2022
We recently featured Karolina Pyszkiewicz, a product manager on the Google Maps team, in our recent installment of Ask a Googler. We got so many great questions from the community that we decided to expand upon our Q&A with Karolina and create a place here on the Help Desk for additional questions related to Road Mapper.
If you had a question for Karolina that you didn’t see the answer to, it might be captured below. Read on to learn more about Road Mapper.
Will Road Mapper be available on Android or iOS?
You can view the Road Mapper website on mobile web, but we only permit road drawing on desktop due to the convenience of a large screen space for drawing many roads.
How do I use Road Mapper? Do I have to install an app?
To use Road Mapper, go to maps.google.com/roadmapper on your desktop device. You may navigate to Road Mapper on mobile as well, however you can only draw roads on desktop.
If a challenge has no missing roads, should I still submit it?
Yes! If you believe that a challenge has no missing roads left to draw, then please submit it. This will also count towards your total challenges completed number. If the challenge is submitted but we determine on our end that the submitted challenge is incomplete and there actually are roads to map, then we will show the same challenge again to a different user.
How do I view my submission live on Google Maps?
From the Your Edits table on the user dashboard, click on View edit from an approved edit. This will show you the challenge you successfully completed. To view the roads you mapped live on Google Maps, click View on Google Maps at the top right! This will open up Google Maps, centered on the location of the challenge you successfully completed, and you will see the roads you added live on Google Maps.
How are mapped roads verified and approved? Is it artificial intelligence (AI), human, or both?
All drawings go through a review process regardless, which involves people at Google checking your submissions.
Are my road submissions used to help train your AI?
No, your missing road drawings are applied directly to the map to help improve navigation for Maps users across the globe. The Road Mapper team does not use your submissions to train AI or ML models.
How are the challenge areas chosen? How do you know which roads will need to be added on the Map and when?
The challenge areas are chosen based on our estimations of where there are a lot of people living in the world with a large amount of the road network missing from Google Maps. We additionally listen to the common countries requested from our users, so if you have any suggestions of what you’d like to see, please send a feedback email to roadmapper-feedback@google.com.
Are the challenges repeated?
We may show the same challenge again if it was skipped, rejected, or incomplete (i.e. not all the missing roads in that challenge were mapped). We will not show the same challenge again if we think there are no more roads in that challenge to map.
Will the challenges change with the more challenges a person completes?
The challenge areas are chosen based on our estimations of where there are a lot of people living in the world with a large amount of their road network missing from Google Maps. As challenges are fully completed by the Road Mapper community we will remove them from the page and add a congratulatory card on your dashboard, and keep adding new challenges. If you have any suggestions of future challenges you'd like to see, please email roadmapper-feedback@google.com.
I live in [country name], how can I map there?
We are continuing to add more countries to Road Mapper over time. If you'd like to map roads in your country but it is not on Road Mapper, click here for instructions on how to add or fix a road in your country outside of Road Mapper. If you see a message that says "Your feedback is important to us. We cannot fix map issues in this region yet. However, we're working hard on making this available in more regions soon", we do not support road editing in your country quite yet, but are working to support more countries soon.
I live in [country name], how can I use Road Mapper?
On Road Mapper, you can map anywhere in the world regardless of where you live. On Road Mapper you only draw road geometry, and no other road attributes (like road name) are needed. For this reason it is very easy to do using only a satellite image, no matter where you are from! Feel free to try out a challenge for yourself and see 🙂
Will the count of roads we've added in Road Mapper add to the "roads added" count in Local Guides?
At the moment, the Road Mapper count does not add to the “roads added” count in the Local Guides program.
Are Local Guides awarded points or badges when they edit roads on Road Mapper?
At the moment, Local Guides points and badges are not granted for roads drawn on Road Mapper.
What do the different parts of the dashboard mean?
The Recent Missions section has your latest contributions broken down by status. The world map titled "Your Contributions to Maps" shows your accepted contributions.Your Streaks summarizes your mapping activity from the last year. The Your Edits table is a list of all your contributions, you can filter these by country.
Why does the map in the dashboard page have missing submissions?
The map only displays your most recent 3,000 accepted submissions. If you have just submitted your roads, wait for a few days for our operator approval.
Why does the road kilometer count decrease when deleting roads?
We count the net number of roads that are added to Google Maps. In general, if there are roads drawn incorrectly, they should be fixed (by moving points and segments) rather than deleting the road and drawing the new one. Although we do not increment the mapped meters count, we appreciate and acknowledge your efforts in fixing them.
Do you have a question about Road Mapper that we haven’t yet captured here? Let us know in the comments below and we’d be happy to update this post with additional information as it becomes available.
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