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SatNav causing congestion in Towns/Villages!
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oms
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Joined: Dec 07, 2005
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject: SatNav causing congestion in Towns/Villages! Reply with quote

Let's face it.

SatNav algorithms aren't like the human brain.


Example:

Route 1 takes you via motorway; Route 2 takes you via towns/villages/small A-roads.

The total time difference between route 1 & 2 is about 5 minutes... and TomTom opts for towns/villages/A roads, thinking it'll save 5 minutes of your life.

What SatNav doesn't think, is that towns/villages/small A-roads tend to be more congested during peak times, much slower in real life, and give appalling fuel economy.

The human brain will take larger/faster motorways/A-roads unless there's a serious incident causing total delays over 15 minutes.

I watched in disbelief the other day, as the whole of Taunton was snarled-up by Piles (AKA tourists). Nearly all of them had their stupid SatNavs stuck to their windscreen. Most of them wanted to get to Devon, however, their silly SatNavs decided it would be a good idea to take them through town during rush hour.

I have one myself, and once it tried to take me through the centre of Bristol instead of taking me straight onto the M4 in order to catch the M5. Totally illogical, and very annoying.



There should be a responsibility placed upon SatNav suppliers, for them to use Motorways as preferred routes unless there is more than a 15 minute time saving.

If things carry-on as they are, many many small roads will suffer from excess traffic, excess wear, excess noise and excess pollution. Many homes in towns/villages will be de-valued due to the deluge of traffic being diverted past their front doors.


Rant over.

Your comments are welcome.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:28 am    Post subject: Re: SatNav causing congestion in Towns/Villages! Reply with quote

oms wrote:
Let's face it.

SatNav algorithms aren't like the human brain.

Indeed so

Quote:

There should be a responsibility placed upon SatNav suppliers, for them to use Motorways as preferred routes unless there is more than a 15 minute time saving.

I disagree, there is an understandable assumption on the part of the manufacturers that if you are in control of a motor vehicle of any sort then a modicum of common sense should be present. Sat Nav is a driver aid not an auto-pilot and users of such devices should enagage their brains more often and not simply accept directions from the unit without question!

When I use them to guide me to a destination I am unfamiliar with then I tend to use the guidance most in the last 20 miles of a journey. When used intelligently they have the effect of reducing pollution and wated fuel as I can navigate direct to the address and not end up driving in circles trying to locate myself on a map or hoping for divine intervention!
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oms
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agreed that some common-sense is required.

The reality is, however, that most SatNav users do not have good geographical knowledge of the UK and therefore rely entirely on SatNav to get from door-door.

I am seeing an astonishing number of lorries passing through villages/towns that simply do not need to be there. Again, most of which have a SatNav unit visible on their windscreen.

A good GB roadmap is excellent for the main part of the journey. Like you said, the last 15 minutes tend to be tricky and that's exactly why I have one.

Still, I don't see why maufacturers can't dictate motorways for the main part of a journey. I would love to be able to edit my own device to that effect (therefore predicing ETA more accurately).
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Darren
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

oms wrote:
Still, I don't see why maufacturers can't dictate motorways for the main part of a journey. I would love to be able to edit my own device to that effect (therefore predicing ETA more accurately).

Sadly earlier devices used to have the facility to do just that but as they become more consumer oriented the interfaces have become steadily more dumbed down and such 'features' have been removed to make them simpler Sad
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missing_user



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
There should be a responsibility placed upon SatNav suppliers...


The responsibility lies with the user! They are 'aids to navigation' and require the users' common sense to give them any real value.


Sadly too many of my friends consider the price [£100] for a basic unit a 'star buy'!

These units rarely have the options:-
    1-car/bus/truck/pedestrian
    2-avoid Motorways/unpaved roads/u-turns
    3-shortest/fastest route
    4-most important the ability to plan the route on a PC before transferring to the unit. You can see the problems on a large PC screen and put in extra via points


Replacing common sense [Road/Navigation Sense] with a basic unit without the above features is the cause of the problem.

To expect any GPS device to cater for all possiblities, when it has been programmed by a computer, and the software can be 2 years out of date, is the height of stupidity!

