Ferry Crossing

[jcjeffe]

From what I can see TomTom and the other route planning software seem to regard a river crossing by ferry as a bridge allowing zero time for the crossing. The quickest route from the end of the M5 to Dartmouth uses a ferry crossing of the Dart.

I selected "Alternative Route" and put a block on the A379 road to Torquay road and was re routed via Buckfast and Totnes. This route was seven miles shorter and took one minute longer. So I looked at the details of the route just to cross the river. A route calculated from Kingswear via the ferry to the centre of Dartmouth is less than a mile and is timed to take one minute.

Even though TomTom is set to warn about tolls it does not mention the ferry and its toll. No time allowance is made for waiting for the ferry, loading the ferry, the river crossing and unloading at the other side. All this is going to add a minimum of 10 minutes to the journey and in the summer far longer. So in reality this "Fastest Route" using the ferry will going to take considerably longer than Tom Tom says it will take.

Both Google and Autoroute also allow zero time for the crossing but Autoroute does at least inform you that a ferry crossing is involved.

Chris

[Border_Collie]

[jcjeffe]

If TomTom is going to use a route using a Toll Road you get a red warning screen asking if you want to use this route. A ferry crossing is also a route where a Toll has to be paid so I would expect a similar warning, which in this case you do not get. You obviously cannot factor in a time for the crossing but if there was a warning you could make your own decision. The trouble is that many people will blindly follow TomTom without consulting a map and it will come as a shock that they have what is possible a long queue for a ferry.

Chris

[PaulB2005]

[gardenshed]

i just selected avoid toll roads works for me

[PaulB2005]

Selecting Avoid Toll Roads works for me too.

[Border_Collie]

[Skippy]

[Border_Collie]

[Skippy]

[gardenshed]

see what you started here jcjeffe

[Border_Collie]

[Skippy]

[neil01]

Sometimes I think that many of the problems are magnified by the lack of understanding by the software companies of how people drive.

We have all these fancy options, but how often are they all or nothing. I do not see the problem being due to the speed limits or whether a toll or a fare - no doubt someone would argue that it isn't even a road!

Until the systems become sophisticated enough to allow the user to select which 'whatever you want to call anything which requires a payment to proceed' individually, we are probably stuck with generated routes which do not meet some users requirements.

While not saying that it is perfect, I try to avoid ALL charges when driving other than those I specifically know about and am prepared to pay. In those cases I use waypoints or intermediate stops at the 'charge' location and rely upon the system to re-calculate the route once I am at the other side

I have to agree with one of the previous posters sentiment about not blindly following the routes generated - we never seemed to have these problems in the days of maps. However, to my knowledge no SatNav system is just a replacement for your car atlas - it is also a replacement for the person using it. As a result it is often either a source of confusion (and sometimes stupid routes) for those who rely totally upon it, and great frustration for those who know exactly the route they need to take and simply want something to help them stick to it - yet it is so difficult (sometimes impossible?) to give the satnav the route you want to take.

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