Author Topic: New route-planner! (Read 48769 times)

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #125 on:** 25 March, 2015, 01:09:26 pm »

I’ve now asked to go to the jetty where the ferry berths.
196 miles, 15 hrs 45 mins.

Vince · « **Reply #126 on:** 25 March, 2015, 01:32:57 pm »

No idea. All I do know is that when we are in Bristol and ask the Tom Tom to take us to East Docks in Dover, it comes up with a route via the tunnel and ferry.

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #127 on:** 25 March, 2015, 01:43:23 pm »

When you spoke about a cross-channel trip within the route, my first thoughts were you had specified a destination inside the ferryport complex, so I chose a destination on the last bit of UK road before entering the complex. It worked.

Then I did another by requesting a destination inside the complex, which worked OK.

Then I had a deeper think. I don’t have the Full Euro mapping loaded at the moment, only UK and Ireland.

So I went to TomTom’s routeplanner on the web.
TomTom’s internet routeplanner ( car only ) doesn’t use the tunnel if the route is from Bristol to ‘East dock, Dover’.

Puzzled.

Vince · « **Reply #128 on:** 25 March, 2015, 01:48:48 pm »

I think the way we got the route is Dover; PoI near destination; Ferry; Dover East Docks.

ETA Device is a TomTom One Europe

andrew_s · « **Reply #129 on:** 25 March, 2015, 10:57:31 pm »

The routing via the chunnel and the ferry will be because the East Docks point it's using is connected to the ferry route but not to the rest of the UK road network. Can you update the maps?

Quote from: Richard Fairhurst on 19 September, 2014, 12:25:34 pm

To take a really extreme example, that means the A14 or the A1 has the same tagging as the A887.

an even more extreme comparison would be with the A846

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #130 on:** 26 March, 2015, 07:58:06 am »

I don’t think I’ve yet seen a SatNav that is 100% perfect.

All have their faults, and it might end up being several pages of humour if we post SatNav mapping errors we have come across.

The major blunder on Garmin which persuaded me to change systems was being advised to take the M42 when the device was adjusted to ‘Bicycle’.

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #131 on:** 27 March, 2015, 04:07:57 pm »

I was out this afternoon in Coleshill, N Warwickshire. Asked TomTom to plot me a route home.
It gave me an 8.4 mile route.
"Eh!" I thought, "That's not the way I usually go??"

So I asked for the alternative route. 8.1 miles.

After some thought, I assessed the first route had no memorable hills on it, but the 8.1 mile route had two slow hills rising about 20 m each.
I came to the conclusion the first offering was longer but more energy efficient. The second was shorter with some climbing that made it less energy efficient.

Anyway, as I was training, I went the hilly route.

neilrj · « **Reply #132 on:** 27 March, 2015, 07:28:50 pm »

Quote from: Ningishzidda on 27 March, 2015, 04:07:57 pm

I was out this afternoon in Coleshill, N Warwickshire. Asked TomTom to plot me a route home.
It gave me an 8.4 mile route.
"Eh!" I thought, "That's not the way I usually go??"

So I asked for the alternative route. 8.1 miles.

After some thought, I assessed the first route had no memorable hills on it, but the 8.1 mile route had two slow hills rising about 20 m each.
I came to the conclusion the first offering was longer but more energy efficient. The second was shorter with some climbing that made it less energy efficient.

Anyway, as I was training, I went the hilly route.

Would Tom-Tom bother with energy saving as it's only a car unit with supposed 'bike' options? Seems more like it selected fastest then 'less quick' that may or may not be energy saving?

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #133 on:** 29 March, 2015, 01:27:35 pm »

Quote from: neilrj on 27 March, 2015, 07:28:50 pm

Quote from: Ningishzidda on 27 March, 2015, 04:07:57 pm
I was out this afternoon in Coleshill, N Warwickshire. Asked TomTom to plot me a route home.
It gave me an 8.4 mile route.
"Eh!" I thought, "That's not the way I usually go??"

