Google Maps: parking and transit made easier

It was 2005 when Google first launched Google Maps, its web mapping service that allowed you to see the maps of most of the Earth. It has now become an indispensable tool on our smartphones, like the phone book and the camera. Without even thinking about it too much, we get in the car, place our phone on the support, enter the name of the place that we want to go to and let Google Maps take us to our destination. 

Over the years, Google Maps has been enriched with many features such as Google Street View, which allows you to view 360° photographs of different locations, and Google Transit, with which you can trace a route exclusively using public transport. Now Google has decided to make the app even more practical and functional, giving users the possibility to pay for bus tickets and parking spots directly within the app. Through an integration with Google Pay, it will in fact be possible to make payments within Google Maps, without having to open additional pages. A window specifically dedicated to tickets and parking payments will open. 

As far as parking is concerned, all the user has to do is decide the duration of the stay, enter the license plate number of his vehicle and click on “pay”. If you realize you need more time, you just have to open the app and change the duration in a few taps. In the case of public transport, however, once you have purchased the ticket you will receive a QR code via email which must then be scanned in the readers on the vehicles or in the stations.

Google is keen to underline how much this new function can be useful in a situation like the one we are experiencing, in which, due to the ongoing pandemic, it is still preferable to avoid touching the surfaces of shared spaces as much as possible. The operation can in fact be carried out in total comfort and safety, without having to touch anything other than your smartphone and without wasting time looking for where to get paper tickets.

For the moment, Google Maps’s latter function can be said to be still in an experimentation phase, given that it can only be tested in America, specifically it will be available in about 400 American cities, including Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati. Furthermore, it will initially be available exclusively on Android devices, while iOS owners will have to wait a little longer.