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Joined: Aug 04, 2010 Posts: 172 Location: Banned Member Using New ID
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:11 am Post subject: Re: Removal of Western Extension Zone (London)
1ee wrote:
Dear TT if you read this forum can you confirm when you will update your devices/maps to take account that Western Extension charging zone (congestion charge) will be removed?
The old congestion charge zone function wasn't much use anyway given that TomTom assumed the zone operated 24/7 instead of 7.30am to 6pm Monday to Friday.
Of course I realise it is clearly hoping for far too much for a company as programming and database maintenance incompetent as TomTom to ever be be able to maintain a list of operating times and adjust their routing software to cope accordingly.
Quote:
By the way don't forget it's now £10 to enter the congestion zone a rise of £2 - disgraceful.
My mother used to live a quarter of a mile outside the boundary when it was only £5 per day but it meant she now couldn't use her former regular bank and a whole load of local shops. That problem went away with the western extension zone where she had to pay it but got a 90% discount. She has moved out of London in the interim but for the people of Pimlico and elsewhere they now find themselves just outside the congestion charge zone again and either having to avoid using half their local shops or paying £10 per time for the privilege to do so.
Why can't Boris and co realise that people who live within a mile of the boundary but outside it should also get the 90% discount and it is only those from further away who should pay the full £10 charge.
Also stupid is that have never exempted the embankment route on the North side of the river as a through route even though they do provide this facility North to South down via Park Lane.
Joined: Jun 20, 2005 Posts: 1096 Location: Solihull, UK
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:23 am Post subject:
Is this going to affect / be reflected in the PGPSW Points of Interest file? Is there anyone in the area who can volunteer to collate the changes? (Without constantly driving in / out of the zone!) _________________ Garmin DriveSmart 50 LMT-D
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14892 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:50 am Post subject: Re: Removal of Western Extension Zone (London)
WackyRaces wrote:
The old congestion charge zone function wasn't much use anyway given that TomTom assumed the zone operated 24/7 instead of 7.30am to 6pm Monday to Friday.
I beg to differ - there was a warning and the zone operated when most people used the area. Without it, it would have been difficult. I just hope surely TT will have it in the new maps due next month.
Daggers wrote:
Is this going to affect / be reflected in the PGPSW Points of Interest file? Is there anyone in the area who can volunteer to collate the changes? (Without constantly driving in / out of the zone!)
You can download and print a .pdf map from CC London's website, as I have done. Remember with POIs it's not possible to set a navigation route to avoid them, merely to be warned. With the TT device you can avoid the congestion zone (but it doesn't work when re-routing due to traffic). _________________ Dennis
Joined: Aug 04, 2010 Posts: 172 Location: Banned Member Using New ID
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:27 am Post subject: Re: Removal of Western Extension Zone (London)
DennisN wrote:
I beg to differ - there was a warning and the zone operated when most people used the area. Without it, it would have been difficult. I just hope surely TT will have it in the new maps due next month.
Yes there is a London congestion zone and a choice is given by the TomTom units as to whether you want your journey to avoid the zone (if your final destination is not in it or if it is in it you are warned about that fact) but if say your journey from outside London started at 5.40pm and you would not be estimated to be arriving at the congestion charge area till 6.40pm TomTom would still avoid it anyway as it doesn't know when the zone is not in operation.
Even though I realise that most courier delivery drivers normally finish their rounds by 6pm from Monday to Friday there are quite a lot of people who do actually drive around in Central London up to 1am on weekdays to go restaurants, theatres etc, etc or of course at the weekend when the Congestion Zone does not operate at all. What is sp difficult about TomTom know the congestion charge zone only operates at certain times on certain days? The whole of IQ Routes is based on dynamic information that changes according to the time of day and/or hopefully whether it is a weekday or the weekend so why can't TomTom do the same for the congestion charge? Whilst it is true that one answer is because TomTom treat it as being like a single point toll charge bridge in their algorithms and not a proper zone the fact is that there are plenty of toll charge bridges or crossings that don't charge overnight for instance. So an hours of operation function is a widely required need for toll charge areas and whether you wish to avoid them or not I would humbly suggest.
