M6 Toll Road

omaruk · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 9:33 am Post subject: M6 Toll Road

Are Tom Tom going to amend the maps to show the new Toll road Road. It has been in construction since 1999 you would have thought that they possibly might have something in place. Then again.......

NickE · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 10:57 am Post subject:

... TomTom don't do the maps, it's Teleatlas so it's really down to them.

Dave · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 11:49 am Post subject:

You can report mapping issues to TeleAtlas direct via the following webpage
http://www.na.teleatlas.com/tomtommapreport.html

thealbs · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 6:27 pm Post subject:

OK - I've reported it using the above URL...but any idea whether this will do any good and, if so, how soon?

I agree with the initial entry in this thread. This isn't some minor road which is incorrect in the maps. It is fairly fundamental to any North West/South trips and severely devalues TomTom in terms of route planning, trip time estimation, etc...etc...

Maybe we should start a campaign?!

MikeB · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 7:18 pm Post subject:

As this is down to TeleAtlas providing the updated mapping data, is has to cascade down to TomTom and eventually integrated into the product.

TomTom do not provide patches to the map data unless there is a serious bug which needs to be fixed after a software release. Therefore it is my best guess that the earliest that you will see this road incorporated will be the next release of TT.

As for when the next version of TT will be released? Well TT2 was released in March this year, so it could be March next year before this will be available.
_________________
Mike Barrett

thealbs · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 10:39 am Post subject:

Thanks for the note Mike.

I appreciate its Teleatlas who author the maps. I can't help thinking that TT, NavMan, whoever... are potentially missing a trick here by not lobbying for a 'quick fix map' and being the first to market with a "M6-Toll aware" set of software. This would undoubtably be a clincher when any newbie was deciding which product to go for...

omaruk · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 10:48 pm Post subject:

I have posted a form to teleatlas aswell.

I think we need plenty of people to highlight the deficency to get some critical mass going.

Please spare 2 mins and complete the teleatlas form.

Thumbs Up

julia · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 3:57 pm Post subject:

Blaming Teleatlas is a fob off. I paid good money to TomTom who promote there product as having excellent maps. It is not sold as a viewer for someone else’s maps. I want to navigate from A to B, I am fed up being told turn right into one way streets. It is TomToms problem, they have sold me a defective product, they should fix it (*or provide the means for users to fix it
:x

Darren · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 6:10 pm Post subject:

I understand your frustration but if it helps any, these issues are present in all GPS Nav apps including those £2000+ in-car systems. Bear in mind that the maps cost TomTom and Navman etc a HUGE amount of money and account for 70%+ of the cost price of the software you buy.

When you understand this, it is no surprise why updated maps are rarely available outside of version upgrades, the updated DVD map for my car would cost £300 and it has been two years since the last version. Needless to say I'm sticking with TomTom!
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Darren Griffin

thealbs · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 7:44 pm Post subject:

anyone fancy setting-up a mapping company?!!

It seems there's room in there for someone who fancies issuing a new change more than once every couple of years.

On a slightly less flippant note (unless, of course, some entrepeneur would like to fund a new mapping company in which I am a major shareholder) I think the earlier quote did have a good suggestion which must be under Tom Tom's control...why can they not develop an interface which allows us to correct **basic** mapping errors ourselves?

I'm not for one minute suggesting I could plot the M6 toll and all its new junctions but I could press a button which informs TT that the right turn it is suggesting is actually a one way street and I'm at the wrong end of it....

TT frequently tries to route me down a private road near my home which has had secure gates fitted to it for over 2 years now..and, yes, I have reported this to Teleatlas.

Dave · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 8:16 pm Post subject:

I'm going to drop a big clanger here and I'll let you all discuss this openly, but most GPS companies writing GPS software having maps provided by the major mapping companies do get regular updates of maps. Most get at minimum (depending on their contracts) quarterly maps, some get monthly updates.

The main reason why most GPS companies won't keep issuing free updates or updates on a regular basis is the cost. Maps do cost quite a lot of money, but the main hit is on reproduction costs, packaging, distribution, and the man hours to check, re-check, and make them available for download is very expensive to these companies. When pushed, they will release updated maps when there are major problems with the maps for a country, but this is only under extreme pressure.

You will find other companies like TeleType who use TeleAtlas who provide newer maps on a quarterly basis to the end user.

At the end of the day most companies are in business to make money, and this is part of the reason why most companies only issue maps annually with newer versions of their software. Good marketing advice I guess.

Regarding having the option to notify TomTom or even TeleAtlas of problems, most GPS companies have the ability to look at, adjust maps with minor fixes or for big problems to get the geodata company (e.g. TeleAtlas) to re-issue fixed maps. However there are tight licensing conditions which if you were allowed to make adjustments yourself, would mean that you could start giving these modified maps away, and suddenly the maps are nolonger the property of the geodata company. This is one of the main reasons why you can't modify maps or add items into the map yourself. This may change over time when licensing becomes less strict, or not a requirement if maps become updated quarterly on most applications.

