RoadTour GPS Tour Guide Launched

Darren · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:10 am Post subject: RoadTour GPS Tour Guide Launched

A new SatNav tour guide that alerts motorists to Britain’s greatest historical sites as they drive near has just been launched. The RoadTour software works with Garmin and GPS equipped Windows Mobile devices to trigger audio commentary and pictures of 600 key attractions, including castles, stately homes and battlefields.

As cars approach places of historical interest throughout the UK it delivers information narrated by a friendly female voice and means you will no longer remain oblivious to the cultural treasures around you as you traverseBritain’s roads.

The guide is launched today, as new research shows that a quarter of people think Leeds Castle is in Yorkshire, rather than Kent, one in ten that the Romans built the A1 and 10 per cent of 18-24-year-olds that Stonehenge is in Norfolk. A further 38 per cent of all those questioned by YouGov believe that Hadrians Wall is in Scotland, not England.

Five years in the making, this invention fulfils creator Daniel Taylor’s passion for history and his desire to help Britons use technology to get the most out of our heritage.

AndrewRH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 19, 2007 Posts: 5

I bought RoadTour's Heritage sites guide along with their pubs guide.

The pubs guide shows up on my Garmin Nüvi 670 in the "Extras" list as "RoadTour Pubs & Inns 2007".

The Heritage guide is there too but buried one more level deeper: its inside the "Custom POIs" folder.

It is nice to have a story behind a heritage location - they are written well (some are like short stories!) and the lady's voice is plesant to listen to.

The pubs guide lacks the audio commentary - but each pub/inn listing includes a very detailed description. Many (all?) of the photos say this at the bottom: "Sawday's Pubs & Inns of England & Wales www.sawdays.co.uk"

Bizarrely, when you are reading the pub's description, there is a button at the bottom beside the "back" button which seems to contain random text or nothing at all. Clicking it brings up a bigger version of the picture. For example, the entry on "The Royal Oak" in Maidenhead has a button called "Turn In". This is probably a software error and may be fixed by a new revision of the pubs guide or gasp! Nüvi firmware. For the record, my Nüvi is using v4.20 firmware.

Both guides include a full address and phone number - which you can call automatically by pressing the phone icon, provided your Bluetooth equipped phone is paired with the Nüvi.

My Nüvi does not play the Heritage entries automatically - I have to go into the sub-menu and search for nearby points of interest!

Yes, I do have "Proximity Points" set to on (i.e. TourGuide = Auto Play and Alerts = "Custom POIs" is checked). I have informed RoadTour of this issue.

I have just rebuilt my poi.gpi file, so I will see if that sorts it tonight on the way home from work...

~Andrew~

Darren · Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:33 pm Post subject:

I don't have a Garmin to test this on so RoadTour sent me the PPc version. I've had a quick look and already found some interesting info about sites in my area.

I'll be giving it a better test over Xmas with trips to family etc but first impressions are good and on the PCC, as it is a standalone app it works very well.
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Darren Griffin

Bruggen · Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:23 am Post subject:

I've downloaded both files and put them in my Zumo 550 they work well, but the way a Garmin works is that they will only auto start the tourguides if you are approaching the object on the road it's actually located on and not if you're on a parallel road etc. The within 5 to 10 miles thing is more of a Tom Tom type function I guess or perhaps it works on the PPc edition.
So Andrew, if you slect a heritage site from your custom folder and then navigate to it your commentary will start automatically as you approach.
Try it, works for me.
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Garmin Zumo 550

PeterB · Regular Visitor Joined: 04/10/2002 16:38:07 Posts: 195

Now have 'Road tour' installed on an Ipaq travel companion rx5915.
It operates fine using COM7 at 9600 baud alongside TOMTOM which has a direct GPS feed.
The location and product information is excellent and well worth the £20 charge for Heritage site info.

With the Garmin setup you can 'goto' the site in question by simply tapping the screen, however with the Ipaq you have to manually set, by post code etc., the location on TOMTOM in order to navigate there, a pitty!!

As this is the first version we can hope for further improvements and compatibility with other satnav systems.

This MUST be the way that all 'points of interest' will be presented in the future!!

Darren · Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:

PeterB · Regular Visitor Joined: 04/10/2002 16:38:07 Posts: 195

TOMTOM and Road tour seem to co exist OK on the rx5915 so far although the experience has been limited.

However I also have Memory Map installed on the same PDA, again via COM7 at 9600. With this setup I can set a route on TOMTOM and then switch to a MM screen and get the best of both worlds. i.e. a MM OS map or Sat. picture and the TT voice instructions, fascinating!!

Will advise if I get conflict with more road use!

PeterB · Regular Visitor Joined: 04/10/2002 16:38:07 Posts: 195

I now have some experience of running TomTom 6.1 alongside RoadTour on an rx5915.

It is possible to set up a route on TT and then start the Raod Tour programme.

Road Tour will give verbal and pictorial info. when a new POI is detected and TT will continue to give verbal route instructions.

PaulB2005 · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject:

Everytime i switch my Nuvi 760 on with the RoadTour loaded it starts playing a random item and then switches off when i try to do anything....

tayldn · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 20

When did you buy RoadTour? Some of the performance issues were improved in the last 4 months. If you email support, a new version can be sent.

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