If, like me, you spend much of your travelling alone to unfamiliar cities, ultimately finding yourself stood in a city street unsure of where to turn, then Google has released something which may be of interest.

Already embedded on many mobile phones, Google Maps has added a ‘walking’ feature to the direction finder within their application making traversing city streets rather more straightforward for those who travel by foot.

As explained nicely in the blog release, this will begin to fix the problem of pedestrians being forced on longer routes because they are respecting the restrictions imposed on drivers (one-way streets etc..).

Whilst still very much in beta (as this example demonstrates - failing to acknowledge the walk through a park) it’s a nice addition to an already efficient app, although it’s only really going to have real value to the mainstream user when public transport data is effectively implemented too.

Google maps