Weird route planner suggested routes.

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Sat 15 Jan 2022 20:02
Weird route planner suggested routes. - badbusdriver

The other day I put mine and my parents postcodes into the RAC route planner. The reason was that I wanted to refresh my memory to the difference in time and distance between what I'd consider the two main options for the journey.

Three options were given. The main one, which uses an A road for half the journey and B roads for the rest. Then there was a variation of the first which added another three miles by inexplicably sending me off on a detour. The final option gave me a route which, while similar in distance to the main one, had me zig zagging along mainly unclassified single track roads (I know most of them, they'd be no fun in a car, especially if you ended up behind a tractor!) The second of the two routes I wanted wasn't given as an option!. In order to get the distance for it, I had to specifically add a village it went through. Incidentally, this route uses all B roads and while the estimated time given was the same as the route using unclassified roads, you'd be driving on better roads.

Anyone else found some weird suggestions thrown up by route planners?

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Sat 15 Jan 2022 20:44
Weird route planner suggested routes. - RichT54

I remember trying to plan a journey along the south coast a few years ago. I'm not sure what the exact start and end points were, but something like Brighton to Bournemouth. One of the suggestions included taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight, driving to Yarmouth and then taking another ferry to Lymington. The distance travelled was just a mile further than going via the A27+M27+A31, but the estimated time was at least double and it would have cost a lot more for the ferry tickets.

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Sat 15 Jan 2022 20:55
Weird route planner suggested routes. - badbusdriver

I remember trying to plan a journey along the south coast a few years ago. I'm not sure what the exact start and end points were, but something like Brighton to Bournemouth. One of the suggestions included taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight, driving to Yarmouth and then taking another ferry to Lymington. The distance travelled was just a mile further than going via the A27+M27+A31, but the estimated time was at least double and it would have cost a lot more for the ferry tickets.

That reminds me of a story I heard on the radio when covid vaccinations first started. If memory serves, a woman in the west coast of Scotland had been given an appointment in Northern Ireland. As the crow flies (i.e, between postcodes) it wasn't that far, but more than a days travelling each way in reality!

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Sat 15 Jan 2022 20:48
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Metropolis.
Reminded me of this top gear clip, also using the RAC route planner!

youtu.be/coSqodF8_44
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Sat 15 Jan 2022 20:57
Weird route planner suggested routes. - badbusdriver
Reminded me of this top gear clip, also using the RAC route planner! youtu.be/coSqodF8_44

Brilliant!

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Sat 15 Jan 2022 22:42
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Terry W

I've occasionally had the same issue - differences seem to arise due to:

  • car sat nav has four routing options - fastest, shortest, compromise, eco. Route varies depending on selection.
  • some sat nav have traffic info integrated into route planning
  • the speed attributed to different roads may vary - motorways may assume ~65mph, but a de-restricted single track road could be between 20 and 60 mph
  • car sat nav will divert down very minor road to save 20 yards - but much slower.

So it is no surprise that different routing software may throw up very different answers!

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 07:39
Weird route planner suggested routes. - _

When we lived in Wales I took a route from Llanelli to gwaun cae gurwen and it routed me down a track through a farmyard.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 13:27
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Engineer Andy
Reminded me of this top gear clip, also using the RAC route planner! youtu.be/coSqodF8_44

Brilliant!

Maybe the app wasn't good enough to know how to cross the M5. I wonder if the software developers were the same wallies who took that driver down to a cliff edge with no way of turning around?

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 06:33
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Will deBeast

Google maps sent me down a series of streets, just to save one minute over the main roads. Unfortunately, I was towing a large trailer.

There doesn't seem to be an option in google to say 'keep me on the main roads, even if the journey takes a few minutes more'.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 09:49
Weird route planner suggested routes. - movilogo

Among various sat navs, I found (and use) Google Maps to be best. I use it when I have internet available (UK + EU).

I know Google Map works offline if you download the route but I prefer

Here Maps where I can download entire country/region's map offline.

Maps.Me especially if I am not driving e.g. walking in a foreign town.

There doesn't seem to be an option in google to say 'keep me on the main roads, even if the journey takes a few minutes more'.

