TomTom Irish Maps

[BrianA]

After having just spent the last 3 weeks spent driving around (a rather wet) Ireland using TT, I thought my impressions of TT's Irish mapping might help others. In summary I wasn't too impressed.

Two caveats:

- There's quite a difference between Dublin and it's hinterland (where the mapping is pretty much up to UK standards) on the one hand and the west coast (poor) on the other. (Also, Northern Ireland is generally much better than the South.)

- I was using a Jan '07 map (v660.1219) - it may have improved with later releases.

Anyway ...

- 10-15% of minor roads are missing totally

- An additional 10-15% of minor roads are shown on TT but marked as not driveable/public (mauve dashed lines on the road)

- The vectors used for many roads (major and minor) are too long, with the result that on the screen the roads appear as long straight lines joined by sharp corners, rather than curves. The upshot is that a) TT can easily lose its lock on the road and b) you don't get any reliable guidance from TT as to road topography coming up

- Partly due to the point above, TT often lost a lock on the road we were on and thought it was in a field. This caused our navigation to go completely wrong on several occasions (at least once a day).

- Journey timings need to be taken with a pinch of salt. In the UK if TT says a journey will take an hour I mentally allocate 55 mins. In Ireland, for something indicated as 1hr I took 1hr 10 mins. This is mainly due to the appalling state of Irish roads on the west coast, plus the fact that bypasses are unknown and you lose a lot of time getting through towns. It highlights the need for the reintroduction of the ability to tailor calculated journey speeds as per TT3 though!

- POIs: Cash machines and Petrol stations were pretty good (say 75% coverage). But forget about hotels/pubs, most are not recorded.


Overall, my strong impression is that the Irish maps had been rushed out against a deadline. If I didn't know better I'd have said that a lot of the content had been produced by tracing existing OSi maps, rather than actually driving the route.

Marks out of 10? 5. A reasonable first try, must improve.

Would I use it again? Yes, with some caution.
_________________
Brian Abbott

Go 520 + Navcore 8
(was a happy PDA user until TT stopped updating the software)

[XSpring]

Just downloaded and got Tom Tom Uk & IRE maps ver 6.75. A major upgrade for Ireland with, from what I can gather, a full record of all roads major and minor. I have only tested in my own area but compared to previous versions a significant improvement.

Brian.

[Trevor1234]

Hi BrianA
I too have been to Ireland using the same map as you and I found it a great help. However, I have always been delivering to places between the Dublin/Limerick area or Dublin/Belfast area and not places on the west coast and out in the sticks.

I have read the comments submited by XSpring (he uses the 6.75 map) and perhaps he holds the answer. I will watch this topic with great interest and I now hope that someone else comes forward who also uses the 6.75 map and who has travelled extensively over Ireland.
_________________
Tomtom Go 720.
Navcore 9.510
Central and Western Europe v855.2884
GPS World Traffic cameras
Home 2.7
iPhone 3G

[aj2052]

The only info i can offer on V675 is Cohb and Cork and it seems to have these areas pretty well covered, Unfortunately I flew their via dublin so cannot offer overall view but certainly Ireland appears well covered compared to the sadly lacking previous versions.

[bgwillson]

I have experince of the 660 version (on my IPAQ) and the 675 version (wifes tomtom). Bot versions of the maps have roads that the other does not, and both have roads that can be named differently - but this is an oddity I have come to expect in Ireland
What I have found, is that the 675 version of the maps is often less accurate with road placement, meaning that you are often shown 'off the road' and this can be confusing if there are a few roads near each other. - This has been a consistent problem, not just due to poor satellite signal, and I beleive this is due to the different supplier being used to supply these particular maps

[aj2052]

This is not confined only to Ireland , It it is also the same with Uk with the difference between Navteq and teleatlas I hold two versions on my card so I can use the most uptodate depending on the area I am in.

[Wolfie351]

Great, now you guys have me worried! I'll be landing in Dublin on the 3rd and then driving the whole loop around using v675. I'm relying on it more to find my B&Bs and less concerned about getting from town to town.

Oh, I'm renting a Nissan Micra...should I have gone for the upgrade?

[BrianA]

[XSpring]

Follow up on my earlier post. Agree fully with bgwilson. Used the maps on a trip to West Cork - right into the sticks. Still happy with the quality of coverage road wise on 6.75 (though some very minor roads missing) but yes found regularly that road placement was out which was a bit annoying. After using the UK maps which are perfect in this regard, I made some mistakes early on but you compensate once you're aware and did not affect the ability to use Tom Tom well.

Was also delighted to find this download also have major Western Europe roads which is a major add on for me. A bargain in my view if you buy via download.

Brian

[Wolfie351]

Follow up to my post as well. Just got back and did an entire circle around Ireland. V675 was great and only had one instance where it said to make a "right turn" but then discovered it was, in fact, an overpass and the exit was off to the left.

On the drive to Dingle, I found myself off the road map a few times even though I had strong sat signals but it was never a big problem.

I also successfully took a detour to Kinsale as the main road was being worked on and saved a lot of time by not sitting in traffic. It was also useful to circumvent the main roads going through towns where traffic would come to dead stops.

Needless to say, the estimated route times are all over the place as much as an hour +/-

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