EXAMPLE
The units without the above options/functions take travellers from Ireland [through the Fishguard Ferryport] on a scenic route over the hills to the M4 Motorway, rather than using the Trunk road A40 to the M4!
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neil01
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with Darren that common sense is required, however, I think that this should be applied by the manufacturers too.

So long as they try to obtain the 'shortest' route (which any regulars to this forum know that I think the absolute shortest route is a bit of an acedemic excercise and of little practical use as a general setting)

What I beleive is required is a more balanced approach generating a 'shorter and more economical' route but not always the absolute shortest which may involve many more junctions and stop starts (less economical), just to save a few hundred yards.

Unfortunately, it seems not to be generally known that the UK network is split into Motorways, Primary roads (coloured green on the maps) and other A roads (coloured red), B roads (usually a shade of yellow) and the rest. On most long journeys, it is possible to make most of your journey (and reasonably directly) using just Motorways and Primary roads. The other roads will normally only need to be used a the ends of your journey.

Something else not appreciated, is that the roads are categorised by importance in getting around efficiently, not by size - So you can have a dual carriageway which is only a 'B' road, yet a Primary 'A' road coloured green, which is so narrow that it is shown on the maps as with 'passing places'.

Additionally, routing algorithms should take into account that a driver is more prepared to use minor roads very near to the start or finish of their journey and modify its selection accordingly.

One other point many people seem to forget, is that primary routes are designed to take the majority of the traffic, and road signs will direct you along those routes wherever possible. Yes there are shortcuts which some people use, and with genuine savings, but these often involve quieter routes along roads incapable of taking increased traffic flow. As more people start using SatNav, and if the units continue to send increasing numbers of people down roads incapable of supporting the new traffic flows - chaos will ensue.

The current situation is that you either take the long way round sticking to major roads unecessarily (CoPilot springing to mind) or risk the possibility being sent down roads only just fit for motor vehicles (TomTom on shortest?)

I wonder if this has anything to do with both companies being foreign and not understanding our road classification system, and how it actually makes generating sensible routes so easy.

Another point to remember, is that in bad weather, the motorways and primary roads (blue and green) get priority from the gritters.
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SlimboyFat
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On setting out from the Home location a big % of routes take me the same direction, now there are 2 routes that could be taken...

1 - The route I use which includes sticking to the main roads. These are 40 MPH limits and most of the time you can average 40 MPH.

2 - The other route takes you down a back lane that is very bendy, only just 2 car widths wide (passing only with care) but has a national speed limit (60 MPH). The average speed on this road is probably nearer 20 MPH. At the end of the road you will be routed to turn right which has been iligal for about 3 years meaning a left turn, an island then back up the same road.

Guess which route TomTom preferes.


Possible fix: The mapping companies get together with the people that leave those "Average Speed" cables across the road (Council, Safety Camera Partnership ??? ) and this speed is used when calculating the quickest routes.


Saying all this, if this area was an unknown location at the end of my journey I would still prefere Route 2 than getting lost Smile
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couriersoncall
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This post is so true!!

There was me thinking it was just me, or my outdated NavMan ICN550

Being a courier, I'm out on the roads most of the time, and have learnt to simply ignore my sat nav, many times it tries to take me the long way home, or a longer way to my delivery point.

Some examples are...

Coming out of london - cheltenham, it always tries to put me on the M4 - A417

This is fine if your coming out of london from the south, but if your in central london the quickest way out is the 501 ring road, M40 - A40. I watch in amazement as it tells me to keep turning left to pick up the A4 - M4.

When it gives up on this route, it then tries to send me right to the top of the M40 - M42 - M5 !! Adding another 45 minutes to the journey!!!

I now simply turn it off, and stick to my guns.

Likewise when delivering, I normally only turn it on when I'm getting close to where I want to be. Wink
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trafcam
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I find some of the navigation algorithms puzzling to say the least.

For example: The quickest route from home to the office is actually to go a couple of miles in the wrong direction, around a local bypass, then straight to work. I don't think any nav system will pick that one itself (though I think my TomTom Go 510 did today), but one package in particular (through several versions) is very unhappy with the route.

