European Report

[Peasemold]

I took my C510 to Europe last week and have to say, as a relative newbie, how much the device enhanced my holiday.

The atlas was left firmly on the back shelf and it was left to Thomas to direct me to the various destinations, which he did (almost!) perfectly.

A few observations:

1. I had difficulty in entering the Folkestone channel tunnel terminal - why should such an important place be so difficult to find?

2. Sometimes I would be warned of motorway/autoroute/Autobahn exits at 2 miles and at one mile, sometimes only at 0.4 of a mile, why?

3. There some mapping errors, roundabouts without exits, for example.

4. In Bavaria, Thomas took me off the Autobahn and after a couple of miles on to a useful, but rather scary shortcut along a country lane. Being as I had just driven for 6 hours, it was dark and foggy, the lane was winding, German roads have no cat's eyes and very poor lane markings, that was quite a scary experience

5. I accidentally left the device in pedestrian mode (used it get around the Christmas Markets the previous day) and set off from Cologne to Munich, and only realised after several miles that we seemed to be stuck on ordinary roads!

6. GNS TMC did not work although it did put up a station name once!

7. Took it up the Zugspitze (Germany's highest mountain) on the rack-and-pinion railway and it accurately recorded the height of the summit (c2964 metres).

8. On the way back, visited Bruges. Set it for city centre and found myself driving on cobbles surrounded by tourists - found a street parking space though.

All in all a very good experience - a couple of lockups and reboots but nothing too disastrous. In a strange way I sort of missed the excitement of manual map reading and route planning, although I wouldn't be without it for the confidence it gave me in driving in unfamiliar cities in foreign parts and in the dark - taking me straight to the hotel in Cologne without a hitch, for example.

Peasemold

[klystron_generator]

i can't give you a definitive answer to posting but i'd like to add my own observations to see if somehow we can identify the cause and maybe get a resolution through this forum

1. channel tunnel terminal - how did you enter this destination? postcode, POI or address?
i've found that often postcodes don't appear where you think on a map and this is not unique to MioMap

2. exit warnings - did this happen in the uk as well as europe? could it be that you left your C510 set to miles/yards but the map for europe is geared towards km/m and was therefore unable to give you warnings at the correct distance(s)? is it possible that the maps only work correctly with miles/yards in the uk?

3. roundabouts - i've seen this at one particular roundabout where if i enter from one direction it gives me the exit but if i enter the same roundabout from the opposite direction i get no exit

4. Bavaria - this doesn't sound logical and i have absolutely no idea why this should happen except to joke that maybe Thomas is like the rest of us and got bored of motorway/autoroute/autobahn driving and fancied a change :D

5. pedestrian mode - i would have tried stopping changing mode and trying to force the system to re-route. did you not get a warning that you must be one fit dude as you went speeding off 'on foot'? :D

6. TMC - i've done my best to steer clear of TMC so no comment

7. altitude - yes this seems to work but might take a while to give a correct reading.
i live by the coast (so pretty close to sea level) and i watched the altitude reading the other day - it started at -17m (when first turned on) and rose to 9m - which is clode to the 10m on the OS map. i think it depends on satellite reception like most other features of GPS

8. Bruges - again no knowledge so no comment

i still have an atlas in the car too but didn't somebody say that sat nav might not be the best route but you'll never get completely lost with it (or something like that)

[GPSBear]

[Peasemold]

[CeeJay]

[GPSBear]

CeeJay - That was my first thought but there were no traffic icons displayed on the road.
_________________
Mio C710 on MioMap 3.3

[klystron_generator]

i guess that it it happened over here we'd be more familiar with the roads and ignore it as 'one of those things'

[gorbit]

Peasemold wrote:

4. In Bavaria, Thomas took me off the Autobahn and after a couple of miles on to a useful, but rather scary shortcut along a country lane. Being as I had just driven for 6 hours, it was dark and foggy, the lane was winding, German roads have no cat's eyes and very poor lane markings, that was quite a scary experience.

Unfortunately C510 has no parameter for avoiding winding, scary roads.

After limited experience with Sat Nav I shall try out a C510 next week in a small area of Spain. Fortunately, I know the roads there quite well. I'm staying in a small village (Canillas de Albaida). There is a ravine just to the west of there – starts just a few minutes walk from the centre. The route down the ravine from the village is probably classed as a mule track. You wouldn’t want to cycle down although you might manage to carry a mountain bike.

If you have the Spanish detailed MioMap map (2006.01) try the route to Canillas from a neighbouring village, Salares.

Start: Salares (Malaga), Street: Calle de el Ejido
End: Canillas de Albaida (Malaga)

You may wish to enter a street for Canillas – try Calle Vicario Martinez Navas – just enter a ‘V’ to locate it.
Parameters: select Fastest and Car and deselect Unpaved Roads

The MioMap route takes the MA 158 and then forks left onto an unclassified road (probably still a dirt track in places) instead of continuing on the MA 158 via Archez to Canillas. The track is OK by car (although a car hire company may not agree) but not recommended if you suffer even slight vertigo. The worst is yet to come. The route should follow the ‘road’ round to the right and continue south, where it crosses the river in the ravine, and then enter the village from the south-west, along Carril de San Anton and then left onto Calle de la Estacion. Instead, MioMap leaves the road just after crossing the river and takes a left turn off the road and follows a direct line into the village from the west. You’ve guessed it, the C510 enters the village from the ravine by following the mule track. This ravine-part of the route is described as a footpath (path 69) on the 1:25000 Mapa Topografica de Sierra Tejeda of the Junta de Andalucia.

You may be thinking that, given this is a local route between neighbouring villages, Tele Atlas can be forgiven. However, the C510 follows the same route into Canillas if you start from the UK. Maybe there are 100s of examples similar to this and perhaps I should realise that, to be safe, it is better to stick with the main maps and to use the detailed maps only when necessary. Also, to be fair, it is probably impossible to turn off the road onto the mule track.

Incidentally, the road from Archez to Canillas de Albaida (the correct route from Salares) is not shown on the C510 (although it has been there for years). Therefore, having declined the option of the footpath, a route recalculation would probably direct you via Competa – involving a lengthy detour.

Finally, having arrived in Canillas, The MioMap route shows that you can drive up Calle Vicario Martinez Navas – you certainly can not – the street is steep, stepped, and is too narrow at the start for a car.

Of course, such problems are not confined to mainland Europe. Two weeks ago, the C510 tried to take me the wrong way down three, successive one-way streets in Winchester, within less than 1 minute.

In case this report seems critical, I must add that the C510 successfully directed me across a large moorland region of Lancashire at night, where there are many narrow lanes and farm tracks.

I shall try the ravine route next week – but in pedestrian mode and without the mountain bike.

[gorbit]

I wish to correct an error in my posting. Sorry Tele Atlas. I wrote:

Incidentally, the road from Archez to Canillas de Albaida (the correct route from Salares) is not shown on the C510 (although it has been there for years). Therefore, having declined the option of the footpath, a route recalculation would probably direct you via Competa – involving a lengthy detour.

This is not correct, as I discovered when I zoomed in a bit more. The road from Archez to Canillas is shown. In fact the Miomap route from Malaga, along the coast on the autovia (E15), followed by the MA104 etc to Canillas, takes the short-cut from Archez to Canillas.

[PudpullerTM]

If you make a taxi as your vehicle does it take you all the long ways round to help you make loads of cash from your customers

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