Google Street View is back in Mongolia after a year, and with this update, several new areas will get Gen 4 along with major changes in the pickup.
In May, we got confirmation about Google Street View driving in the West of Mongolia, by the Facebook Page, “Google Street View Mongolia”. We learned that they will be driving, starting in June and that the pickup will be higher. Yesterday, the announcement has been made by the Ministry of Road and Transport Development!
The western region of Mongolia will get it’s first Gen 4, taking the route of Ulaanbaatar to Arvaikheer to Bayankhongor to Altai to Khovd to the aimag of Bayan-Ölgii to Ulaangom to Uliastai to Tosontsengel to Tsetserleg to Kharkhorin to Bulgan to the aimag of Orkhon, which contains Erdenet to Darkhan to Ulaanbaatar. Most of these towns already have coverage, but only partially and stuck in Gen 3, other than Bulgan which has Gen 3, but this hidden on Google Maps and could be considered as a new town. The slogan and decal has also received a change, with new decals to reflect that the car will cover coverage outside Ulaanbaatar and the slogan being ‘GoMongolia’ instead of the ‘City of Nomads’
A shocking change, but with this coverage, Mongolia will receive pickup coverage where the camera is elevated. This was also done in Gen 3, but this is the first time this is being done in Gen 4 in Google Street View, meaning that the pickup won’t be very noticeable. Although this time they moved the trekker back, which may just cause this issue again, but let’s see once the coverage releases.
This coverage is not limited to roadways, but also includes pictures and information of the locations of nearby counties, settlements, tourist areas, scenic and historical monuments. We can probably expect more trekker coverage in these areas, which is quite exciting.
This news comes after the Google Street View cars started driving in Bosnia and Herzegovina with normal cameras, this could show that Google might have started realizing that they can fix the current issues with the pickup coverage.
It was only two years ago that Google wanted to use poor quality imagery in Mongolia, now the entire country will get Gen 4. It seems that Google has started taking Google Street View more seriously, especially with competition from companies like Apple, which have recently been covering India and Vietnam with high quality imagery, we may see more countries getting coverage, it’s only been a few days since Costa Rica was announced, although sadly a car with the bad camera was spotted in Nepal. Hopefully we can post more announcements like this and not announcements on coverage with bad cameras!