Drivers obsess over ETA, but your map app is basically winging it on the part that often matters most: parking. A new MIT study argues Google Maps and Apple Maps give too little thought to the very last part of a journey, failing to factor in how long it takes to locate a parking space and walk from it, reports Fast Company. "What my colleagues and I have been calling 'time to arrive' is a metric that is not uniformly presented," says paper co-author Cathy Wu. Using detailed parking occupancy data from Seattle, researchers modeled how apps could steer drivers toward spots that balance distance and the odds of availability.
The payoff, they say, could be big: up to 35 minutes saved per trip compared with heading for the nearest lot and waiting, and as much as a two-thirds cut in the aforementioned "time to arrive" in the most congested areas. "This frustration is real and felt by a lot of people," says MIT researcher Cameron Hickert, adding that seeing the true arrival time might even nudge people to switch to mass transit or bikes, per a university release.
MIT's team has shared its detailed findings with app makers and is now looking at other "missing time" in travel apps, including ride-hail wait estimates. Meanwhile, changes might be in the offing: Google just folded its Gemini AI into Maps to highlight garages and enable hands-free parking tips, and both Google and Apple offer coordination with SpotHero to book spots in advance, notes Fast Company.
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