So, how quickly can Google’s wardriver fleet scan the continental United States?
Failed search.
20180730/DuckDuckGo how quickly can google scan the continental united states drivers street view
Well, that search led nowhere, so let’s try Google. And indeed, Google knows more about itself than the competition.
20180730/Google how quickly can google scan the continental united states drivers street view
Ah, this is a great interview with a Google driver. Some important notes:
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It turns out these drivers aren’t actually employed by Google, they are contracted out by a different company that employs them.
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Many of the drivers are temp workers, many scan only their local area, rather than being a professional fleet coming only from Mountain View, California.
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Indeed, bird poop on the cameras is a problem that the Google drivers encounter. When that happens, they need to rescan the affected area.
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Neighborhoods are not frequently driven because they are not popular roads to drive that people are interested in. Often times they get scanned only by coincidence when passing through to get to a new area.
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The “higher-ups” make a lot of the decisions of what areas to scan and how frequently. Generally, the more popular areas are targeted. This is why many areas only have old maps or no maps at all.
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Driving speeds? No faster than 30 - 45 mph works best for the cameras when it can be done safely, otherwise they drive the speed limit.
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Lots of weird things are caught on camera, and often times the drivers are forced to redrive areas when this happens.
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The tall cameras do get stuck in things and that is a problem.
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When not driving, the cameras are taken down and stored in the interior.
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The drivers are required to do some maintenance on the cameras.
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Also, the drivers are required to do some blurring out of the images and review of the images themselves.
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The Google cars must be uniformed but the drivers do not have to be.
- How fast is the upload? Actually it takes 6 months to a year, as of
- So, pretty slow for a scan job as it turns out.
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The scan cars are not self-driving.
- The Google drivers try to avoid bad areas, but sometimes they get hit on their windshields with rocks.
20180730/https://jalopnik.com/ask-a-google-street-view-driver-anything-you-want-573386321
And interestingly, sometimes the Google Street View scanners scan each other.
20180730/https://jalopnik.com/google-street-view-car-captures-google-street-view-bike-531205395