Hope I haven't opened a hornets nest here Embarassed

thealbs · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 8:38 pm Post subject:

Oh dear Dave...I fear you may have!

Lets take the two main points in turn...

1) redistribution costs - they have a web site with an ftp server of some persuasion on there. Zero incremental cost I would imagine. Maybe they have to do something with the ,maps to TomTom-ify them but if this is the case why not come clean on it rather than blaming the map producer?

2) marketing bundles (without doubt, surely the real reason for holding back?). TomTom should be confident that the improvements in their next release, as was the case with TT2, will more than justify the upgrade costs rather than piggy-backing on somebody else's good work. Message to TT - have faith in your product - its actually very good! What are they software developers or map resellers for heaven's sake??!!

Next....

omaruk · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 8:56 pm Post subject:

As thealbs says TomTom have an ftp server so distribution costs are nominal.

The M6 Toll road plans would have been out for greater than 5 years (they started construction in 1999). Surely a mapping company would have had this on the horizon..

This is not a minor road it is a major trunk route for the UK. If TomTom or their partner Teleatlas want to establish themselves from a marketing point of view then providing map updates is surely going to set them apart from the rest.

omaruk · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 9:00 pm Post subject:

I think it is up to us users of TT2 as Dave hints to put the pressure on Teleatlas/Tom Tom the only we can do this by filling out the missing road form from an earlier posting. So come on guys and girls start swamping them

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 1:14 am Post subject:

To call the cost of potentially thousands of users FTPing an approximately 100MByte file "nominal" or "zero incremental cost" is a great mistake. Bandwidth costs, and I suspect it's probably cheaper to distribute new CDs. If you don't believe me, look at the cost of commercial web hosting! I have a commercial hosting package, and I have to expect a bill once I exceed 180MBytes per day averaged across a month. (In fact I don't really have any web sites on there - I have this account primarily for the email features, also the Unix shell account).

With my provider, 20GBytes of data transfer in a month - which is only 200 downloads of the TomTom UK map - would cost you GBP58.75 per month. That works out at around 30p per download - obviously the more you buy the cheaper it gets, but it's still not free. You'd most likely incur the wrath of my provider if you had 200 people all trying to download the map at once - coping with that sort of demand is where the real expense comes in! For anything such as a TomTom map download system, you would be placing dedicated servers directly at one or more major peering points if you were attempting to DIY.

There's also the problem that many people simply don't have the facilities to grab a 100MByte file - it's only really realistic for those that have a 500kbits per second or greater connection.

I suspect TomTom have a rather bigger hosting package than I do, but bandwidth is certainly not free. People are not going to mirror commercial data like this for free, either. The PocketGPS team are, I'm sure, well aware of the cost of bandwidth and database servers.

TomTom have dipped their toes into the downloadable map business - and, so far as I can tell, it's all outsourced; they sell the various small Navigator maps through Handango. I don't know what infrastructure is behind TomTom Maps On-Line.

When you're into big downloads, you really have to outsource to a specialist outfit like akamai or conxion.com. Microsoft do.

Further, I think TomTom are well aware that updated maps will be needed some time soon - previously there's been one update to TomTom Navigator, which was updated maps and software, and cost a pretty reasonable 40 Euros. It came around a year after the original Navigator. There haven't been any updates to Navigator 2, which was released in May, for some time - it could be that there's a freeze on new features now for Navigator 2, and work has been progressing behind the scenes on Navigator 3.

If you're going to use the M6 Toll end to end, it's easy enough - turn off guidance when you join the M6 Toll and turn it back on when you reach the other end. OK - it's not ideal, but it will allow you to operate with the maps as they are.

I think the chances of TomTom issuing a special upgrade for M6 Toll is pretty low. The current maps are based on geodata that's around a year old (supposedly it's December 2002 data). I don't think hassling TeleAtlas will help any, either - I'd think the main geodata providers, TeleAtlas and NavTech, will be well aware of the opening of such a major road, and it will soon find its way into their live data. It may well have been already entered and in the live data as of the opening day.

What Dave posts is no surprise to me. There is, however, significant cost in formatting the raw geodata, testing, packaging and distributing the updates. Rushing out an update can prove very expensive if you have to pull it shortly afterwards! TomTom are reissuing the map data for Navigator 2 USA because the original data was flawed and causes routing problems. That's very different to the UK data, which has merely gone out of date.

The time to scream is if TomTom follow their previous pattern, use data frozen in December 2003 for the next version of Navigator UK, and manage to release data that omits M6 Toll!

Maybe in the future we'll see more regular updates - possibly on subscription.

David

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