Google Maps Getting Parking Availability Descriptions, New Atmosphere Feature Soon

Imagine if your Google Maps app can inform you beforehand if your destination has available parking space for your car. Well, it seems users won’t have to imagine this thing in the near future. Apparently, Google is already in the process of bringing parking availability details to its web mapping service.

Android Police recently got the chance to examine the Google Maps v9.44 beta, and it stumbled upon what could be the next major upgrade of the app. According to the tech news site, the latest beta version of the Google Maps app contains a feature that shows users the parking difficulty of places.

The feature comes with notifications for three parking difficulty levels: Easy, Medium and Limited. For Easy and Medium, a blue P icon appears adjacent to the time and distance data shown below the map. For Limited parking, the P icon is red, informing users that the location’s parking area may not have space to accommodate the user’s vehicle.

Making this feature even more useful is the real-time descriptions of the parking situation of the user’s destination. Once the user is already making his or her way to a certain location, the directions shown will already include texts about the parking space’s usual condition.

Ars Technica tested the feature by downloading v9.44 beta. The tech site stated that the parking availability feature worked fine on its end. The beta version of Google Maps reportedly showed parking information in the New York City/Long Island area. However, the parking descriptions are still limited to shopping centers and airports at this point. It would still take time until the feature will have data for most public places.

Meanwhile, aside from the parking availability feature, the beta version also comes with “Atmosphere” photos or snaps of the ambiance of certain locations. This is expected to go well with the photos “From Menu” and “By Owner” that are already part of the Google Maps app.