'No faster route available'

[norm2002]

It happened to me at the weekend. Trying out HD Traffic on a 940 I asked for the fastest route on a 10 mile journey. After calculating the journey, the 940 said there was was a 52 minute delay on the normal route on the North Circular Road but said no faster route available. The journey would take 75 minutes.

I set a new route to the same destination asking for the shortest route and it came up with another route which would take 40 minutes (and it did). Why didn't it show it as an alternative when I was asking for the fastest route?

The only thing I can think of is that, as the shortest route involved minor roads, it didn't have any HD traffic info on those roads and therefore wouldn't offer those roads. If that's right, it doesn't look like HD traffic is much use!

If I hadn't recalculated the route myself, I would have had to stay on the normally faster route but been delayed unnecessarily.

[GerryC]

I've always suspected that the alternative routes would be roads that they also have data on. As you said, if they don't know what the situation is like on the minor roads, it shouldn't push all the traffic there.

Though there is loads of back routes that locals use in North London, I can't think off-hand of any "bypass" roads for the North Circular. Getting in and out can have an alternative but getting "around" London doesn't have many options.

I get the impression this is more useful to us in the rest of the country where there could be major A roads doing similar routes to motorways etc.
_________________
Gerry
TomTom730T
Cameralert for Android
Brodit ProClip mount

[norm2002]

Thanks, Gerry. Yes, most of the roads I went on were normal residential streets. It is disappointing, though, if TT cannot offer an alternative just because it does not have traffic data. In my view, it should have offered the alternative route with a disclaimer that it didn't have sufficient data to say whether it would be faster. To be fair, though, I didn't go into the menus to ask for an alternative. I don't know what would have happened if I had tried that.

[DennisN]

When it said there was a traffic delay, you COULD have asked it to Avoid and it would have done so.

Personally, I'm surprised it didn't offer another route. My own impression is that it will happily use back roads and assume National Speed Limit is achievable on them!

Your point is well made, however. It really should have come up with something better for a 10 mile journey - the only excuse in that circumstance for not offering an alternative would be quite simply if you were on a 20 mile stretch of motorway with no junctions, or somewhere like Switzerland with one valley road - to fail to do so in London is ridiculous.
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!