Speaking of which in a Live Services era I would actually expect TomTom to be able to tell me what that toll charge currently is so that I could make an informed decision. If I am driving to some unfamiliar city abroad I am likely to be completely ignorant of either what the toll charge is or its hours of operation. Of course I realise this may not be an issue for those of you who thought that the very small saving of money on a Go 5x series was worthwhile because you apparently never drive abroad!
Regarding when TomTom will update things as this is a UK map section perhaps never or in several years time unfortunately may well be the answer.
Strangely enough on my v835 map Europe map on my 940 I find that out in Spain the map is correct with new roads more or less up to the time the map was compiled (I can tell because new roads and major town bypasses are being opened there all the time unlike the UK). I suspect this all has to do with the fact that because so few new roads are now being built in the UK that this has allowed Teleatlas to become cynical and have almost no staff maintaining the UK map areas. In Spain they know roads change a lot still so they perhaps even pay the national mapping authority for regular updates (which Telatlas do not seem to be doing for the UK with Ordnance Survey even though Ordnance Survey keep significant road changes pretty much bang up to date and clearly TomTom did once pay them for an original set of map data several years ago).
DennisN wrote:
With the TT device you can avoid the congestion zone (but it doesn't work when re-routing due to traffic).
Surely it would be perfectly simply for TomTom to amend their firmware so that if the traffic re-route took you in to the congestion zone you were given a choice of whether or not you wished to accept that traffic related re-route.
Still I suppose we could only expect that from a company primarily focused on technical excellence rather than one that is focused mainly on marketing hyperbole.
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:43 pm Post subject: Re: Removal of Western Extension Zone (London)
WackyRaces wrote:
but if say your journey from outside London started at 5.40pm and you would not be estimated to be arriving at the congestion charge area till 6.40pm TomTom would still avoid it anyway as it doesn't know when the zone is not in operation.
Although it would be nice if the TT could allow for the times of operation, I think it might not be as simple as you think.
In order for it to make a decision on the route before you start, it would have to work out exactly when you would be about to enter the zone, at some point in the middle of what might be a long journey. It's only got a very little brain!
The simple workround is to set the TomTom to "always ask" whether to enter the zone or not, and you can then use your vastly larger brain to make a guestimate as to whether or not to go via the zone.
WackyRaces wrote:
The whole of IQ Routes is based on dynamic information that changes according to the time of day and/or hopefully whether it is a weekday or the weekend so why can't TomTom do the same for the congestion charge?
But surely the IQ routes information will cover the congestion zone and its traffic flows at different times of the day anyway?
(just like any other rush-hour hot spot).
WackyRaces wrote:
Regarding when TomTom will update things as this is a UK map section perhaps never or in several years time unfortunately may well be the answer.
TeleAtlas/TT actually added the Western Extension to the London Zone very quickly when it was first introduced (in the very next map, IIRC).
WackyRaces wrote:
DennisN wrote:
With the TT device you can avoid the congestion zone (but it doesn't work when re-routing due to traffic).
Surely it would be perfectly simply for TomTom to amend their firmware so that if the traffic re-route took you in to the congestion zone you were given a choice of whether or not you wished to accept that traffic related re-route.
To be honest, I thought it does already. Maybe that is just down to individual preference settings again?
I don't travel through the zone when there is sufficient traffic congestion to trigger re-routing very often, but I have never been sent into the zone without being warned in advance.
