Are the new TomTom maps up to date?

JohnBoy59 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 120

Why then Mike can you walk into WH Smith today, buy an AA Road Atlas of GB and find all, yes all of the errors I have personally reported to TomTom/TeleAtlas updated and correctly displayed. In my opinion it is not in any way acceptable to pay £61 for a product that is at least 2 years out of date. At the very least there should be a declaration that this is the case BEFORE you part with what is a very sizeable sum of money.
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MikeB · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 10:02 am Post subject:

If this is not acceptable to you then you have the option of not buying it.

That still will not alter the fact that this is the way things work with electronic mapping. Things are improving slowly, but this is still an emerging industry.

Paper maps are far easier to make than the electronic ones. If the roads are not exactly matching the reality it doesnt really matter too much as there is no GPS verifying the accuracy of the map. Roads that are planned can be put on them and then marked as schedulled for openning in jun 2005. You can look at that and make a judgment if that road is open or not. The decision is down to you. You may even know that a road openning was made early or delayed.

A navigation application cannot make a value judgment like that. It can and must only use roads that have been verified as being open. An example of the mapping companies trying to improve caused an uproar when the new M6 Toll was opened. My understanding is that the maps were in accurate around a lot of the junctions as the junctions didnt match the plans that the companies used for the survey.

This then of course puts them in a very bad position. They are damned if they try to be proactive, and they are damned if they insist on surveying the new roads and changes to existing ones.

Maybe the solution is to have more staff checking the maps, more surveyers out there mapping the roads, more people checking the pois and all the other data that is supplied with the maps. But this all costs money. This could probably tripple the price of the mapping data. You are not happy paying £61 for the lastest maps, others are not happy paying anything at all.

It is a tricky problem. I take the pragmatic attitude that what we have is the current state of affairs and we have to live with it. I am actively working to improve it, and it will improve over time.

What I have with TomTom, CoPilot, Destinator, NavMan etc is the best that is around at the moment. For me it is far and away better than trying to navigate with paper maps (even if they are more up to date). At the end of the day the question to ask is do I get to my destination? If the answer is yes then the system has done it's job.
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Mike Barrett

JohnBoy59 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 120

I take on board all you say Mike and I respect the fact that your knowledge base is far greater than mine - its your business.

But... Nowhere have I seen anyone tell us that the maps that we would be buying would still be 2 years out of date. Had we known this then I'm pretty sure 90% of us would have stuck with what we had - there appears to be virtually no change. The inclusion of the postcode search which it now turns out would have worked equally well on the old maps is seen as a VERY cynical way of extracting a further £61 from a very loyal and dedicated customer base. Still very miffed to say the least.
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JohnBoy59 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 120

Zuke · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 12:27 pm Post subject:

Two points Mike.

1. Both TomTom and TeleAtlas provide a mechanism for users of the maps to report errors. Clearly people have been doing this, since this seems to be an excellent and cheap way to improve map quality. They have a right to be annoyed if their input is ignored. What is the point in all this wattless energy?

2. Garmin provide a web-based browser for map products so you can check what you'll get prior to purchase. What stops these guys doing the same - incompetence or contempt for the customer?

JohnBoy59 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 120

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Life's a bitch... then I met Jane...

MikeB · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:

John,

I fully understand where you are coming from as well. I might point out that nobody said that these maps would be x months old either.

If you follow all the discussions about digital maps that have happened i nthe past you would realise that we keep saying that the map data in places can be quite old.

Now when you say that there appears to be virtually no change i would (sort of) expect that. When you consider that there are millions of roads in the country and hundreds of millions of points linking these roads on a digital map then (hopefully) there wont be too many changes.

Of course the changes that have been made will pretty much go unnoticed. If you havent travelled down a road before you wouldnt know if it was there before or not. Whereas if you drive ona new road you will instantly see if the road you are on is correct or not. ie ommissions will always be more visible than inclusions.

I suspect that there are hundreds of thousands of changes i these maps, but you will not notice most of them.

I am more concerned about reported errors in the database and why these have not come through into the maps. I would not expect to see anything that has been reported since about August last year due to the lead times in creating the maps. It is possible that they have a policy of visually checking all reported issues and as such will not appear fixed until the area has been resurveyed. As I have pointed out in another thread we are hoping to visit Teleatlas in August when we will have the opportunity to pose these kinds of questions, and hopefully get sensible answers.

As regards the postcodes I am seeking an official statement from TomTom.
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Mike Barrett

MikeB · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 1:04 pm Post subject:

MikeB · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject:

Damn. Going to have to stop writing essays and do some real work that I get paid for! :D
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Mike Barrett

JohnBoy59 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 120

MrJ · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 28, 2004 Posts: 2

One way forward is for someone to host a map error site - where users can enter mapping mistakes & view other submissions for a particular map version.

Advantages
Save users reporting the same map error.
Allow users to know of mistakes in their current map version.
Provides a public timestamped audit trail of map error reporting.
Can verify POI. (how many times have you driven to a non-existant petrol station when low on fuel. ??? Crying or Very sad

Can be used to publically demonstrate that map providers are not updating maps Twisted Evil

It wouldnt need a completed gui. Even emails to be included in a user downloadable spreadsheet would be usable. (Similar to speed camera database)

eg.
TomTom Map version v314
<long,lat> Road missing
<long, lat> Petrol station or cinema closed

Just my 1p contribution...

Zuke · Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 2:30 pm Post subject:

Mike

The Garmin link is:

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/MGEuro.jsp#

Then top right corner - Mapsource Map Viewer. This is NAVTEQ, of course

Evilution · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 61

I can understand that setting up a map in the first place is going to take time but to add a few roads here and there isn't going to be hard is it.

Correcting the names of incorrect roads is going to be even easier.

If they haven't really updated the maps to any great extent they are obviously trying to sell the new maps on the "postcode search" theory but as we now know we can port the file over to the classic they had better think about actually sorting the maps out.

MikeB · Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 8:59 pm Post subject:

dodgydodgy · Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 4:44 pm Post subject:

I totally agree. I reported two simple map errors when I first got my TTG (right when they were released).

One is a road name which is the wrong way around (Deneleigh vs Leighdene) and the other is a mystery extra roundabout close to the M5 J5.

Both these could be simply checked - but nothing. Makes me wonder why I bothered to report them - and even more makes me wonder why I bothered to pay for these "upgraded" maps.

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