The world is slowly opening again up. You may be discovering your self utilizing public transit for the primary time in ages and making an attempt to determine methods to get round. Some useful new Google Maps options might assist us all navigate by means of this time, each actually and figuratively.

For of us discovering themselves again on a bus or a prepare, Google is increasing its transit crowdedness predictions. The firm now works with greater than 10,000 transit businesses in over 100 international locations to ship you real-time predictions on what number of seats are on the prepare. Maps will let if there are open seats or none in any respect that can assist you get a greater concept of when to hop on for a experience. In New York and Sydney, Google is even piloting the flexibility to see reside crowd information down to every transit automobile. You’ll know you’ve gotten the flexibility when you see a coloured “Live” indicator, together with whether or not the road you’re taking is “busier than usual” or “not too busy.” For trains, you’ll even see numbers indicating which prepare automobiles are the least populated.

While you’re on that prepare, you may be questioning what it’s you’re doing together with your life. There’s a brand new characteristic to assist cope with that, too, referred to as Timeline Insights. Google Maps will mixture what you’ve been doing together with your life, and the place you’ve been going, supplied you flip in your Location History. Maps will monitor how typically you store or eat out, and whether or not you drive, fly, stroll, or bike to get there. The characteristic is on the market within the Timeline tab, which is accessible behind your profile photograph within the Google Maps app.

Then, when a buddy asks you for strategies based mostly on a visit you took someplace in pre-pandemic life, you possibly can flip by means of the Timeline and faucet on Trips to take a look at the place you’ve eaten and the monuments you walked by. Turn on the choice to pick out all of them, after which add them to their very own checklist and export the itinerary to a buddy. And when you’re subsequently creeped out by that, you possibly can scrub the data fully with Google’s auto-delete controls.

Lastly, when you’re safely consuming your method round city this summer time, Google is encouraging you to supply up helpful data. Once you permit a evaluation, Maps will ask you extra prompts, like value ranges and whether or not you ordered takeout or supply.

The new options are rolling out now to Google Maps on each Android and iOS.