Why map apps send you to different places for the same name

If two map apps disagree about a drive, first check that they are driving to the same place. Every app has to turn what you typed into a single pair of coordinates, a step called geocoding, and each does it with its own map data and its own search ranking. 'Berlin', 'Vienna Airport' or 'Hauptstraße 1' can therefore end at a city-centre point, a town hall, a terminal kerb, a car park, a back entrance or a street in another town.

This matters for any comparison of arrival times: two apps can only be compared fairly when they are heading for the same point. The last section explains what Mapssy's buttons do about it.

What an app does with the name you type

A geocoder returns a point with, in effect, a level of precision. Google's developer documentation lists them: rooftop (precise to the street address), interpolated (estimated along a road between two known points), geometric centre (the middle of a street or area) and approximate. A house number with a postcode can get the first; a whole city can only get one of the others.

For a city, someone has to decide which single point stands for it. OpenStreetMap's mapping guidance, for example, is to put that point roughly at the centre and, where there is one, at the town hall or central square. Other map makers set their own rules, so a route to 'Berlin' or 'Wien' ends wherever that map's city point is, and two apps can finish the same trip in different streets.

The order of the suggestions matters too. Waze says its search ranks results first by your distance from them, then by how well they match what you typed, then by prominence and popularity. For business listings, Google says its local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and how well known a place is. The same half-typed address can therefore bring up a different top suggestion in Graz than in Linz.

Big places have more than one right answer

Airports

Vienna Airport is not in Vienna: it lies in Schwechat, Lower Austria, about 18 km south-east of the city centre. On the site there are several terminals, a departures drop-off ramp, the short-term car park K3 a few metres from the arrivals exit, and car parks recommended by terminal: Car Park 3 for Terminal 1/1A departures, Car Park 4 for Terminal 3. 'Vienna Airport' can end at any of these, and a drop-off needs a different point from a pick-up.

The airport publishes its own navigation address, Einfahrtsstraße, 1300 Wien-Flughafen; from there, follow the signs to departures or your car park. The Bratislava to Vienna Airport guide covers drop-off and parking.

Railway stations

Large stations are reached from several streets, and the tracks between them are hard to cross by car. Wien Hauptbahnhof's official address is Am Hauptbahnhof 1, 1100 Wien, and its main access is at Südtiroler Platz, yet ÖBB lists taxi ranks in three separate places: at the Sonnwendgasse entrance, at the corner of Weyringerstraße and Favoritenstraße, and in Landgutgasse. A pin on 'Hauptbahnhof' can suit one of these and mean a drive around the station for the others, so search for the entrance or street you need.

Shopping centres, stadiums and trade fairs

Shopping City Süd, which Wikipedia describes as Austria's largest shopping centre, lies mostly in Vösendorf with a part in Wiener Neudorf. By Wikipedia's count it has more than 10,000 parking spaces and is about 1.6 km long from the Interspar at one end to the Multiplex centre at the other. 'SCS' as a destination says little about which car park you will reach. At stadiums and exhibition grounds, the gate or car park printed on your ticket is a better target than the venue's name.

Same street, different town

Street names repeat far more often than most drivers expect. Austria's official address register (© Österreichisches Adressregister, record date 1 April 2026) lists 695 streets called Hauptstraße in 585 of the country's 2,092 municipalities, followed by Feldgasse (516) and Bahnhofstraße (377). The exact address Hauptstraße 1 appears 557 times.

Even street, number and municipality together are not always enough. In 44 Austrian municipalities there is more than one Hauptstraße 1, each in a different village of the same municipality. Harmannsdorf in Lower Austria has five: in Harmannsdorf, Kleinrötz, Mollmannsdorf and Obergänserndorf, which all share the postcode 2111, and in Würnitz, which has 2112. Only the village name tells them apart.

Place names repeat too: 42 Austrian localities are called simply Au, and three pairs of municipalities share a name: Mühldorf (Carinthia and Lower Austria), Warth and Krumbach (each in Lower Austria and Vorarlberg).

Neighbouring countries are no different. Of Czechia's 6,254 municipalities, 1,501 share their exact name with at least one other; 14 are called Nová Ves. Germany has Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt (Oder), the latter on the Polish border about 80 km east of Berlin. On the Slovak–Hungarian border, Komárno and Komárom were one town until the border drawn after the First World War split it; today they face each other across the Danube. One careless tap in a suggestion list picks the wrong one.

Postcodes do not follow town boundaries

A postcode is a delivery area, not a town. In the Austrian register, 1,017 of the 2,232 postcodes in use cover addresses in more than one municipality, and 967 municipalities use more than one postcode. Vienna Airport shows the trap again: its postcode, 1300, looks like one of Vienna's, which run from 1010 to 1230, but every address with it lies in Schwechat.

When the parts of an address you type do not fit together, the app decides which part to believe. Google's geocoding documentation notes that partial matches happen most often when the street does not exist in the town given, so read the town and postcode under a suggestion before you tap it.

How to make every app go to the same spot

1. Type the full address. Street, house number, postcode and town, the village name where there is one, and the country near a border. 'Hauptstraße 1, 2000 Stockerau' leaves far less room for guessing than 'Hauptstraße 1'.
2. Pick a suggestion instead of pressing Enter. Each suggestion shows where it is, usually with the town and often the postcode; pressing Enter leaves the choice to the app's ranking, which depends partly on where you are.
3. Name the part you need. Search for the terminal, car park, station entrance or gate rather than the whole site, or use the venue's published navigation address.
4. Drop a pin. In Google Maps, touch and hold an unlabelled part of the map. In Apple Maps, touch and hold until a pin appears, then tap Move to adjust it.
5. Share the pin or its coordinates, not the name. A pin carries an exact point, so nobody has to search again. Google Maps accepts coordinates in its search box: latitude first, with a full stop as the decimal mark, not the decimal comma used in German, Slovak, Czech and Hungarian.
6. Check the flag before you start. Zoom in on the destination in the route preview: is it on the right side of the building, and in the town you meant?

How Mapssy's buttons deal with it

A comparison only works if the time on each card belongs to the place its button opens. A place you choose in Mapssy comes with a name and exact coordinates. Mapssy asks Google for its time by that name, so Google should place it as Google Maps does; if Google cannot place the name, Mapssy asks by coordinates instead. TomTom is asked for the route between the place's exact coordinates, and its button opens TomTom's planner at those same points.

When you start from your live location, the Google and Apple buttons pass no start point and the app uses your phone's GPS. How Mapssy works explains which figures are measured and which are estimated, and why navigation apps show different arrival times covers the other causes. To try it on your own trip, compare a route and zoom in on the destination before you tap a button.