My Google Map Blog

Earlier this week Google Maps Engine was shut down. As a result, Google dropped three layers from Google Earth Pro, as they were dependent on Google Maps Engine. The dropped layers were “US Demographics”, “US Parcel Data” and “US Daily Traffic Counts”.

However, it now appears that another layer, the ‘Traffic’ layer, appears to have been dropped as well. It is not a layer that we use often so we are not certain when it was dropped, but we do think it was dropped recently. If any of our readers knows exactly when it was dropped please let us know in the comments. The layer used to show live traffic information for many large cities around the world and was distinct from the Google Earth Pro only layer “US Daily Traffic Counts”, which showed historical data for US traffic. The ‘Traffic’ layer was available in Google Earth as well as Google Earth Pro and has been there since 2007. If you want to see how it worked see this YouTube video.

So, was the Google Earth live traffic information working via Google Maps Engine?

Google Maps still has live traffic information, which shows as different colours on the route when you ask for directions as seen below, so it is evident that Google still has the information.

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