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14892 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:52 pm Post subject:
Yes, Andy, when the zone was extended, the very next TT map had it up to date, it just didn't coincide with the start of the extension, arrived a month or two afterwards - you'll probably remember there was a lot of criticism that they hadn't included it in the previous map, before the extension. But I had no complaints about it - I didn't want it interfering before due date and I appreciated that they couldn't coincide. Now that it's reverting to previous (apart from switching to an old map v660 which I have on one of my devices, which by a strange coincidence happens to have enough internal memory for two Europe and two UK/ROI maps!!), I'll have a look at my destination and at the printout I'm now carrying in the van. I am 100% certain they'll have it in the new map next month.
No, it does NOT warn that a re-route will go through the CC zone - I have my nav settings to ask me every time. To my human brain that means EVERY time and should include when it offers me a re-route which passes through the CC zone. But it doesn't. For economy, I choose to avoid CC zone whenever it is possible to reach my destination without going through, unless my customer is willing to cough up the price of the charge. So, when I'm heading for London, I select to avoid the CC zone. At some point, I can get a warning "Total delay now 20 minutes. There is a ten minute faster route, do you wish to re-route?" That's all, not that the re-route means now going through the CC zone. So I answer Yes and away she goes "Taking faster route". Then dammit, at a point where I cannot avoid it (central high kerb no U turns, no right/left turns, etc) I discover I'm lined up for the charge and it comes out of my pocket. That's grumpy.
Wackyraces - All those theatre-goers who drive round central London are probably well aware of the times of CC charging and anyone else who doesn't is in a minority that TT is unable to cope with (by the way, I once avoided the charge by driving a little slower and entering the zone about two minutes after six - it made me sweat to achieve it as I was driving along the A40 at five to! Original ETA had been well before 5:30). Best just settle for the info that there's a charging zone. Equally, IQ routes is not good enough. Look beyond the marketing hype - I'm sure I've read TT's own words that it is based on 12 month old data collection, so that's why it still directs me along Picadilly - anybody who knows that road will know that a three lane road has been rebuilt so that it now compresses right at the last minute into a single lane alongside a bus lane, including buses pulling out and across the other traffic at Picadilly Circus - it's a nightmare. The problem for my human brain is that I don't know my way around London and the last time I tried to avoid Picadilly, not only did I fail to do so, but simply approached it from a different, even more congested road, blocked for nine minutes out of ten by construction traffic! Perhaps there are those who don't believe IQ routes data is that ancient? Well, consider - the data is hard written into the map, the latest map is how old? How long did it take to build that map? At what point in time did TT call a halt to the collating and writing in of that data? It is very easy to conclude that the data is 12 months or more old. I have daily run old (non-IQ) and new (IQ) maps side by side on three or four devices and in A VERY FEW cases, they offered different routes, but with very minor differences in ETA and distance to travel. In most cases, the differences were down to "new" one way systems rather than new roads or traffic data. IQ routes is IMHO now as good as it can ever be and as such, I am decidedly underimpressed with it - it will never be up to date because that's a physical impossibility.
Which leads me to at last explain why I run more than one device on my dashboard. I program all of them to the same destination, fastest route, ask me about tolls/CC charge, ask me about rerouting for traffic. The Live device asks if I want to reroute for a faster journey and I accept, then compare distance and ETA with the others. The RDS-TMC device offers a reroute and I accept and compare with the others. Then use the non-anything device to get there without hassle and with evidence that all the rest of you are wearing TT rose-tinted spectacles!
As for what the devices should be doing, there goes a whole bagful of stuff. When I got my first x00 device, it did what it claimed, properly and without fuss or crashing. The six iterations since then have all let me down (or would if I had gone for all of them - I stopped at the x50 and didn't bother with x40). The TT devices would be perfect if they would only do what they claim to be able to do - those features are mouth-watering. But, for example, I still don't even get the bluetooth handsfree phone features that I had on my 700 despite TT saying the later models all have it. And if you look around you will find a whole raft of features which don't work properly (maybe Andy will bore us to death with that huge list he's got tucked away somewhere and don't ask me about MapShare!). Scattered all over this forum are reams of comments about what TT devices should be doing, about what they claim to be doing and what they simply are NOT doing. They lost their way after the x00 range and it's such a dreadful, dreadful shame.
