns, Technical Program Manager, Street View

Ride on! Cycling comes to Google Maps in Australia

We're big fans of bicycling here at Google Australia, and based on how much we get asked, “When is cycling coming to maps in Australia?” we know most of you are cyclists too.

Good news is that today we’re launching cycling directions on Google Maps in Australia — providing you with a new way of getting around town. Our routes were made possible in part thanks to the support of councils around the country who provided us with information on bicycle-friendly streets and areas. If you want to bike to work or your local shops, or simply want to spend more time outdoors, cycling directions will help you find the best way to get where you want to go.

For example, if I commute from Liberty Grove to the Google office, biking directions can now tell me the most convenient and efficient route that makes use of dedicated bike lanes and avoids hills whenever practical.

If you decide to stop off at your favorite coffee shop, you can either add it as an extra destination in the menu on the right or simply drag the route. The directions will continue to take cycle lanes into consideration.

For those looking simply to browse the map, just click the ‘bicycling’ layer on the top right. You'll see three types of lines appear on the map:

• Dark green indicates a dedicated cycle path 
• Light green indicates a dedicated cycle lane along a road 
• Dashed green indicates roads that are designated as preferred for cycling, but without dedicated lanes

We'll continue to add new cycling lanes over time. And since cycling directions is still in beta, we encourage riders to send feedback and route information for inclusion by clicking on the report a problem link.

 

So for those going for a Sunday afternoon ride with the family, or training to be the next Cadel Evans, we hope that bicycle directions in Google Maps can help make it easier to safely plan your next outing. Happy cycling! 


Posted by Nabil Naghdy, Product Manager, Google Australia

Introducing Google Maps Coordinate: Organise teams on the move

This is a cross-post from the Google LatLong Blog.


Imagine you are a call centre operator at an electric utility company. A call comes in reporting a downed powerline in one of the northern suburbs of your city, and an entire neighborhood is without power. You need to quickly dispatch one of your line repairers to the site, which is almost an hour away. To save time and get the power back up quickly, you want to know which line repairers are already in the area and send them the relevant information about the job.

That’s where Google Maps Coordinate comes in, a new tool designed to improve communication between businesses and their employees in the field. As the number of mobile employees continues to grow, so does the need for a location sharing solution that works in real-time. Research firm IDC estimates that there will be over 1.3 billion mobile workers by 2015 (37.2% of the total workforce).* Google Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help organisations assign jobs and deploy staff more efficiently.

When a business signs up for Google Maps Coordinate, they get access to the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile apps.

Employees in the field download the mobile app to their phone and then can:

• Share real-time location. Google Maps Coordinate is built on Google’s mapping and geolocation infrastructure so the app will send an accurate location, even if you’re indoors (Google Maps Coordinate integrates with Google Indoor Maps).

• Record data. Mobile teams often need to collect information while out in the field. Google Maps Coordinate allows the admin to customise the fields that the mobile team needs to capture and collect – from measurements to client contact details – directly in the app.

Meanwhile, a designated dispatcher back in the office can:

• Create teams: Add team members to a Google Maps Coordinate team and see their locations in the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile app.  For example, our electric utility company might create a special team for home electricians and another for line repairers.
• Manage jobs. Easily create jobs, precisely locate the job, assign the job to the nearest team member and notify them instantly.  The next time there is a downed powerline, the operator at the utility company will have no problem identifying the closest team member and assigning them to investigate the issue.  

• View past jobs and locations. Get the hard data you need to make strong business decisions. With Google Maps Coordinate, businesses can easily visualise the locations of all their jobs and teams, including current and past jobs.  Businesses can assess where they should be assigning or hiring more workers and how to optimally place their teams.

Any business can sign up for Google Maps Coordinate. Google Maps Coordinate is built to work seamlessly with the entire Google Enterprise Maps and Earth experience, and it comes with an API that can integrate with any of your existing systems.  

Contact our sales team or a Google Enterprise Maps and Earth reseller if you’re interested in signing up for
Google Maps Coordinate. Share your Google Maps Coordinate use cases and feedback on our Enterprise G+ page.

*IDC, Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast, Doc #232073, December 2011

Posted by Daniel Chu, Senior Product Manager

The never-ending quest for the perfect map

Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog

For the last decade we’ve obsessed over building great maps for our users—maps that are totally comprehensive (we’re shooting for literally the whole world), ever more accurate and incredibly easy to navigate. 

Comprehensiveness

It’s a pretty limited search engine that only draws from a subset of sources. In the same way, it’s not much of a map that leaves you stranded the moment you step off the highway or visit a new country. Over the last few years we’ve been building a comprehensive base map of the entire globe—based on public and commercial data, imagery from every level (satellite, aerial and street level) and the collective knowledge of our millions of users. 

