In a brand new test, Google Maps is displaying the placement of traffic lights in cities around the US in its Android app. The feature was initially noticed by Droid Life, and its existence has since been confirmed by Google.
“To help people stay better informed on the road, we’re testing a Google Maps feature on Android that shows the location of traffic lights in select cities across the U.S,”.
Google Maps isn’t the first mapping app to begin displaying traffic light locations within the US, after Apple Maps added them last year with iOS 13, in accordance with Droid Life.
Apple’s Siri voice assistant even integrates them into its instructions. As an alternative of telling you to turn left after a certain number of feet, Siri can inform you to “turn left at the next traffic light,” in an attempt to make the voice assistant’s directions more natural-sounding and easier to know.
Droid Life says that Google Maps doesn’t seem like using the traffic lights as a part of its route guidance just yet, however.
This isn’t the first time Google Maps has shown traffic lights (they’ve been out there in Japan for a lot of years now), however it’s a major expansion for the feature.
Google is testing the feature in US cities including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and says it plans to broaden it over time.