Why map apps give different arrival times

Ask four navigation apps how long a drive will take and you can get four different answers. Usually none of them is broken, because each one is timing a slightly different trip. Six things cause most of the gap, and a short routine at the end helps you compare the apps fairly.

Where the pin goes

Type a town such as Graz and each app first turns the name into one point: the centre, the town hall, a main square or a street. For an airport or a castle, the route also has to end at some road or entrance, and the apps don't always pick the same one. A few hundred metres at the end can mean a different motorway exit or a loop through a one-way centre. Same name, different place has more on this.

Traffic data

Live traffic isn't one shared feed. Each company measures speeds with its own sources:

Because the samples differ, two apps can spot the same slowdown at different moments or judge it differently. Live data also can't show what a road will look like by the time you get there, so Google blends it with traffic history using machine learning.

Settings

Two people using the same app can get different answers because of a forgotten setting:

• Google Maps can prefer fuel-saving routes in some regions; Google announced it for nearly 40 European countries in 2022. With this on, it picks the most efficient route when it arrives about as fast as the quickest one.
• Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze can all avoid tolls and motorways, though Waze warns it may still suggest toll roads. If one app avoids what another allows, you are comparing different roads.
• Waze routes with the vignettes you tell it you hold. Where motorways need one, as in Austria, Slovakia, Czechia and Hungary, check which roads each app chose; prices are in Motorway vignettes 2026.
• Waze also learns from your past drives how long you take on each stretch, and has this on by default where it's available.

When you ask

An estimate is a snapshot of the moment it was made. Checking one app before you leave and another 15 minutes later compares two moments of the same rush hour. On the road, Google Maps reroutes on its own when it expects a jam ahead, and Waze's estimate takes accidents into account.

Setting a departure time asks a different question again. Google Maps then plans with estimated traffic, and Apple says the travel time may change with predicted traffic.

Assumed speeds

No app simply divides the distance by the speed limit. Waze uses the average speed its users drive, TomTom uses speed profiles built from past traffic, and Google blends history with live traffic and takes speed limits from sources such as local governments.

That matters where the limits vary. Austria allows 130 km/h on motorways but only 110 from 22:00 to 05:00 on the Tauern and some other routes, and air-quality limits of usually 100 km/h apply on some stretches, permanently on parts of the motorways in Tyrol. On part of the Czech D3, signs allow 150 km/h in a trial that runs to the end of 2026. Germany has no general motorway limit, only a recommended 130.

The effect adds up quickly. Over 100 km, 130 km/h takes about 46 minutes and 110 km/h about 54½, a gap of more than 8 minutes before any traffic.

Your vehicle counts too. Waze was made for private cars, motorcycles and taxis. If a lower limit applies to you, for example when towing, a car estimate will tend to be optimistic.

Incidents

A crash or a closed lane changes an arrival time only once the app knows about it. Waze drivers report accidents, police and blocked roads, and Waze routes others around them. Google Maps uses drivers' reports of closures and roadworks along with data from local governments. Apple Maps shows reported accidents to other drivers only when Apple has high confidence in the reports. TomTom spots jams in its GPS data and gets closures from authorities and its own users. Just after a crash, one app may already be routing around it while another still shows a clear road.

What to do

1. Check at the same minute. Mapssy's route planner shows the apps side by side and when it checked them. Its Waze figure, and its Apple Maps figure on the website, are marked as estimates (how it works).
2. Look at the destination pin in each app, especially for towns, airports and large sites.
3. Match the settings in every app; the settings guide covers each one.
4. Compare the route and distance as well as the time. A gap of several minutes often means different roads, such as the two options in Vienna to Prague by car.
5. Treat small gaps as noise. On a long drive, a few minutes can appear or vanish as traffic changes.
6. Once you set off, watch the estimate update in the app you drive with.