My frustration as well. Google Maps few times sent me to narrow country roads. I want to see an option "Avoid single track roads".

car sat nav has four routing options - fastest, shortest, compromise, eco. Route varies depending on selection.

I found fastest being safest option most of the time. Shortest is something which I always avoid as it directs towards narrow farm tracks.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 10:19
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Terry W

You need to apply a little common sense and judgement. Look at the displayed map to see overall direction of travel. Adjust the scale appropriately.

If it directs you down a minor or one track road when it is clear it is only cutting the corner off a main road turning in a few hundred yards or a couple of miles, ignore. If it recalculates and adds (say) 15 minutes to the arrival time you can always turn round.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 11:52
Weird route planner suggested routes. - galileo

Living in West Yorkshire in the Pennine foothills, wherever I want to go TomTom satnav, Google Maps and RAC route finder all seem part of a conspiracy to get me to use the M62.

In theory, this is supposed to be faster, but over the last few months there have been multi-hour delays due to accidents almost every day.

When there have not been accidents, the BIB have often closed it for hours because someone 'might' jump off a bridge.

There is an option on most of these systems to 'avoid motorways', instead of which I know ways of missing the M62 but can still opt to use other M-ways which are less prone to issues (e.g. M6 North of Lancaster)

Edited by galileo on 16/01/2022 at 11:54

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 13:38
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Engineer Andy

Living in West Yorkshire in the Pennine foothills, wherever I want to go TomTom satnav, Google Maps and RAC route finder all seem part of a conspiracy to get me to use the M62.

In theory, this is supposed to be faster, but over the last few months there have been multi-hour delays due to accidents almost every day.

When there have not been accidents, the BIB have often closed it for hours because someone 'might' jump off a bridge.

There is an option on most of these systems to 'avoid motorways', instead of which I know ways of missing the M62 but can still opt to use other M-ways which are less prone to issues (e.g. M6 North of Lancaster)

I think sometimes, especially on busy routes (e.g. motorways or 3 lane 'dual' carriageways like the A1) sat navs act like sheep herders.

I noticed this when driving to work in Stevenage - the A1 and the town-only routes to my (then) office were almost always very busy (except Friday mornings), but sometimes my work phone's Google Maps satnav would tell me to not use the A1 just for general traffic levels (not an accident), but it seemed everyone else was prompted to do the same, making the town roads far worse than staying on the A1!

In the end, unless there was an accident causing a hold-up, I just went with my gut/actual observation or if it was obvious which route was the busier.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 13:21
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Engineer Andy

Anyone else found some weird suggestions thrown up by route planners?

Google Maps (my PC interweb version) oftentells me to go via my town centre to get out of town rather than to go out via the new-ish (2yo) route around the nearby industrial area to the town by-pass.

My old-ish (2013) Nokia 620 Windows phone's HERE Drive occasionally chucks a wobbly on routes, pushing in completely the wrong direction, maybe because the GPS doo-dah fails to update the phone's location (the other day it thought I was in a field 10 miles north of where I live rather than at home), probably not helped either by the app not having the traffic update facility any more. Up to June 2019 (when the latter was switched off) it was fine. At least the maps themselves still get updates.

It's almost like some of them say - "I want to go THIS WAY' and keep re-routing you to a specific major road, whatever the convoluted route to get (back) to it.

On my furniture shopping trip last week, it didn't help that without the traffic updates (including roadworks/closures), my HER Drive did not know (as I did) that a road on the normal route to one of the stores was blocked off due to a burst water main repair job.

I think sometimes they also get confused when new roads get inputted to the mapping database - not sure why though.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 15:01
Weird route planner suggested routes. - RichT54

When I had a mk4 CRV the sat nav claimed to have the ability to learn you favourite routes. One day I set up a route to go somewhere on the south coast. Soon after setting off I took a small diversion onto a local road so I could post a letter in the post box. I resumed my journey and the sat nav recalculated the route and the journey went fine.

However, every time afterwards that I set up a route going south, the sat nav insisted on routing me via that local road instead of the more direct major road. Even though I ignored its suggestion and drove directly many times, it never seemed to realise that the local road wasn't really a favourite. I checked the manual but didn't find a way to clear the favourite routes.