Today, we’re taking another step forward with our Street View Trekker. You’ve seen our cars, trikes, snowmobiles and trolleys—but wheels only get you so far. There’s a whole wilderness out there that is only accessible by foot. Trekker solves that problem by enabling us to photograph beautiful places such as the Grand Canyon so anyone can explore them. All the equipment fits in this one backpack, and we’ve already taken it out on the slopes.

Luc Vincent, engineering director, taking the Street View Trekker for a trial run in Tahoe

Accuracy

The next attribute map makers obsess over is accuracy. We still have a way to go because the world is constantly changing—with new houses, cities and parks appearing all the time—it’s a never ending job. But by cross-checking the data we have, we can significantly improve the accuracy of our maps. Turns out our users are as passionate about the quality of Google Maps as we are, and they give us great feedback on where we can do better. We make thousands of edits a day based on user feedback through our Report a Problem tool and via Map Maker, which we launched in 2008. Today we’re announcing the expansion of Map Maker to South Africa and Egypt, and to 10 more countries in the next few weeks: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. 

Usability

The final element of the perfect map is usability. It’s hard to remember what digital maps were like before Google Maps went live in 2005, and the huge technological breakthroughs that transformed clicking on arrows and waiting, to simply dragging a map with a mouse and watching it render smoothly and quickly. Plus, we added one single search box. Today we have thousands of data sources that feed into our maps making them a rich and interactive experience on any device—from driving directions to transit and indoor maps to restaurant reviews. 

People have been asking for the ability to use our maps offline on their mobile phones. So today we’re announcing that offline Google Maps for Android are coming in the next few weeks. Users will be able to take maps offline from more than 100 countries. This means that the next time you are on the subway, or don’t have a data connection, you can still use our maps. 

The next dimension

An important next step in improving all of these areas—comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usability of our maps—is the ability to model the world in 3D. Since 2006, we’ve had textured 3D buildings in Google Earth, and today we are excited to announce that we will begin adding 3D models to entire metropolitan areas to Google Earth on mobile devices. This is possible thanks to a combination of our new imagery rendering techniques and computer vision that let us automatically create 3D cityscapes, complete with buildings, terrain and even landscaping, from45-degree aerial imagery. By the end of the year we aim to have 3D coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people.

I have been working on mapping technology most of my life. We’ve made more progress, more quickly as an industry than I ever imagined possible. And we expect innovation to speed-up even more over the next few years. While we may never create the perfect map … we’re going to get much, much closer than we are today.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Maps

Explore historic sites in Australia and around the world with the World Wonders Project

I’ve always been fascinated by famous historic and cultural sites from around the world. When I was a child, flipping through encyclopedias while researching for school projects, the thought of exploring these sites was a distant dream. With the new Google World Wonders Project, that dream is now a little closer for students and others around the globe.

The World Wonders Project enables you to discover 132 historic sites from 18 countries, including Stonehenge, the archaeological areas of Pompeii and the ancient Kyoto temples. In addition to man-made sites, you can explore natural places: wander the sandy dunes of Australia’s Shark Bay or gaze up at the rock domes of Yosemite National Park in California.

Two other Aussies treasures are included on the site: You can drive through the natural beauty of Kakadu National Park or walk around Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens.

World Wonders uses Street View technology to take you on a virtual trip to each iconic site. Most could not be filmed by car, so we used camera-carrying trikes to pedal our way close enough. The site also includes 3D models and YouTube videos of the historical places, so you can dig in and get more information and a broader view of each site. We also partnered with several prestigious organisations, including UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, Getty Images and Ourplace, who provided official information and photographs for many of the sites.

We hope World Wonders will prove to be a valuable educational resource for students and scholars. A selection of educational packages are available to download for classroom use; you can also share the site content with friends.

World Wonders is part of our commitment to preserving culture online and making it accessible to everyone. Under the auspices of the Google Cultural Institute, we’re publishing high resolution images of the Dead Sea Scrolls, digitising the archives of famous figures such as Nelson Mandela and presenting thousands of artworks through the Art Project.

Find out more about the project on the World Wonders YouTube channel, and start exploring at www.google.com/worldwonders.

Posted by Melanie Blaschke, Product Marketing Manager, World Wonders Project

Girl Guides Go Google

Today’s guest post is by Wendy Lewis, CEO of Girl Guides Victoria. The Girl Guides is a global movement, and in Australia, a not-for-profit organisation that supports girls from five years of age, equipping them with skills, confidence and friendships to help them to succeed throughout their lives.


