Looking for a public toilet? Ask Google Maps

Next time you want to use the toilet while traveling you can check Google Maps for the nearest public loo.

Users can simply type ‘public toilets near me’ on Google Search, Google Assistant or Google Maps and receive results on their phones. 

The initiative was first launched in 2016 as a pilot in three cities -- New Delhi, Bhopal, and Indore -- in collaboration with the Swachh Bharat Mission and Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.Google Maps now lists over 57,000 public toilets in over 2,300 cities across India.

Anal Ghosh, Senior Program Manager, Google Maps said, “We believe that making information about public sanitation facilities easily accessible to people is a key element for social good -- one that also constitutes the cornerstone of the government's Swachh Bharat campaign to promote clean habits and hygiene.” 

" We have worked closely with the Ministry to update Maps with key information about public toilets from across India, while refining our systems to accurately surface these toilets through a variety of user queries -- over 2.5 lakh users now search for public toilets every month across Search and Maps.”

In addition, the Google My Business platform helped the Ministry take ownership of these listings on Google Maps so they could monitor visits, ratings, reviews and more, thereby gaining valuable insights that could help them take necessary action to maintain and upgrade toilets.