Google Maps will soon tell you how much toll you will have to pay during your road trip

Google Maps is working on an interesting update that would help users in planning their trips better. The reports suggest that the mapping app will now tell you which roads have toll gates and how much you will have to pay as a toll tax. This would help you in making an informed decision whether you want to take the road with toll gates or not. The feature is reportedly at a nascent stage, and it is too early to predict whether the feature will be available in all countries.

The upcoming Google Maps feature could be highly beneficial for users. Often when you head out on a journey, you are surprised with too many toll gates on your way. So if Google Maps is able to provide you information about how much the total toll would cost and how many toll gates will fall on your way, you can easily decide whether you want to take that road filled with toll gates or not. This could also help users in saving time.

While Google has not made anything official about the upcoming feature, an Android Police report states that the members of the Google Maps preview program were sent a message about the upcoming feature that would display prices for tolls on roads, bridges, and other “expensive additions to your navigation route”. One of the members of the Google Maps preview program confirmed to the publication that the total toll prices will be displayed on the app. This would be shown to users before the user selects the route.

This could be another feature Google may borrow from a mapping app called Waze, which it acquired in 2013. Waze displays the estimated toll prices. The app had started displaying estimated tolls three years before Google even began testing the feature. The Waze mapping feature is only available in Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Israel, Latvia, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Spain, Uruguay, and the US. Waze in its FAQ page notes that toll prices in Waze are estimations, they don’t replace actual prices set by the toll operators, which are published on their websites and road signs.

It is unclear how Google plans to implement the feature. The reports did not reveal whether Google will pilot the feature in the US only or whether it has plans to launch the feature in India as well.