When you hop in a taxi, there’s a good chance you know the approximate route to where you’re going and will know if you’ve been taken on a detour by the taxi driver; luckily, Google Maps will have you covered if you venture into unfamiliar areas. In an update, available for Indian users, Google has enabled a feature that lets you get off-route alerts that will pop up if you get taken 500 metres off of your intended course.
With the new alerts, users could tell their driver to stop taking the long route, which could save on the fare. If the driver is more malicious and attempts an abduction, which has been known to happen, then you’ll get an early warning about the detour from Google Maps.
As the feature appears under the standard car directions portion of Maps, drivers can also employ the new feature to ensure that they don’t get lost either. With that said, if you’ve got control of the vehicle it’s probably better to just stick to the route Google provides to get to your destination most efficiently.
The feature is only available in India for the time being and it’s not clear if everyone there has received the update yet. It’s unclear when the rest of the world will get the feature but it will be useful when it does arrive.
Source: XDA Developers