Big Bug in CN8 or/and MapSource?!??

[DerLustenauer]

I came across some strange routing propositions lately whilst playing with CN8. Always in the vicinity of Alpine Passes with winter closure.
I tried to investigate a bit further by making mini routes starting from the last village before a pass with winter closure to the village after it.
Great results I thought, CN8 indeed knows about winter closures and makes a nice route around it. Bravo Garmin.
But as I want to do the route in summer I wanted to tell Mapsource and CN8 not to worry (litigation etc.) and just get me the fastest and shortest route. Could not find a switch anywhere. Fine, might be added later on with a new version of MapSource. Changing the system clock to August did not seem to be a big bother in the meantime, but the route stayed the same. (Must admit, I did not restart the computer after changing the clock but nonetheless restarted MapSource, I mean, user friendliness and all, I really should not go to that length).
Tried CS7 next, no problem, shortest and quickest route over the pass.

An extreme example:
Umbrail Pass in Switzerland (next to Stilfser Joch/Passo Stelvio, next to Bormio):
Route from Barracho Del Braulio (nice name, isn’t it) to Santa Maria Val Mustair.
Note: did not change any settings, just switched between maps (CS7, CN8) in the same session and recalculated the same route. CS7 hops over the Umbrail and is there in a blink and CN8 plays the winter closure card and is doing a great detour.

Other passes where this occurs are the Furka Joch, the Silvretta Hochalpenstrasse and the Gross Glockner in Austria, in Switzerland the Albula Pass shows the same (here actually CN8 suggests a very nice detour over………., and that one is really only closed maybe a few days a year).

So far, so good (or bad for what I wanted to do) but now the strange bit comes.
In another test, both, CS7 and CN8 insist to go over the Stilfser Joch/Passo Di Stelvio. At this time of the year? CN8 you should know better, and I worry, what other passes they might have forgotten if they forgot that one?

Maybe all of this has nothing to do with winter closure at all and is just a coincidence, maybe I am just a stupid old git who can not get to grips with all this modern technologie?

Help (or at least confirmation) would be greatly appreciated!
(Equipment used: CS6, CS7, CN8, MapSource 6.10.2, Quest 1 with bang on firmware)

[DerLustenauer]

From a forum in Germany I hear now that route calculation considers quite a lot of info when calculating, winter closure being only one of them. Others might be if the route starts north and does go south or the other way around.
Apparently it makes for a difference from which side you come in some cases, with the CN family of maps choosing the long way around when coming from the north but hopping over the pass when coming from the south. Which probably explains the Stilfser Joch findings. I have to check.

The thing I do not like is that these winter closure tags are there all year around. So my Quest 1 has got this habit now as well.

If this is really so, should there not be a warning on the DVD reading

‘This product helps you to find the shortest (distance) and fastest (time) route from A to B. This unique feature does not work in the Alps’

or something similar?

[bigbob]

Hi DerLustenauer
if you use the routing tool at the start and at the finnish it does give very strange routing if however you start at Baracche del braulio and put a via point just at the start of the Umbrail and one at destination this will work on CN8. On a more practical note the Umbrail is mostly unpaved and if you want to bag this pass you are best (if on motorcycle) coming up instead of going down due to loose stones I have done it both ways and I know which way I would prefer from Santa Maria Mustair to Stilfersjoch, about a half klick before you get to the junctionof ss38 there is a nice little cafe which is far cheaper than the choice at the top of Stilfersjoch. I always love doing Stilfersjoch from Bormio through to Stilfs and have always enjoyed it far more this way than the other way round. If you are heading north towards Reschen Nauders Landeck area to do the Silvretta watch out for the Austrian Police mobile Radar units between Nauders and Landeck as they have a high presence in the biking season. You might want to concider the Gavia pass if you are in the area I used to do this one before they put tar down and it was scary to say the least. 8O

Cheers Bob

[DerLustenauer]

What I have learnt now so far (better what I believe to have learnt).
Map providers are putting more and more info into their maps.
CN8 uses more of this info than CS7.
One bit of info (or tag) for a particular road might be winter closure.
One might be that the road is in the shade of a mountain (north, more snow and for a longer time).
Clever stuff!!
MapSource has no concept of seasons as Garmin is struggling to put that into its routing algorithms (since years I hear).
So MapSource thinks, safe is safe, I ignore your quickest and fastest settings, and goes the long way around if it sees these tags on the shortest route.
Garmin struggles to make these tags switchable (surely everybody will want that in preferences).
I hope now that my Quest is using different routing software which ignores these particular tags so that the Quest is just doing as good a job as it has done with CS7.
I believe now that CN8 on a GPS together with routing software which reads these tags will never give me accurate shortest or quickest routes until it learns about seasons. If so, I prefer these tags not to be there as in CS7, but would still like the updated roads.

Thank you for the tips Bob. I know all those locations very well as I grew up there and spent most of my live there, hence my user name, you will find it just a bit south of Lake Constance on the river Rhein. I think you mentioned the Reschen Pass, if you are there again at some point take the road on the west side of the lake (yes that little one) up the mountain to go further south. You won't regrett it. Promise!

[bigbob]

Hi DerLustenauer
Sorry should have known with your users name. We went near your home town a few years ago we were staying at Vandans after doing the Silvretta and took the south road up to Konstanz past Bodensee. Last year we stayed at Fiss and have also stayed at Schrocken. We have good friends in Austria and often stay down the Enns valley (losenstein) south of Steyr thankyou for the route to the west of Reschen next time I am over in the area it will be investigated. Last year we stopped at the car park where the Tower is in the water and one of my friends asked me why there was a tower in the lake I told him someone had left the tap on sad thing is for a moment he believed me.
My Quest 2 is visiting Dr Garmin awaiting repair but don't be surprised if you have worked out a route you want to do on mapsource download it to Quest and the Quest decides it will do the route the way it wants to I thought that once you saved a route to the unit it would follow the route exactly but so far have not been able to do this. When the unit returns I will experiment more.
Thankyou for your input to mapsource issues as it has made me aware of planning routes to take in passes as We are doing the high passes (col du Bonnette) in the French Maritimes this year.

cheers Bob

[DerLustenauer]

Pleased to meet you Bob.
The whole issue is kind of solved, for me at least.
I started this thread originally in another forum

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72360&page=1&pp=16

and then in a german forum (where I got quite a bit of info) and then here as I (coming from CS7 to CN8) could not understand it. There is quite a bit of info in the above thread you might be interested in.
I stick for the time being to the Quest1 and CS7.
Hope your Quest2 is feeling better soon and good luck to you.
Egon

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