530 Travel Via - Not Working?

Blitzer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 30

Hi,

I've just been playing around with my TomTom 530 looking at different ways to create routes that effectively avoid certain areas like larger towns. Now I know the TomTom has an avoid feature and this does what it's supposed to, but at times it can take you well out of your way rather than simply allowing you to navigate around the outskirts of a town.

My alternative was to quite simply create a route from my start point to my destination and then use the re-calculate feature to add-in a "travel-via" waypoint. This was basically a village to the north(ish) of the town I wanted to avoid. However, rather than take me through the village the route did not take me anywhere near it, albeit it did avoid the large town. Now this would not seem like a particular problem to be honest, but the point is I actually WANTED the TomTom to take me via that village.

A way around this was to actually repeat the process but when setting the travel via option I selected an actual POI in the village. Both times I used the "fastest route" option, and although the route I was intitally given might have been the next best option time wise, it was clearly not what I asked the TomTom to do. My point is if select a PLACE to travel VIA then I would expect the route to literally takes me through that place, not somewhere near and certainly not several miles away from that place.

Naturally I could have understood had there been no roads leading effectively through the "travel-via" waypoint, but even then surely the TomTom should have taken me VIA that place and then told me to turn around when I got there?

Can anyone shed any light on this rather odd meaning of "travel-via" or "waypoint" that are clearly not used in the true sense of "via" or "waypoint"? Question

Oldboy · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:24 pm Post subject:

The TT's have always done this, way back to when the GO Classic appeared.

If you just input a City/Town/Village it will skirt the area. A bit like using a Ring Road.

Normal usage would be to use Address/Street and House Number, or a Point on Map, or POI, etc.

This is, presumably, due to the way that the software handles "City" locations and generates the lat/long for routing.

It's one of those things that we just have to accept, as I don't think TT will be in any hurry to change it.
_________________
Richard

TT 910 V7.903: Europe Map v1045
TT Via 135 App 12.075: Europe Map v1120

Blitzer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 30

Hi Oldboy,

I understand what you mean and I can see the logic in the way the TT avoids towns/areas and to be honest I don't have a great problem with the TT in that repsect. It would be very useful if as a user you could define what radius around an specific point you wanted the TT to avoid when creating a route, but the TT does do what it's supposed to in this respect.

My real point in this posting was that I cannot see the logic in why the TT is failing completely to navigate via a waypoint I have specifically asked it to when I only use the name of a village. i.e. the TT does not actually navigate to the village at all and in some cases my route may be several miles from the waypoint I have set.

A waypoint or a place you set as a "travel via" place on your navigated route should be a place the TT should at least take you into and not completely ignore as it does.

For example if I create a route that takes me from my house and set my first waypoint as London using the "City Centre" option to add the location, the TT quite clearly puts flag No.1 right in the centre of London. My next Waypoint is a favourite in Bicester flag No.2. Waypoint No.3 is the village Mentmore again selected using the "City Centre" option to add the location. Finally my destination it set to Home.

However, for the first waypoint the TT only navigates me onto a section of the North Circular which is some distance from where it has set the first flag in the City centre. To my mind the only logical place it should navigate to is the point where it set the fist flag. For the next section of the trip to a favourite I have in Bicester the TT correctly navigates me exactly to that point which it has labelled with flag No.2.

The journey onto waypoint No.3 (Mentmore) agains completely fails to take me anywhere near the Village or more importantly where the TT has set flag No.3. As you'd expect because my home is effectively another POI where the TT is concerned it of course has no trouble in navigating me all the way home again!

To me there is simply no logic in the way the TT is accepting the user's selection of "City Centre" as a waypoint. The place where the TT places a waypoint flag is the point where the TT should navigate to.

The method for selecting and setting a waypoint using the "City Centre" option has no purpose or value whatsoever. The TT determines what point it calls the "City Centre" for a given place, it should therefore navigate to that point. Sad

As for accepting it, I don't agree it is something we should accept. This may not be an issue to you or many other TT users, but to accept (what seems to me) such a basic design flaw purely because TT have been doing it for years is silly.

I'm not having a go at you Oldboy - don't take it that way! Wink

It's just the TT's to say the least odd routing when setting waypoints in this way. Crying or Very sad

MrT · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject:

When I use the travel via, I use travel via and use a point on the map and put the cursor where I want to go and it has always gone via that point.
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Drivelux

Andy_P · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:44 pm Post subject:

DennisN · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:05 am Post subject:

Am I missing something? My TT used to offer City Centre, but more recently only shows City. Having long become accustomed to being unable to navigate via a "city" (village, whatever), I assumed it was TT's way of overcoming the problem (rather than fixing it).
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

Andy_P · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:11 am Post subject:

Sounds right to me! Rolling Eyes

dhn · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:49 am Post subject:

"City Centre" is there in f/w 8.204 for the x40 users.
_________________
David

MrT · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:34 am Post subject:

Blitzer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 30

DennisN · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:23 pm Post subject:

Here's my Travel Via - App 8.010 with Map 810 AND App 8.300 with Map 815

_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

Andy_P · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:34 am Post subject:

On the 'Navigate to...' page on both my 720 and the 940, I have "City Centre", but on the 'Travel via..' page it's just "City". I wonder if that's TT trying to be clever?

Now, having gone to look at that, I've just realised that I've lost "Navigate to Spoken Address and Spoken address (Dialogue)" completely on the 720, but that's a subject for another topic!

Blitzer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 30

DennisN · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:46 pm Post subject:

Blitzer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 30

Clearly as it stands the use of "City or City Centre" as a method of adding a waypoint to either an itinerary or by "Travel Via..." to an existing route is not working as it should when "Fastest route" is selected.
If you use "Shortest route" then the route takes you to the point the TT has determined as being the centre of the location selected.

Rather than just sit back and accept this fault I have decided to raise the issue with TomTom and have reported this as a bug with the software. I will of course post back if/when I get a response. Wink

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