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Sun 16 Jan 2022 19:26
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Sparrow

Driving in France a few years ago I missed my turning. To try to get me onto the right road the sat nav wanted me to go up a set of steps. The quality of the mapping was very poor. I won't say which brand of sat nav it was, but it was one of the 2 market leaders.

Edited by Sparrow on 16/01/2022 at 19:27

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 00:08
Weird route planner suggested routes. - brum

Here maps once wanted me to turn right directly into oncoming traffic lane of a dual carriageway.

My Skoda Columbus (also powered by Here Maps) seems to want me to divert to Leicester everytime I drive up the M1 from London. Maybe the programmer has a relative who lives there. It also has an annoying habit of telling me to "turn half left"???

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 09:31
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Andrew-T

I have enjoyed - and been interested in - reading users' grumbles about sat-nav. I have not yet owned one, and I don't suppose I shall. Of course we all know the howlers from the early days when drivers aimed for a river crossing which was only a small passenger ferry - that became so notorious that an official road-sign appeared at the entrance to the road saying 'Sat-nav error - no bridge'. I sometimes wonder what sat-navs did when drivers started using the recent Mersey crossing ....

I have always been familiar with maps and taken time to work out my own route, and I do use a route planner for town centre detail, for example. But even if one gets regular updates of a sat-nav and uses traffic news there can still be ad-hoc problems to deal with. I realise that lone delivery drivers cannot do without sat-nav, but for me it is for the birds, as used to be said long ago. Sadly, I suspect using maps is a dying skill.

Edited by Andrew-T on 17/01/2022 at 09:38

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 11:10
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Sparrow

I find there are some advantages of using a sat nav even if you are not using it to find the route. Mine gives me a reminder if I exceed the speed limit, which can be very useful on today's roads where the speed limit is often not related to the standard of the road, and the little speed limit repeater signs are faded or missing. It also, if set to the right scale, show sharp bends before you can see them. Helpful in fog or at night when no street lights.

Edited by Sparrow on 17/01/2022 at 11:12

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 12:41
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Andrew-T

... the little speed limit repeater signs are faded or missing.

Faded ? Many signs round here are almost obscured, either by overgrowing foliage or accumulations of green algae. Too much cost-cutting by local authorities. It might need a court case to dismiss a prosecution because warnings had been inadequate.

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 13:16
Weird route planner suggested routes. - movilogo

I find there are some advantages of using a sat nav even if you are not using it to find the route.

Indeed. Even when I know the route and distance is over an hour, I still check on Google Maps to see if there is any traffic problem so that it can detour me via faster routes.

Also if I can't remember speed limit, I switch on sat nav. Having said that, I did notice sometimes Google Map is not in sync of what speed signs say on road. Just yesterday I was in a NSL road and Google Map was showing as 30 - may be it was temporarily restricted and Google did not pick up end of restriction phase.

I also wonder whether councils should spend less on road signs. Instead, they can upload data feed to their portals so that Google, Bing, Tomtom etc. can download and update their maps.

When driving on country where road signs are not in English (or not even using English letters) then one has to solely rely on sat navs.

In today's world road signs serve no purpose (unless indicates road closure etc.) because those who are locals know the roads anyway (no need for signs) and those who are tourists follow their sat navs instead (again no need for signs).

Signs can be used for major roundabouts, junctions etc. This will ensure drives would look into surroundings rather than trying to look for speed limit, yellow boxes, bus lanes, cameras etc.

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Mon 17 Jan 2022 18:35
Weird route planner suggested routes. - Andrew-T

<< In today's world road signs serve no purpose (unless indicates road closure etc.) because locals know the roads anyway (no need for signs) and those who are tourists follow their sat navs instead (again no need for signs). >>

That's nonsense. A lot more road users than you seem to imagine are not yet converted to doing everything electronically. Some of the quirks you mention are likely due to glitches in picking up satellite signals. Plus the (remote) possibility that some component of your magic sat-nav system may be out of order from time to time.

I don't think councils have yet reached the point of failing to keep their signs legible because they believe they no longer serve a purpose. The next step may be to ban all cars without sat-nav from using the roads ?

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