How accurate is Google Maps for travel times?

I cannot answer for Japan, but in Kuwait Google is by no means exact, but it has been fairly close (~5 minutes from my anecdotal calculations) to the actual time it took between destinations.

In Kuwait it also accounts for traffic congestion and will tell you how much delay traffic is causing on your commute. It uses a combination of data points. I know that it uses including cellphone tower data as there was a delay in getting approvals for this and for a while we had maps, routing but no “traffic” information. I am sure it uses multiple data points in aggregate to create an estimate.

In Dubai it has transit information as well, and it has also been very accurate (especially in the wait times between the train stops and the time it takes to walk between stops).

However, it is not the fastest way to get between two points, because it lacks (at least in Kuwait) the ability to re-route based on traffic. So if you know the roads you can always find a faster way. I suspect in Japan it may not know all the best ways to get from A to B.

I’ve found the estimates pretty accurate in the USA, to the extent that, when I’ve taken photographs from the passenger seat on road trips, I can often find out exactly where a photograph was taken based on “Seven minutes ago, I took a photo that randomly included mile marker 123; Google maps thinks seven minutes from there takes you to here; Street View matches perfectly.” Obviously, that’s a pretty short distance but longer journeys seem quite accurate, too.

Good, but not perfect. Any planning tool can only give you estimates based on past experience, but predicting the future is by nature fraught with risk. For reasons explained below in detail, Google Maps is currently less accurate for this route in particular and Japan in general than it would be for, say, the SF Bay Area in the US.

As Mark points out, estimated times tend to be “best estimate”, which assume you can drive at the legal limit at all times and never take rest breaks. In Japan, driving at the limits is actually more realistic than in many other places, since Japanese speed limits are generally set absurdly low (often 80 km/h even on expressways) and consequently more or less everybody speeds.

On the flip side, at time of writing driving directions in Japan do not incorporate current traffic information, which can be misleading particularly in big cities like Tokyo. Even some of the major expressways, eg. the Tōmei between Tokyo and Nagoya, are notorious for traffic jams at peak times/seasons. (Update: Traffic is now accounted for.)

You’ve also got a whole bunch of ferries in there, whose schedules are not incorporated into the planning, and the big ones (eg. Oma-Hakodate between Honshu and Hokkaido) only run twice a day or so.

I’ve got to ask, though, are you sure you want to drive this thing from end to end? Tokyo is a nightmare to get around by car, and many of the expressway stretches (eg. Tokyo-Osaka) are both deathly dull and expensive due to heavy tolls. Using Shinkansen bullet trains when possible and only renting a car at your destination if needed is likely to be faster, more comfortable and cheaper if you make use of the JR Pass.

Disclaimer: I work on Maps at Google, although not on driving directions specifically. This answer represents my personal views and not those of Google.

Update since my original lead of “As good as it can be” seems to have sprouted a debate in the comments: all I meant was that Google Maps does a good job of planning, given its inputs. But of course it can’t account for your walking speed, or model of car, or the driver’s spastic colon that necessitates changing a colostomy bag every 15 minutes, because it’s not told about those. Should it? Maybe yes, maybe no. In the aggregate, though, I find it good enough already, and am not aware of meaningfully superior alternatives for general applications.

I’ve found (anecdotally) that initially in London, the walking times were way too slow – I was beating the times regularly.

Then I moved to Vancouver and found them too fast. I’m a quick walker, so wasn’t sure what was happening.

I eventually figured it was down to knowledge. I ‘knew’ London far better, and even though I might be using a map, I could navigate the crowds, the streets and so on far better than in Vancouver, where I was regularly having to check landmarks.

When it comes to driving, the Google Maps times are best possible times. So it’s assuming you can drive at basically the speed limit all the time. It gives no thought to inevitable traffic problems (they’re improving that, especially in cities, but it’s not there yet), and as you’ve pointed out won’t handle rest times.

I drove from Melbourne to Sydney (Australia) this year and the times were definitely low. I wanted to stop for lunch, or briefly check out some sightseeing spots, sure, but even the sections where I was just driving (week day, during the day) in a car I wasn’t used to, on roads I wasn’t used to, the estimates weren’t ideal.

Perhaps if you speed, or are really used to driving on Japanese roads it’d be more accurate, but currently it’s a best-case, for the most part.

(disclaimer: this post will outdate as Google improves, but that’s the situation to the best of my knowledge currently)

EDIT: Someone did a pretty good breakdown, and a discussion follows, on this topic on reddit (it was about why speeding seemed to match the accuracy). Some of the discussion will be of interest:

ELI5: When I get driving directions from Google Maps, the estimated time is usually fairly accurate. However, I tend to drive MUCH faster than the speed limit. Does Google Maps just assume that everyone speeds? How do they make their time estimates?

Further relevant posts, linked from that discussion:

Speed Limits: How does Google maps calculate your ETA?

and how they’re trying to use your data to improve their algorithms:

Google Maps adds traffic data from your cell phone