Utilizing anonymous data from users who have opted in to Google Location History, Google Maps can now let you know how crowded a specific location is in real time. By aggregating this anonymous data it will overlay what the current location activity is over the historical activity for that time of day into a nice looking graph with a brief summary.
This is a new addition to the already existing Popular Times feature, which shows the busiest times of the day as well as the average time a person spends there. So next time you’re planning to go to your favorite happy hour spot you can see in advance if there’s been a surprise invasion of hipsters, making it take 2 hours to get a table.