For miles, way past a point where others will give up and recalculate, this one sits there shouting "please make a U-turn when possible", or tries to take me all the way around roundabouts to get me back onto the route it first chose. But if I sit at the office and ask it for a route home, it will choose this route exactly as I drive it on the way in! I can see that it might prefer the motorway (as it's programmer has clearly never been on the M6), but I don't understand how it would decide the same roads are quicker in one direction than the other. The first time I noticed this was way before it had any kind of TMC capability, and even the new version isn't connected to the network so it can't "know" somehow.

But as someone else said, I really can't get my head around these stories in the newspapers where people blindly follow their SatNav systems and get into fields, narrow lanes and so on. Having a SatNav system does not mean "stop reading road signs".
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xda
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darren wrote:

Sadly earlier devices used to have the facility to do just that but as they become more consumer oriented the interfaces have become steadily more dumbed down and such 'features' have been removed to make them simpler Sad[/quote]

As I recall, one of the biggest complaints from users was with CoPilot V5 always routing you via motorways regardless whether shortest or quickest route was selected.
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Mikeact
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Generally speaking, there's no way that my TT knows my local short cuts etc., and I wouldn't expect it to. Likewise, I have my own routes that I like to use each day...and sometimes it's not until I get to the end of my street do I decide which way to go. But I still like my TT 'on'...it's a great toy to have !
It certainly comes into its own though if you really don't know the area...and then I wouldn't know if that was the recognized quickest way or not, but it gets me there. In Liverpolol the other day, my customer asked me which way I had come...he then said, as a local, that he wiould have come a different way...cutting out some of the busy bits, but then, that's the advantage of being a local.
Last August I towed my caravan down to the South of Portugal...a long haul... and all credit to TT, it took me right to the front door of this very obscure campsite....which no doubt I would have found, but certainly TT made it a whole lot easier.
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perussell
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The issue of recognising M-ways in preference to A roads is not one I would always welcome. My car has an OEM fit Satnav unit which has chosen many ridiculous routes in the past. Just one of many involved a trip from the SW to South Shields last year. Heading North on the A1 past Leeds both the radio and my trafficmaster were suggesting the road was blocked in 2 locations ahead due to overturned trucks (high winds) so we opted to head for York along the A64 intending to take the ring road and then join the A19, an excellent A road for those who do not know it which becomes a dual carriageway near Thirsk for the whole of the remaining route. When I put the SatNav on approaching York (I hadn't used it to this point of the journey) it not unreasonably suggested I head back to the A1 since at the time it wasn't TMC enabled. When I told the unit to avoid the A1 it promptly suggested I turn around, head back over the M62 to Manchester, up the M6 to Carlisle and then across the A69(?) to Newcastle turning the remaining 90 miles journey into approx 180 miles!!! The unit could just not see the A19 in its' route planning. I have given up on the OEM unit now and use a Garmin Nuvi - not only does this generally plot better routes but if I use my common sense and follow a route or diversion I know to be better it picks up the new route very quickly and doesn't keep trying to make me revert to the old route (that's a whole other story with the OEM unit........) At the end of the day I always use the Nuvi on long journeys but if experience tells me to use a better route I do so. Either way we always end up where we are aiming for!
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Mikeact
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you have the same in built sat nav as my Honda...then you're right..total rubbish....no wonder sat nav gets bad press from idiots who obviously don't have a modicom of common sense.
Give me my TT6 any day...why on earth the majors don't do deals with the motor industry beats me.
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Rowan29a
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:27 pm    Post subject: Developers please note! Reply with quote

Possibly the best thing the SatNav programmers could develop is the ability to plan your journey on a PC and then download it to your SatNav device. No more squinting at a small screen, easier placing of waypoints etc. etc. If MS Autoroute can do it for the PC (but not download to a SatNav sadly) why not the others.....? Rolling Eyes
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JockTamsonsBairn
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Developers please note! Reply with quote

Rowan29a wrote:
Possibly the best thing the SatNav programmers could develop is the ability to plan your journey on a PC and then download it to your SatNav device. No more squinting at a small screen, easier placing of waypoints etc. etc. If MS Autoroute can do it for the PC (but not download to a SatNav sadly) why not the others.....? Rolling Eyes
I use Autoroute all the time to download route to TT. You save the route as an ".AXE", use ITNCONV to convert it to a ".ITN" and then copy that into your "\itn" folder.
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