July 7, 2025, 12:17 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
Google is working to promote sustainable mobility through its Maps service. The company is leveraging artificial intelligence to highlight eco-friendly alternatives to driving—options that sometimes don’t take any longer.
For some time now, Google Maps has been offering alternative routes for navigation that can save fuel and reduce CO2 emissions. Now, the app aims to further assist users in choosing eco-friendly modes of transportation. Many routes are often not faster by car than on foot or using public transport–especially in urban areas. To optimize navigation for cyclists, Google Maps is also adding more bike path information.
More Details for Cyclists in Google Maps
Google, in collaboration with European cities such as Hamburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Zurich, Budapest, Vienna, and Brussels, has integrated a wealth of additional information for cyclists into Maps. From now on, the app not only shows available bike paths but also indicates heavy car traffic and steep hills, making them directly visible to cyclists.
So far, the display of dedicated bike paths is only sporadically available. Competitor Apple Maps already supports this feature in many major European cities. This summer, however, the expanded details for cyclists will also be added to 17 more cities in Google Maps–nine of them in Europe. According to their own statements, the mapping service already covers 125,000 kilometers of bike paths worldwide.
Navigate Efficiently with Google Maps
Since 2021, Maps has been showing alternative routes with the lowest fuel consumption. These typically have fewer hills, less traffic, and allow for a more consistent travel speed. Often, the routes marked with a green leaf already align with the fastest route. If not, Google Maps displays the potential fuel savings as a percentage compared to the fastest alternative in the route details. According to Google, this feature is now available worldwide. Their estimates suggest it saved 2.7 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2024 alone–equivalent to taking 630,000 combustion-engine cars off the road for a year.
In 2024, Google also integrated an AI-powered model into Maps that can predict when walking or public transport takes about the same time as driving. This has reportedly helped avoid “tens of millions of car trips.” So far, the feature is available in 60 cities, with more European cities to follow in the coming months.
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Environmental Zones and Green Waves
Many European cities have environmental or traffic-calmed zones where not all vehicles are allowed to enter. If a route leads into such a zone, Maps displays a notification. Drivers can then check if entry is permitted and choose an alternative route if necessary. The feature is being expanded to more than 1,000 zones in Europe, including in Italy and Austria.
As part of “Project Green Light,” Google is working with cities to optimize traffic flow and reduce emissions. A combination of Google Maps driving data and AI helps create traffic models that can optimize traffic light sequences. For drivers, this means more green waves, counteracting higher emissions when starting at a traffic light. Google has now expanded the collaboration to 20 cities worldwide.