Road speed data

walkabout · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 12, 2004 Posts: 31

I have been following the tread on altering the Road speed data files,
has anybody made a program to alter the data on a PPC?
I have also found that trip copied and saved from desktop to PPC have more accurate ETA's than using download wizard.
If I delete my GPStrip,dat file on my PPC, and then use one of my saved
trips will Copilot work?
Will it use the saved trips data for all the next trips?
Or do I have to change anything else?

Any help would be great

Walkabout

lynnk · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:53 pm Post subject:

I found that I could just delete the GSPTRIP file and then it recreated itself automatically and from then on it was pretty accurate. I found copying the file directly to my memory card for my PPC by using a card reader works best for me. As far as a program to create the speed string, I don't think I've ever seen one. Lutz talked about possibly creating one but I don't think he ever did. I did create an Excel Spreadsheet that created the string that you can put into the file. I will be glad to provide that to you if you PM me with your email address.

lynnk

DavidW · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject:

Don't forget that those users that have agreed to reveal their email addresses can be emailed using the "Email" button at the bottom of their posts.

David

markbatey · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:33 pm Post subject:

I've been mucking about changing the roadspeed settings as described earlier - are we sure that CP5 uses roadspeeds when it's calculating a route?

Given its weird choice of routes, at least here in the UK, anything that might change that would be great. I wonder if it's decided that motorways are really quick, and that rural dual-carriageways are much slower - that would explain why it tries to send me miles out of the way to go on the A1(M), rather than use the perfectly good A19.

Plus, I'm not sure if I'm putting the data in the right files. I've found a handy converter for hex-decimal at http://flor.nl/dec2hex.html. But can someone post again which files need to be changed, and which ones deleted for CP5 to re-create?

thanks guys

lynnk · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:35 pm Post subject:

You can use the built in HEX converter function in Excel easily to make the conversions as well.

I found that if I created a new string for the DefRoadSpeeds line in both the USERTRIP and DEFTRIP files ( I was never sure exactly when it used which one.) and then I totally deleted the GPSTRIP file that road speeds were pretty accurate with the values I picked. The values will vary from person to person depending on how and where you drive. Make sure that you leave the HasRoadSpeeds line set to 0 or it won't use your values. That tells the program to use some default road speeds that it stores with the maps .. not what you want. You should use the same values in the advanced setting on the desktop when you create a trip file .. that way files you create will match what you have stored in the PDA.

The only problem that I have had is that after creating a trip on the desktop and copying it to the PDA, each of my waypoints show up as "Stops" and I have to edit the list and change them back to "Waypoints" on the PDA. I'm not sure which line controls that and it hasn't been a big problem so I haven't chased it down yet. As I had said before, If you PM me with your email address, I will be glad to email you my Excel file that you can use as a starting point.

johnbarnes · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:32 pm Post subject:

I have seen tweaking the DefRoadSpeeds string advanced as a way to get improved ETA values.

Does anyone know if the values in this string also affect routing? Could this be a way to persuade CoPilot to take more direct routes?

John B
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markbatey · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:01 pm Post subject:

Apparently, yes. I was talking to ALK support yesterday about something else, and asked if CP5 used the roadspeed to determine routing - they were a bit defensive because I don't think they're supposed to talk about stuff that encourages people to hack around. But eventually admitted that it does. So now I'm going to do some experiments to see if I can make it direct me a bit more sensibly. For some reason it hates the A19 in northern England. Now, I know it's not the most scenic road in the world, but it's not that bad...
I'll let you know how I get on.

Robin2 · Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 8:54 pm Post subject:

I think that main A roads are set to much too slow a speed in the routing algorithm.
If I am driving on a motorway with my cruise control set to a true GPS 70 mph I find I am losing time compared to CP5, ie my ETA slowly becomes later and later. But if I leave the motorway and drive on an A road at 55-60 mph I gain on the CP5 ETA very rapidly. As an example, I left the M50 for the A40/A449/A465 to Swansea. At the time of leaving the motorway my ETA was 11pm, but by the time I got home it was 10.15pm.
If the motorway speed could be reduced a little, and the speed for major A roads increased significantly, the routing algorithm should be much nearer to a real life situation. I look forward to guidance from someone more expert than me as to how to do it. I have already introduced a tweak published on this forum to change road colours on the map, and that was a great success
Robin

chrisdhall · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 12, 2004 Posts: 45

On the subject of a "Road speed editing program." This would have to read the existing road speeds, display on a form with the correct labels, allow them to be adjusted up or down and write it back into the file.

If that's all that's required, I think my VB.NET skills might run to that. Can someone PM me with copies of files and any other changes needed to the files(s).

I don't have a copy of CoPilot yet, (I was going to buy a copy but, having read this forum, I am not so sure now Confused

)

I can create a PPC program and an identical PC program if that's needed.

chrisdhall · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 12, 2004 Posts: 45

First mock-up screenshots for road speed editing application:

Default button puts the settings back to the "out of the box" settings. Suggested are for the ones that this forum has found to be reasonable for better routing and time calculations

Are the settings in the CoPilot files mph or Km/h.

HielandLad · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:46 pm Post subject:

I for one would be really grateful for a programme like this. I have altered the values manually, but it is such a pain to keep doing this to tweak them further. I ahve got close to a good set-up, but couldn't be bothered doing more. This would make all the difference.

The exact requirements for which files need altering (and deleted) are in the original post. It would be important to include the deletion of the required file at the samne time as you save the new settings, as leaving this manual will only cause confusion. At the very leats there would need to be a warning to tell a user to do the deletion.

Although I did the changes a while ago, I think all speeds were in MPH. However, I will have more time over the weekend to help in any way I can.

Rattle · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:46 am Post subject:

Nice going! I'll be looking forward to this too. Just don't forget to include the option to enter speeds also in km/h, for those who use the metric system Wink

Cheers,
Eriks

ianhb · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:37 pm Post subject:

I´m not convinced that CoPilot uses the road speeds to determine the route. I set the motorway speeds to 5 kmh and all other roads to 100 kmh and when routing from Honfleur FR (nr Le Havre) to Mont St Michel it still went via the Autoroute. This is despite using the 'quickest' setting and getting a time of 20 hours + !! With a few judicious waypoints I could knock about 17 hours off the time.

Ian

chrisdhall · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 12, 2004 Posts: 45

OK - I'll keep going on it. In which folder on the PDA are the files kept?

HielandLad · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:52 pm Post subject:

The "Usertrip.dat" file (the one that needs the values changing) is in:

sdcard/copilot/save

The "gpstrip.dat" file (the one that needs to be deleted after each change to allow the new values to work) is in the same foolder I think. However, I have just noticed that contrary to the explanation in the original thread, my gpstrip.dat file appears not to have been recreated. I renamed it with a bak extension in case something went horribly wrong. I had never chaecked until now, but the .bak file is still there, but there is no gpstrip.dat file? Perhaps it is not needed at all? Certainly the changes I made to road speeds do make a big difference to ETA.

Hope this helps.

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