So I asked for the alternative route. 8.1 miles.

After some thought, I assessed the first route had no memorable hills on it, but the 8.1 mile route had two slow hills rising about 20 m each.
I came to the conclusion the first offering was longer but more energy efficient. The second was shorter with some climbing that made it less energy efficient.

Anyway, as I was training, I went the hilly route.

Would Tom-Tom bother with energy saving as it's only a car unit with supposed 'bike' options? Seems more like it selected fastest then 'less quick' that may or may not be energy saving?

That's handy to know. If I have any problems, I'll PM you.

Vince · « **Reply #134 on:** 23 April, 2015, 02:37:37 pm »

I noticed a couple of points when I forgot my password this morning.

Using the Forgotten password option didn't recognise my email address when I put capitals on each name (which I normally do), but I know that the unique user validation is not case sensitive. Would it be better to retrieve the email address with a non case-sensitive search?
The other point. I found a session running on another PC and was able to change my password without entering the existing password which is not the normal way of working.

Otherwise really liking this tool.

Feanor · « **Reply #135 on:** 23 April, 2015, 09:17:00 pm »

Quote from: Vince on 23 April, 2015, 02:37:37 pm

Using the Forgotten password option didn't recognise my email address when I put capitals on each name (which I normally do), but I know that the unique user validation is not case sensitive. Would it be better to retrieve the email address with a non case-sensitive search?

The issue here is whether e-mail addresses are case-sensitive.
And the answer is yes, they *might* be.

joe@bloggs.com

The domain part of that ( blogs.com ) is not case-sensitive.
DNS will find the MX record for the domain OK either way.
But the username ( joe ) which the mail server has to deal with might be.
It's OK for the mail server to be case-sensitive.
Some are, some are not.

So it's a Bad Idea to make a general assumption that e-mail addresses are case-insensitive.
Websites that ask for e-mail addresses should accept them as-typed, and not mangle them into what they think the user meant.

The solution to your issue is to be consistent in your use of case, and not expect websites to fix up your inconsistencies.

Vince · « **Reply #136 on:** 28 April, 2015, 08:32:19 am »

I agree with what you say and I am normally consistent with the way I enter my mail address, so I was surprised to see it all in lower case. However, since the email address is being used as the user id which is not case sensitive, it would be fail to do a case insensitive search when retrieving the email address to send a new password.

SoreTween · « **Reply #137 on:** 20 May, 2015, 04:41:03 pm »

This is excellent

I've tried all the usual route planners and given up because they don't work for my preferred route style (off road touring). Loving this a lot:

Quote from: cycle.travel

Total length: 180mi (24hr 48m). Includes 1.8mi on major roads; 7.6mi pushing; 63.3mi unsurfaced (estimate)

The ability to get photos of any location is (trying not to gush now) unbelievably useful. I can do similar on Google but this implementation is so much faster to use.

My little requests:
- I've needed 54 route markers to force the route I want, most are of no interest on the day but a few are cafe stops or overnight halts. Would it be possible to set a marker as significant, give it a name and then have it appear in the turn by turn?
- If yes to the above it would be useful to be able to get a list of the distances and total climb between the significant waypoints. This would help with evening out the segments/days.
- Last, I absolutely love the pdf print but I can only print touring scale. Are the other two not implemented yet or is it my route length? It would be handy to be able to generate the pdf at local scale. I wouldn't want to carry that many pages but it'd be useful to print the ones covering the complicated parts of the route.

andrew_s · « **Reply #138 on:** 25 May, 2015, 09:47:15 pm »

Quote from: SoreTween on 20 May, 2015, 04:41:03 pm

...but it'd be useful to print the ones covering the complicated parts of the route.

Just set up separate short routes covering covering the complicated bits, and print from them.

SoreTween · « **Reply #139 on:** 26 May, 2015, 02:41:24 pm »

Ta, its the route length then.