Anyway, I'm going away for the weekend and I start towards getting my new teeth tomorrow, so I'll leave you all to crank this up a few more notches! _________________ Dennis
Just a comment about the IQ routes - the data will certainly take some time to change to reflect a new road layout, as indeed it must really. The key is that it is done on statistics, with average flow. This you take all the data for every car that went along there for a year. Then take out the extremes, and of course sort it by time slot. Now, change the layout. Cars are going half the speed perhaps? But you now have 9 months of 30mph, and 3 months of 15mph. What happens next month? Most of the time, the speed goes back to 30mph because the roadworks that caused the blip have gone. But in this case it is permanent, so it would take 4 quarters before the new speed was the dominant speed. (All assuming quarterly analysis, time slots and other perfections).
I expect that the analysis is rather interesting to work on as a project.
All that said, I think that IQ routes is very good, or perhaps is a good step better than not having it. I suspect it only really comes in when on long roads it can make a difference. For example a route I take has two A roads, one slightly shorter than the other but very windy and slow. Before IQ routes it would always suggest that road (and we'd ignore it) but since IQ routes it suggests the longer but faster and straighter road.
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:53 am Post subject:
matthewj wrote:
For example a route I take has two A roads, one slightly shorter than the other but very windy and slow. Before IQ routes it would always suggest that road (and we'd ignore it) but since IQ routes it suggests the longer but faster and straighter road.
I'm sure you realise this but it shouldn't have taken the slow road even before IQ routes.
Right from the beginning, the TomTom maps have had a "time to travel" value attached to each section of road. So if your road A is twisty and always slow, then a "fastest" route on the TomTom should always have ignored it.
It would be interesting to see exactly how IQ routing data is added to or replaces the basic mapping data if it was badly wrong in the first place.
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14892 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:41 pm Post subject:
I assume that IQ routes takes me along Picadilly because when the congestion charge was first introduced, it had the desired effect, namely that traffic stayed away, because when I paid up, my journey was considerably easier. No doubt that history has worked its way in at last. Sadly!! Because it didn't take long for traffic to return and the congestion charge to become simply a money-gathering exercise to pay for the privilege of crawling through London slower than every jogger and dog-walker in town. The number of times when I know I have less than a mile to go and I could easily get out and deliver on foot quicker if only there was a parking space!! As for HD Traffic affecting the issue, I presume it registers that Picadilly is doing its normal turtle crawl, so no need to avoid!! How I wish they'd put Picadilly's name into the route so that I can plan to avoid it, but it just isn't mentioned at all (only A4 from Cromwell Road). _________________ Dennis
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14892 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:53 pm Post subject:
I have completely different spelling of a name for that road which would offend those of tender natures when I upload the MapShare correction (I always upload my nine each new map and this would make ten). Besides which, I once had a delivery to an address there and I wouldn't want the satnav to get confused next time. _________________ Dennis
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 10:06 pm Post subject:
DennisN wrote:
I have completely different spelling of a name for that road which would offend those of tender natures when I upload the MapShare correction (I always upload my nine each new map and this would make ten). Besides which, I once had a delivery to an address there and I wouldn't want the satnav to get confused next time.
So why does Dennis expect other people to accept the validity of his 9 corrections while he refuses to accept those supplied by anybody else.?
Surely it would far be more consistent for him just to correct the 9 errors on his own map for his own personal use but not to upload them to TomTom since he clearly doesn't believe in Map Share corrections being shared with or inflicted on anyone else.
Just to follow up on this older thread, can anyone confirm whether the latest TomTom map updates reflect the removal of the Western Extension Zone from the London congestion charging scheme. I just want to know if it's worth updating my quite old maps, or whether I should wait a bit longer.
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