Girl Guides Victoria celebrated its centenary anniversary last year, a significant milestone appreciated by over so many women who have been Girl Guides since 1911. The growth of the organisation continues and today, Girl Guides Victoria has 1,200 members and volunteers, 400 supporters and 5000 girls involved in programs right across the state.

Our centenary has also prompted us to reflect on how to ensure that the next 100 years are just as successful and part of staying relevant and up-to-date means being equipped with the right technology that can future-proof us as we move forward. We wanted to keep our connection to the grassroots of the organisation while still allowing advanced functionality and productivity in our administration. Going Google was the first step in streamlining our operations and creating a more efficient communication platform across the organisation.

So far, we’ve transitioned 100 Girl Guide leaders to Google Apps in locations across our 79 Victorian districts. With an older demographic of volunteers, it was essential that we had a solution that was intuitive to learn and easy to use. After a little bit of instruction we were all using it proficiently and since then discovering a new trick always proves exciting.

We use Google Apps as an email service as well as for sharing and collaborating on documents that help run the organisation across the state. It has transformed the way our geographically disparate organisation can share education programs and essential safety information. For example, we use Google Talk for instant communication. This means that our volunteers are able to access information or contact details for a girl’s family in the event of an emergency, or keep up to date with planned activities and contingency plans instantly. The fact that they can access this information from any of their personal devices like phones and tablets is vital for their roles which are often in the field, literally!

For Girl Guides Victoria, the girls are our top priority, so having the best technology to support what we do seamlessly has been most beneficial for us. We are now looking to expand on our initial success with Google Apps, finding simple and cost effective ways to extend what we do, for example, by offering online learning and promoting the involvement of parents through online portals.

Going Google has given us the tools to strengthen our commitment to push, challenge and grow the girls in our program.

Posted by Wendy Lewis, CEO of Girl Guides Victoria.

Picture perfect: Welcome customers into your business on Google Maps

When we initially announced the Business Photos pilot program, we wanted to give business owners an easy way to get customers in the door online using interactive, high-quality, 360-degree images of places on Google Maps and on Google Search results. With thousands of businesses under our belt — from cafes to hotels— we’ve been hearing the same question again and again from both business owners and photographers alike: How can I participate?

Well, with the overwhelming success of the first pilot, we’ve decided to unveil a complementary initiative that will help us reach more interested business owners, more quickly: Trusted Photographers.

Click and drag to view the inside of Yuki’s at The Quay

It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. Either email or call a photographer in your area to schedule a time and agree on a price that you will pay the photographer for a photoshoot of your business. This self-serve model makes for easier scheduling and quicker turnaround, while also supporting the local photographers in your community. During the hour it should take for the shoot, you can collaborate with the photographer about how best to display and capture your business. When finished, the photographer will upload the images to Google, and shortly thereafter, you’ll see 360-degree panoramic views of your business on Google.com.au, Google Maps and on your Google Places listing.

See how Business Photos has helped Toy Joy of Austin, Texas.

Trusted Photographers are available in 14 U.S. cities, as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France. Don’t see a photographer in your area? Let us know, as that will help us determine where more Trusted Photographers are needed.

Posted by Gadi Royz, Product Manager, Google Maps

Hundreds of New Destinations for Your Virtual Travel Itinerary

Over the last few years, Google Maps’ Street View service has helped Australians plan out routes to new locations, search for real estate online, and pick out visually memorable meeting spots. But you can also use Street View to travel virtually around the world. Global adventurers once shared their photos of far-away destinations with jealous friends, but now with Street View, those friends can walk around the same foreign lands and see famous tourist destinations like they were right there.

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

We have some good news today for Australia’s virtual explorers. We have added hundreds and hundreds of new sites around the world for you to explore, ranging from temples in Taiwan, castles in Ireland, French chateaus, and snowy slopes in North American mountain ranges. You can walk around Italy’s iconic Leaning Tower of Pisa and try to find angles where it looks perfectly straight. For years we have had the streets of Amsterdam on Street View, but now you can also enjoy an all-out full-out recreation of The Netherlands in Nagasaki, Japan at the Huis Ten Bosch Theme Park.

Taiwan Confucius Temple, Tainan, Taiwan

Since most of these partner program collections are not on public streets, Google works closely with the location owners to collect the imagery. And with Street View cars being too big and bulky, we use our Street View Trike, a three-wheeled contraption with a mounted Street View camera and a specially decorated box containing image-collecting gadgetry. Learn more about the trike here.