Managed to make a route and local scale pdf for day 1 but now I'm getting logged out all the time so can't save. Network gremlins I imagine, I'll try again tomorrow.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #140 on:** 04 June, 2015, 11:32:39 am »

I've also found the map print outs very useful.

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #141 on:** 04 June, 2015, 02:23:08 pm »

For anyone who hasn’t got a GPS or a paper map of the area they are going where they predict trouble, create the route on Googlemaps. Get the Googlemap on the screen of the area you are interested in with the route’s blue line going across, ‘screendump’, paste into Word, crop and print.

You’ll need to set the Word Doc to landscape orientation and Narrow margins. When the screendump is pasted, it pastes as a ‘Picture’ so grab the lower RH corner and expand it to cover the whole A4 sheet. Then crop the picture to best suits you.

When you are happy with the Word Doc with the map on it, save it.

Canardly · « **Reply #142 on:** 04 June, 2015, 05:05:54 pm »

Apologies if this has been raised before. Any possibility of a pdf doc outlining the written route details a la audax?

Richard Fairhurst · « **Reply #143 on:** 07 June, 2015, 05:27:54 pm »

Yes, definitely. I'm just starting work on making the turn-by-turn directions better (and more concise!). When I've got that reasonably sorted then I'll look at how to get them into the PDFs. Just finally finished work on adding North American directions so I've got a bit of time to look at other stuff.

SoreTween - definitely thinking about how to mark overnight stops etc.... especially given that you can now plan a 3300-mile trip across America and that's not going to be easy to do in one day.

'Significant markers' might be a really good way to do that.

The scales are automatically selected based on route length - not least because city scale for a 200-mile route would take the server ages to generate. But getting automatic enlargements for complicated bits would be a really cool idea. Added to the to-do list!

freeflow · « **Reply #144 on:** 11 June, 2015, 01:31:18 pm »

I had another look at this today to see if it offered better alternatives for a route I'm planning.

There might be a hiccup at the moment as it resolutely refused to find my finishing address in Manchester. I tried several other local road to where I propose to finish with similar results. No address in Manchester was offered.

JBB · « **Reply #145 on:** 15 June, 2015, 10:28:11 am »

Another small hiccup. Planning a circular route in Wiltshire it sends you through the firing ranges at Imber, only a good idea for 15 days a year or so.
HTH

trekker12 · « **Reply #146 on:** 17 July, 2015, 01:29:46 pm »

Quote from: Richard Fairhurst on 18 July, 2014, 02:09:20 pm

Andyoxon - reverse route is a good idea and on the list to do! Essentially the circular routes are a bit of a hack: I ask OSRM (the underlying routing engine) for an A-B route and two B-A routes, and then put the first-choice A-B route together with the second-choice B-A route. But it (mostly) works well.

I may have missed this but does the latest version allow reversing of a circular route? I've just starting using the site (very impressed btw) and want to plan a circular cycling tour to the Norfolk coast and back (from Ipswich) and it keeps insisting I want to go clockwise but I don't! Having said that I think the first iteration did go the other way round but I hadn't registered then so didn't save it.

Ningishzidda · « **Reply #147 on:** 17 July, 2015, 07:57:15 pm »

When you plan a circular Route on a Garmin, make sure Point 2 is closer to Point 1 than Point nnn. And make sure Point 3 is closer to Point 2 than Point nnn and Point nnn-1.
and so on and so forth.

Or, split the Route.

On a TomTom, put your Waypoints where you wish and the unit will take you to the next Point on the list and nowhere else.

andyoxon · « **Reply #148 on:** 24 November, 2015, 03:10:13 pm »

Good work on the new route option Richard.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/14097805.On_Yer_Bike__Church_pathways_provide_a_better_route_for_cyclists/

andyoxon · « **Reply #149 on:** 12 December, 2015, 09:41:24 am »

Just wondering...

Any chance of a:

reverse circular route direction function.
use road-only option i.e. no routes with any highlighted green content...
option to set a threshold for slightly more A-road (less 'around the houses in towns') when necessary.