[orijing]

Consider another example. Google suggests an alternate route that will presumably save 15 minutes.

Let's say enough cars take the suggestion to slow down that route by 10 minutes and speed up this one by 10 minutes. Even if you end up saving five minutes relative to the original estimate, you'd have saved ten minutes staying put.

[londons_explore]

It is a point of contention if Google should optimize for saving time for the individual user, (using data only available to that user), or for that user (but using routing information of other google users), or for all users on average (but potentially to the detriment of some users to give other users a bigger advantage), or for the public on average (ie. routing cars to reduce traffic, but possibly putting google users at a disadvantage compared to non-google users).

Various cities round the world have different optimization goals as they try out different approaches.

[jrochkind1]

I would say obviously the answer is that users paying for premium levels of service should get faster routes, isn't that how this sort of thing is done?