Finding a car park can be horrible when you’re late for an appointment, but Google is working on at least letting you know how much extra time you’ll need to find one, at least if you live in the US.
From today, residents in 25 metro areas in the US will start seeing an icon at the bottom of their screen in Google Maps for Android regarding the availability of parking in an area they’re travelling to. The new icon is similar to the busy times indicator that works out when a business’s busy times are, though the calculations for car parks are based on historical parking data.
There’s no time-frame on when you’ll see the parking notification coming to the rest of the world…or iOS users, but like most Maps features it will come when Google are ready, and fairly certain the data is accurate. It’s a handy feature, now excuse me while I go and try to find a car park at a shopping centre in the middle of school holidays.
