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....this time choosing default as the routing. NOPE< it still went with the side raods. The only way I could get out of htat was to reboot my iPaq...
If you look at my original two posts together (they do follow on from each other) you will see that I warned about the dificulties in going back to 'default' settings. I also offered a soulution - didn't this work for you?
Like you, whenever I applied changes similar to yours, I simply ontained silly routes, and so far have only obtained 'better' routes on a regular basis when I applied the changes I originally suggested; that is Motorways reduced by 1 (to Avoid), and increased the Primary Roads by 2 (to Strongly Favour).
How did you find those settings?
Since originally posting I have continued to try many additional routes with those settings, and have had reasonable success - although I would never claim that my settings produce the best routes (I know that they don't), but so far, I haven't had anywhere near the number of problems with the generated routes, and whereas before I regularly needed several waypoints to obtain a satisfactory route, my use of waypoints is much reduced with a significant number of journeys no longer requiring them.
I have also tried to find alternative settings, but so far I have met with little success. I am not saying that there aren't better settings - I hope that there are - I wouldn't have started this thread otherwise.
Just to restate my intentions for this thread; they were not to produce perfect routing in every case, only to see if a (much) better starting position can be produced. I fully accept that local knowledge will in many case produce better alternatives, but where this is the case, please consider how acceptable the generated routes are. If they are acceptable alternatives, particularly for someone unfamiliar with the area then the route should be deemed to be acceptable. After all, I would argue that the primary function of SatNav is to get you to your destination reasonably efficiently in the vast majority of cases; not to produce the perfect route every time. We all know how two people who know an area well can often come up with two very different routes, and I know that when giving directions to people who have no local knowledge of my area, how I will give quite different directions to my home from the route I use.
It might even turn out, that to obtain better routing, we need to change the settings directly, just like we had to in CoPilot 5. So please post how you find my settings, along with some alternative ones you have found to work (even in limited situations), along with ones which don't work as Fellwalker has.
Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 634 Location: Lincolnshire, England
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject:
Reading the thread again, it seems that Neil01 had already posted what amounts to the same workaraound as I posted today. Sorry about that, Neil. No plagiarism intended!
I have tried your tweaks, but so far on the long distance routes I have tried, the calculated route has been of little practical use. However, on more local journeys, the routes appear to be of much more use, so I will continue to try them for those.
I have also managed to come up with alternative settings to produce sensible routes. Thes are to increase the Dual Carriageway by 1 to favour, and the Primary Roads by 2 to strongly favour, with all other settings remaining unaltered.
Three routes which I am currently using to test the effectiveness of the calculated routes are Sleaford in Lincolnshire to Aberdeen (provided by Ponderous) which should apparently remain on the A1 until Scotch Corner when it should take the A66 to the M6. another route is from Gloucester to Wetherby, which should use the M18 to A1(M) rather than remain on the M1 until it merges with the A1(M) which is just over 7 miles further and not as quick either, usually adding 5-10 minutes to the journey. The final route is from Pilgrove Way Cheltenham to Herne Bay in Kent, which should ideally take you left at the end of Pilgrove way around the outskirts of Cheltenham to the M5, rather than through Cheltenham itself. Additionally, it should stick to the M25 rather than go through London itself.
Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 634 Location: Lincolnshire, England
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject:
Neil01 writes:
Quote:
... Sleaford in Lincolnshire to Aberdeen ... should apparently remain on the A1 until Scotch Corner when it should take the A66 to the M6.
What it should do may be debatable. What I believe it ought not to do is route through the conurbations when there is at least one route of near enough the same mileage that steers clear of them. _________________ Dell Axims X50v & X30 (both WM 2003 2nd Edition). Copilot BTGPS3 and Fortuna Clip-on BT receivers. Jabra BT 250 audio headsets. Welltech 40032/AF32 BT handsfree audio. Copilot 6.0.4.110. TomTom Navigator 5.21. MS Autoroute/Pocket Streets 2005
Joined: Nov 29, 2004 Posts: 303 Location: West Sussex
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 9:02 pm Post subject:
Can I ask a question...are these comments general to all satnav systems, (not the settings procedures but the routes chosen by CP6 default.) ? Generally speaking, if I don't know the area, then I expect to get there the 'best' way possible, and I wouldn't know whether or not it is the way I would have chosen without looking at a paper map.
Joined: May 09, 2005 Posts: 283 Location: Reading, UK
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject:
Mikeact wrote:
... I expect to get there the 'best' way possible, and I wouldn't know whether or not it is the way I would have chosen without looking at a paper map.
I believe that all SatNav systems suffer from the same problems ...
Over-simplification of the road types, and the different stretches of a type, in the map data, and
Lack of processing power, and over-naive use of map data to speed up the iterations through all of the possible routes.
The main problem is that every stretch of a road has it's own unique speed, and that can change throughout the day. An A-class road can vary from rural dual-carriageways at motorway speeds through to urban traffic-jams through a series of traffic lights.
