What this means is you can now choose to search for the shortest route by time or distance, and you can also have Live Maps redirect you to avoid heavily congested areas. The system is available for 72 US cities at the moment.
The system predicts traffic by time of day, weather, sports events and other factors, so it doesn't rely solely on real-time conditions to determine the best routes although live data is taken into account as well. While the interface is clean and easy to use, we don't see an easy way to let Live Maps know what time you plan to make your trip, which sort of defeats the purpose.
[via New York Times]
