Maps UK

[stevefitz]

Hi All;

Thought you might be interested in our company trial of the TTG.
Various sales staff were issued with the TTG to see if its a valid addition to our car fleet.
The unit itself was well received, a few glitches, but nothing important, (some seemed to turn off by themselves, but corrected themselves later)

The biggest compalint and its rolls on daily is the poor mapping in the unit.
Our trial stagff initially started to register at least two mis-routings a day, and I personally find at least one a day.
Huge chunks of A roads, open to the public 1-2 years ago just don't exist. The TTG shows me driving across fields or something.

What we were wondering , could someone contact the manaufacturer to say that we would like to purchase a full UK high quality map, purcahse our own SD cards, and pay for the upgrade, leaving the UK map which comes with the unit as an "Entry Level" map. I would think that a 256MB UK map would be that much more appealing to companies.

This way those satisfied with the original map, see no change, those wanting, better maps, must pay a nominal upgrade fee. This approach happens with many products.
As a company, (and I have talked to others) we would be prepared to pay for this additional service.

It seems such a shame that the high profile (National advertising)TTG is being let down by the single most important feature of the product "The ability to navigate between two points"

Thanks

[Darren]

There is no 'higher resolution' map available and this subect has been covered in depth many times

The map data is gatheres by the data provider (in TomTom's case this is TeleAtlas). This is then compiled and prepared for offer to the vendors. The vendors buy the data, compile for their platform and master the distribution media.

Typically this process can take anywhere from 12 - 24months and this is why there are innacuracies in the data. The sme innacuracies are present in every product and minor variations can be explained by the different product release dates which may mean Product A is released with Mar 2003 Map Data whereas Product B may have had Jun 2003 etc.

It will never be bang up to date, paper maps never where either!
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Darren Griffin

[stevefitz]

Thanks for the information.
Regretfully I beg to differ, the DVD navigation system in my car is far superior(in terms of map quality) than the TTG.
It has great depth and far more detail, which (rightly or wrongly) I was informed is due to the systems capacity to handle additional data, and processing power.

Is it possible that there are better map making companies out there which for commercial reasons TTG did not use.!

My question was really "Could there be"

Thanks

[Darren]

It's a valid point but my Jaguar has a DVD based Sat Nav system built-in and I think my PDA based TomTom system has a better map display and just as much detail.

Where do you perceive that your DVD system has more depth exactly? Any limitations in PDA and other Portable systems are normally related to the extra compression involved in squuezing the map data into 256 or even 128MB of Memory, naturally a DVD system is not limited in this way. Processing power is not the issue.

You are right to suggest that map data providers can have different results, the two of concern here in the EU are TeleAtlas and Navteq. TomTom use TeleAtlas as do Navman, CoPilot use NavTeq. There are pluses and minuses for each and the costs of their mapping data are naturally a major decision when companies choose to jump into bed with one or the other!
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Darren Griffin

[stevefitz]

Hi Darren;

Thanks for your thoughts.
When I say depth, I suppose I mean more detail in the points of interest.
I can sight many examples, but just 500 yards from my home is Romford Golf course, its been there over 100 years, but will TTG show it, no way, but it will telll me about another 20 or so golf courses within 20 miles.

Perhaps its just in user perception.

I also appreciate no maps will ever be 100% accurate, but I really want user choice.
As a company with the TTG on trial with various staff members because of its Benefit Vs Cost possibilities, I am trying to combat the negative input from trial users , not about the hardware, only the software mappng, odd re-routing etc.

TT manufacturer, can only derive long term profit by selling the world updated maps, they make little if anything from the hardware, so its in there interest to get us all buying more and better maps.

So if TT's financial future lies in mapping, why not have "Entry level" maps (which come with the product) and you can purchase various upgrades, ie cost based on faster update release, this is done by many companies e.g. Symantic, on virus software.
This way, we all have options, companies such as ours can subscribe to monthly updates, perhaps some people can pay for 6 monthly updates and so on.

Would you happen to know the address of TTG in Holland and the Commercial Director, so we can communicate the point.


Thanks

[MrRubberGloves]

[Tim Buxton]

As far as I can make out, POIs are only included if they pay TeleAtlas for the privilege. I might be wrong of course, but TeleAtlas and Navteq don't always have the same POIs in their data.
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Tim

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