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Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:44 pm Post subject: Inforad directional setting
Hi,
I've been having a bit of an email debate with inforad lately about the "Directional" capability of my V3 device (which I've had for nearly two years now). I'll try to cut this down to the essentials:
Basically, at about the time they started using the PGPS database (and issued a new version of their Manager S/W) my unit appeared to stop being "directional" and started warning of roadside GATSOs in both directions. I found this very irritating as I was being warned of lots of cameras which I knew did not operate in both directions.
For ages I thought it was a fault of the unit and tried loading and reloading the database all to no avail. I even sent it back to Inforad, they checked it and said all OK, no fault with it.
Then I gave them a short list of cameras local to me which I pass regularly and which are all fixed, standard unidirectional GATSOs. They sent back photos of these (I was impressed!) but said:
In our database, those points (101115, 101112 and 101111 on the picture below) are declared as Gatso cameras monitoring on both sides of the road.
I’ve attached to this email the pictures of those 3 cameras that our controllers have taken in January 2009. You can see on these pictures that there are white stripes on both sides of the road, which means that the cameras are monitoring on both sides. If those stripes have been removed since January 2009, please let us know and I will modify those points in our database.
Being as the "stripes" referred to - even though they are on the wrong side of the road as well as the right one - are all in one direction from the camera I took this to mean that my respondent meant the cam would clock oncoming traffic as well at that going away from it. I suggested that this is not the way I understood the system to work and it only flashed the rear of vehicles. Suddenly the tune changed. In the next email I was told:
Indeed, all Gatsos cameras are "rear facing", but it is common for fixed Gatsos to be positioned so they can be turned around to check both sides of the road - but only one direction at a time.
Again, I don't think this is true. I think it is very uncommon and restricted in my experience to centre-reservation GATSOs only, not roadside ones. I again suggested to my correspondent that if this was true then the second set of stripes was in the wrong place (wrong side of the camera). Secondly, if a roadside camera was used in the "turned round" position it would flash in the eyes of oncoming drivers and this is the main reason, I understand, why they are not made bi-directional in the first place.
To be fair, my contact did offer to change the data for the cameras I mentioned if I was sure they were one way only (which I am). But this misses the point. How many other hundreds or even thousands of cameras are incorrectly flagged on the database? My unit seems to bleep all the time now with, I would estimate, more false alarms than genuine!
So, with apologies to anyone who has had the patience to read all this, my questions to anyone who can help are:
1 Is my understanding of how GATSOs work correct and is my contact at Inforad talking baloney? If so,
2 Does my experience accord with anyone else's?
3 Is it the PGPS data which incorrectly flags cameras as both way rather than one way? If it is, can someone please attend to it and correct what seems to be an error based upon serious misconception? Or is the directional info being added by inforad?
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15154 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:52 am Post subject: Re: Inforad directional setting
farsat wrote:
1 Is my understanding of how GATSOs work correct and is my contact at Inforad talking baloney?
i agree with your way of thinking. lines on both sides of the road does NOT mean it is reversible.
farsat wrote:
3 Is it the PGPS data which incorrectly flags cameras as both way rather than one way? If it is, can someone please attend to it and correct what seems to be an error based upon serious misconception? Or is the directional info being added by inforad?
we log cameras as reversible if they are reversible. best way to check would be to find the location of the cameras on our submission map and then click on the icon. above the map you should then see a text description of the camera you clicked on and will state if we have it as single direction or reversible eg "GATSO:2949@30, Heading:312, Single Direction"
I have now looked up the three local cameras to which I referred in my message and found that all three are in fact correctly labelled on the PGPS database as single direction. so that's good.
However, the mystery remains as to how or why Inforad manages to translate this correct information into "reversible" on their own version of the database?
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that on the map none of these cams actually have a visible symbol? The three in question (all suspiciously close to a speed limit symbol on the map) are:
1744@50H157, 1821@30H10, 278@50H0
If you know where the cameras are and hover and click at the right point then you get the info as you described, but otherwise you wouldn't even know there was a camera there, let alone what type it was! I wonder if the speed limit sign is effectively obliterating the camera symbol? This might explain inforad using an alternative source of data for these cams if they can't actually see them on the map?
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15154 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:59 pm Post subject:
the speed limit sign IS the camera icon!
for gatso, truvelo, monitron it shows the speed limit sign, for mobiles you get an icon showing a tripod mounted camera and the speed on it, specs are shown by a camera icon on a yellow background etc.
With regards the Inforad I own a K1 !!I noticed today a mobile camera which states it is reversible you are just get a warning in one direction and none when travelling the other direction .
The directional warnings do work with the inforad as other cameras are warned correctly but for some reason not on this mobile camera .
I have checked to make sure the device had the latest update which it did so I just wonder why its not picking this one up as it should ???
for gatso, truvelo, monitron it shows the speed limit sign, for mobiles you get an icon showing a tripod mounted camera and the speed on it, specs are shown by a camera icon on a yellow background etc.
MaFt
OK thanks for that...learning all the time (as the late great Benny Hill used to say) . In the meanwhile I have had this further communication from Inforad re the 3 cams I pointed out to them and (it would seem) others:
"I’ve modified these locations ( those changes will take effect next Saturday so I advise you to update your Inforad next week end) and I’ll be working on the double direction points in our database during the next weeks."
So maybe those of us who have inforads will get back proper directionality after all. I do hope so as I really like the inforad with its uncluttered, simple but effective display - I just don't want it going off half cocked all the time!
With regards the Inforad I own a K1 !!I noticed today a mobile camera which states it is reversible you are just get a warning in one direction and none when travelling the other direction .
The directional warnings do work with the inforad as other cameras are warned correctly but for some reason not on this mobile camera .
I have checked to make sure the device had the latest update which it did so I just wonder why its not picking this one up as it should ???
I think you will find this is just another error on inforad's behalf, mis-labelling your mobile. If you contact them through their support email I'm sure they will correct it, if my experience is anything to go by. Does beg the question though as to why there seem to be so many errors in the first place!
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject:
Because like any of these services, how can they possibly be accurate without the help of the user community?
They don't have huge teams of spotters or verifiers, if they did they couldn't afford to offer lifetime subscriptions.
They can only do it by buying in the data but as you see here, even then they can make mistakes in the import and when they do, the only way they will find out is when a user reports it. _________________ Darren Griffin
Because like any of these services, how can they possibly be accurate without the help of the user community?
They don't have huge teams of spotters or verifiers, if they did they couldn't afford to offer lifetime subscriptions.
They can only do it by buying in the data but as you see here, even then they can make mistakes in the import and when they do, the only way they will find out is when a user reports it.
Yes Darren, I do understand and sympathise with that. My point was and is that before they started to use PGPSW data my inforad was correctly and directionally reporting all three cameras which happen to be nearby to my home and which happen to be on a very short journey I take regularly.
Although I now know that the excellent PGPSW database actually reports all three cameras correctly, I could have been forgiven for thinking it was your own database which was at fault, which would have cast PGPSW in an unfairly bad light!
Also, it took a huge amount of effort in the way of phone calls, emails and posting the machine back and forth to even get inforad to recognise there was something wrong. They clearly beieved I was either programming the unit badly or that I was just plain confused.
I still can't make sense of why those same cameras were suddenly reported as both-way! Just doesn't make sense. I can only assume that someone at inforad took it upon themselves to re-designate them (and presumably many others) on the spurious "lines on both sides of the road" criterion.
Anyway, it looks like it's all going to be fixed now which will be great.
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