While local roads can often be fast, they can cause problems when routes are applied, since the width of the road, road humps, the presence of parked cars, the width of your vehicle, can have a significant effect.
Also, a minor error in the map data can have a dramatic effect. A classic was where the entrance to a port in Sweden or Norway was incorrectly marked as one-way. Therefore a car wishing to go from the south up to the north of the country was routed via ferry to England, across the British Channel to Europe and up though Denmark.
CoPilot has an advantage in that the desktop version can be used to plan a route, and add waypoints if the route looks a little odd. For PDA packages that don't have a desktop version, I would suggest using an online tool such as Google Maps to get a rough impression of any long-distance route. Local routes will always be a problem if you don't have local knowledge. However, I think that any navigation package should get you to the right place, and will give you more confidence while you're getting there, even if it wasn't by the best route.
I think that I can safely say that there is no current SatNav package that will guarantee to get you there by the 'best' route, and that there won't be one for some years to come. _________________ Ian
iPaq 2210
Globalsat BT-338
Seidio G2500 Amplified Vent Mount
CoPilot 6, GPS Tuner 4.2, Navio 3.01
BMW 330ci Sport
I agree with with what you have written, especially the bit about the chance of getting the 'best' route every time. But the reason I started this thread was that CoPilot seems to be particularly poor at generating quickest routes; that is unless you are prepared to add many miles to your route, simply to stay on the motorway network, or use an exessive number of waypoints to force the route, wheras TomTom seems to make a much better job at calculating the quickest route (but the less said about the shortest - the better!)
Having said all that, CoPilot has a distinct advantage over TomTom, in that the routing bias can be tweaked. It is also possible that CoPilot's poor route calculation may simply be due to the defaults chosen; this would appear to be backed up by the some of the revised profiles which have been suggested.
Currently, I doubt if there will be a single profile which will fix CoPilot's routing problems, but hopefully, with several users trying different tweaks, just maybe, someone can come up with something which is almost there.
So far, I have produced two profiles which appear to produce decent routes most of the time, with one of them biased slightly more towards motorways, but, not as excessively so as the default profile. But, until I have confirmation of how other people find them, I only have a limited number of routes to test them on. Yes I can try them from any given place to any other, but as to how effective they are, it really takes someone with knowledge of a route to confirm that - I can only guess by looking at an atlas.
It also needs someone to be prepared to accept a route when it is adequate, rather than dismiss it out of hand because it wasn't perfect, and to be prepared to use the occasional waypoint to tweak the route.
Using my routes as examples, I have managed to obtainbroadly similar routes using either profile with the addition of just a single waypoint, wheras when using the default profile, several could be needed.
Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 634 Location: Lincolnshire, England
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 4:29 pm Post subject:
Neil01 writes:
Quote:
... be prepared to accept a route when it is adequate, rather than dismiss it out of hand because it wasn't perfect, and to be prepared to use the occasional waypoint to tweak the route.
I would agree, but for the fact that reviewing the route in Copilot and, thus, finding where a waypoint is needed, is such an exercise. _________________ Dell Axims X50v & X30 (both WM 2003 2nd Edition). Copilot BTGPS3 and Fortuna Clip-on BT receivers. Jabra BT 250 audio headsets. Welltech 40032/AF32 BT handsfree audio. Copilot 6.0.4.110. TomTom Navigator 5.21. MS Autoroute/Pocket Streets 2005
Joined: May 16, 2005 Posts: 86 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject:
I assume the selected profile, tweaked or otherwise, will also apply to a detour if requested on a trip? I only ask because on my regular commute past A1M Jcn 8, if I ask for a detour when approaching the jcn rather than diverting via Stevenage (the logical A road route) and back on at the next jcn (7) it merely takes me down the slip road and back up onto the A1M a "detour" of about 300 yds - presumably because it's favouring motorways. So do you think a "detour" option for each profile would be useful or the opportunity to select a different profile once you've asked for a detour or is that a bridge too far (groan.)
I don't know what perameters the detour uses (current profile, default profile, or the profile used to create the route), but so far as I am aware, there is nothing that you can do to influence the way a detour is calculated. I agree, that as it currently stands, calculate detour is rather hit and miss, and when I have used it, it rarely detours enough.
If there has been a problem, and I have been stationary, or had a passenger, I have cone into the itinerary and marked the road as avoid, and re-calculated a route. Not really satisfactory, but it sort of works.
Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 634 Location: Lincolnshire, England
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:41 pm Post subject:
I would just add to what Neil01 says above that this is one of those inadequate features that tend rarely to get mentioned, but which nevertheless detract from the product. Another is the failure of the product to produce destinations that really are near selected street numbers.
Most of us learn to live with these issues, but it does not mean that they ought to be left unresolved. It is also relevant to note that neither of these issues arises in TomTom Navigator 5.
I was wondering if anyone else had managed to come up with modified routing profiles which inprove matters either generally, or specifically (ie long journeys/short local journeys etc)?
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