When arriving a new place, Google Maps usually helps to locate our destinations and lead us there. However, some of the route might include streets and roads that are too dark or narrow which we would avoid when traveling at night but we could not find out until reaching there. To enhance travel safety, Google Maps is reportedly working on a new layer of “lighting,” which marks brightly lit streets on the maps, reported XDA Developer.

(Image: Tridonic)

XDA Developer found codes in Google Maps v10.31.0 beta indicating that Google is adding a new feature to highlight streets with good lighting with yellow line and show streets with poor or no lighting. The function enables users to avoid streets without good lighting at night for safety reason.

The article noted that Google might choose India as the first region to pilot the function as the country has reported several incidents of rape in the past few year and the new feature could help female users to feel relatively safer when traveling at night.

There has not been screenshots of the new lighting layer yet as the feature is still under development. How Google collect lighting data from streets all over the world and keep it up-to-date was also not revealed.