Stay tuned for even more imagery launches in coming months. And all the virtual tourists shouldn’t forget that you can also travel the world’s top art museums in our Google Art Project — and even the Moon!

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager, Google Maps, Australia

(This post has been slightly edited since the original posting.)

Updates to Street View in Australia

Today we're excited to announce that updated Street View imagery of Australian towns and cities is live in Google Maps.



Places around Australia are now available in higher quality to help you plan your visits and show off your favourite places to friends.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House

Salamanca Place, Hobart

We plan to recommence our driving operations in Australia later this year, collecting new imagery from across Australia. You’ll be able to follow where our cars are operating, can read about our commitment to privacy in our blog post about the Privacy Impact Assessment for Street View activities in Australia and learn more about privacy on the Street View website.



We’re excited to publish this newer, higher quality imagery and hope you enjoy using it to explore and share Australia with your friends.



Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager.

Showcase your business with a 360-degree perspective

The George Hotel, South Melbourne.

Last week we launched Business Photos in Australia and New Zealand, a new use of Street View technology where businesses can let people who visit their Places pages walk virtually into their restaurants or shops.



With our Business Photos pilot, we’ve been busy photographing businesses, with their permission, to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out.



We can look at Melbourne, the city of alleyways and arcades, as a great example of how you can research shops, restaurants and bars right from your computer or smartphone. Looking for a birthday cake? You can have a look at the desserts right up close at the Melbourne Bake House. Researching where to hang out with some mates? You can take a peek inside the Railway Hotel. You can even admire the baby grands at Melbourne Piano Sales!



With this pilot, you'll begin to see additional photo experiences on the Place pages of a growing number of businesses. As additional imagery becomes available for more locations in the coming months, you’ll also be able to enter the interior perspective of businesses directly from the Street View images of nearby roads on Google Maps.



We’re continuing this program with businesses in select cities in the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, and France. If you would like to highlight your business to Google Maps users, please visit the Business Photos site to learn more and apply.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager for Google Maps.

Retiring real estate on Google Maps

This is a cross-post from the Google Lat Long blog

At Google one of our key philosophies is to take risks and to experiment. To that end, in July 2009 we announced the ability to find property for sale or rent directly on Google Maps. This is one of the “search options” next to the search box on Google Maps, and is currently available in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Japan.

In part due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API (used by listing providers to submit listings), we’ve decided to discontinue the real estate feature within Google Maps on February 10, 2011.

We’ve learned a lot and been excited to see real estate companies use Google Maps in innovative ways to help people find places to live, such as Coldwell Banker’s use of Google Maps and YouTube, or Realtor.com’s Android app that lets you draw a shape on a map to find all properties you’re interested in.

Yet we recognise that there might be better, more effective ways to help people find local real estate information than the current feature makes possible. We’ll continue to explore this area, but in the meantime, Google offers other options to home-seekers: you can still access other information in Maps such as local businesses, directions and transit times, as well as aerial and Street View imagery to explore where you might want to move, and also use Google search results to find helpful real estate information and websites.

Real estate companies can also continue to use tools from Google to help connect with buyers and renters who use the Internet to research properties. For example, companies can use the Google Maps API to embed customised maps that are useful to potential clients right on their own web pages. Our Google for real estate professionals site contains various methods for generating leads and improving real estate business operations.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP, Google Earth and Maps

More road traffic information and better mobile maps in Australia

Today we’re excited to announce the availability of two things to help you get around during your summer break.



Road Traffic Information on Google Maps



The road traffic information feature in Maps, available previously in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and surrounding areas is now also available in Perth and Adelaide.



To turn traffic information on, click the button labelled 'Traffic' next to the 'More' button at the top left of Google Maps. The colours you'll see overlaid on the roads correspond to the speed of traffic (relative to the speed limit of the road): green is free sailing, yellow is medium congestion, red is heavy congestion, and red/black is stop-and-go traffic. The information is updated every few minutes.



Google Maps for Mobile 5



A new version of Google Maps for Android (5.0) is also available today, including some new exciting features: 3D maps, allowing you to zoom in and tilt maps, and 3D interaction, and offline access and rerouting for Google Maps Navigation. You can read more about this over on our Mobile blog, and update to the latest version of Google Maps from the Android Market.



These new features create a faster, more interactive experience where efficiency really matters: on mobile devices. For example, we estimate that viewing maps now requires almost 70% less mobile network data overall than before. Also, your phone can now help you get to places even when you lose a mobile signal. We can’t wait to take the next steps in making Google Maps faster, more reliable, and even more useful no matter where you take it.



Hopefully these new features will help you enjoy your summer break, and make driving to work next year a little easier.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager.