Narrow Roads in TTN5

Steve999 · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:52 am Post subject:

Hi RoyC,

I don't think you will get through to them. TT is not a public institution with a conscience that needs to respond to public opinion. It is a commercial enterprise that succeeds in selling it's product in huge numbers despite allegedly offering indifferent customer support if these forums are any indication.

They sell the product on navigating 'quickest' or 'shortest' route etc via navigable roads and will quite justifiably maintain that the driver has total discretion over when and where he/she drives the vehicle. This is a legal position. Sailors understand that there are many navigable waterways that they simply cannot take their particular vessel along and exercise discretion in advance otherwise they hit the rocks. This mindset is one that drivers need to take more heed of. Lorry drivers also live with this constantly.

Tomtom is an excellent product at a relatively low budget price with an interface that users generally like and the manufacturer clearly focusses on this aspect. I would suggest that learning to live with and compensate for it's shortcomings is to be recommended if you are going to stay with it because you cannot rely on TT to respond with changes in the way that companies such as Mapopolis do for example.

The alternative is to look at the many other excellent products on the market and register your protest with your feet and wallet. Of course, the alternative may be better technically but not have the same 'eye-candy' factor. You pays your money and takes your choice. I personally like a bit of eye-candy and accept that I am totally responsible for the course of my vehicle.

Steve
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RoyC · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:24 am Post subject:

Steve

I don't disagree with anything that you write - but - as a former software developer I tried to design a product which met the needs of my users. Needs which changed daily too - sometimes not rationally either.
It does , however, seem to me that as far as TT's usage in a Truck, Motorhome, or Cravan is concerned it is far from being a perfect product whereas I do agree that at it's price point it is superb value for money for use in a car.
I suspect that we are still at the pioneering stage of development of SatNav solutions and much progress and improvments will be coming over the next few years. Given that,I would suggest to the TT marketing team that they could easily lose this section of the market unless they give it more consideration.
I don't know whether the problem is in their willingness to devote the necessary effort, or whether it is a weakness in the maps. If it is the latter then surely the answer is to offer a premium product at a higher cost which satisfies that market assuming such improved maps are available.
If the problem is their lack of motivation to devote code writing time to this aspect of the product, favouring more 'eye candy' then that is their decision but there comes a time when no matter how good it looks if it doesn't do the job then they will lose market share. Already TT5 (PPC) users upgrading from TT3 are unhappy about a number of aspects of the update such as removing features such as road speed adjustments and if every update is simply done for the benefit of TT - ie to make the code portable , without any noticeable benfit to users then they will surely suffer longterm. Certainly having the code portable across all platforms will hopefully benefit us all in the end so I don't want to criticise that too much but there comes a point ...
If there is a product out there which adequately addresses the needs of large vehicles then can someone let me know because there is a demand out there.

linknet · Frequent Visitor Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 872

RoyC Wrote:

v0n · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:30 pm Post subject:

Road size recalculation mechanism is already in place in TT5 - please note that you may choose options such as "Avoid motorways", "Walking route", "Bicycle route" and "Limited speed". Clearly this is where saving on developement and the use common engine for all platform strikes back - TT5 car users would rather need exact oposite of the above "Do use motorways where possible", "No walking routes and paths", "No bicycle/single lane/C roads" and "Use roads with minimum speed of XX". Tomtom was always prefered solution for car drivers, but for some reason it's forcibly trying to be preferred solution for cyclists and trekkers in new release. It's the quickest way to loose both...

MarkHewitt · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:08 pm Post subject:

I'm not convinced it's not a problem with the maps.

The only distinction TomTom makes is the usual Motorway, Primary A, Non-primary A, B.

If you look at wide unclassified roads and compare them to nearby narrow unclassified roads then they appear exactly the same on the map, even though one can be twice the width of the other!

v0n · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:14 pm Post subject:

MarkHewitt · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:05 pm Post subject:

v0n · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

linknet · Frequent Visitor Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 872

RoyC · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:58 pm Post subject:

Yes Linknet and the coding is already done because it was in TT3. Having said that in the 'old' TT3 days I did try tweaking the road s of lowest quality down to the minimum ( 5mph) but it didn't always solve the problem - 0mph wasn't allowed. It should solve the problem and the fact that it didn't suggests to me that the problem is somewhat deeper.

It would really be nice to have a dialogue with either TT or TeleAtlas on this but I doubt if that will happen.

In addition I would say that it isn't always posible to see from the colouration of the road whether it is of navigable quality. The road I live on is NOT navigable by large vehicles but is a standard B road and coloured like all the others.

I don't know how TeleAtlas categorise the roads and whether they drive the roads to establish the real facts. Perhaps they should drive them in a 7.5Ton Truck - that should help!!

Roy

linknet · Frequent Visitor Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 872

Nomada · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:56 pm Post subject:

Hi All,

As coach driver I got used to supervise the route given by TTN 3 always before hiting the road.

After reading a lot of these threads about similar problems there is always sugestions about if this software makes it better than other because it has maps from "Telewhat" instead "Navique" or viceversa.

To my understanding those maps companies use logical graphic data and databases provided by OS. They make some changes, extracting or adding fields of/to the huge database with many fields that are not only used for navigation purpouses and provide them to Navigation Systems makers in a much more specialized format. Those last just modify the ugly graphics in nice Bezier lines, give colors to different areas and produce specialized algorithms to search into the database for its data and for routing (basic maps provided by OS have already routing I was told by OS insiders).

So basically if somebody intends to have corrected a map mistake I think it should be addresed to the upper point in the pyramid, OS. And I think too the point being routed in those small lanes is just because OS has them wrongly recorded in their database.

Near where I live is a inexistent road. TomTom tried unnumbered times to route me through. That road is too in every map. But is not really a road, just a pedestrian private path for many years ago.

I believe it will stay in TomTom maps and CoPilot maps until it will be deleted from OS maps.

But as always I stand to be corrected.
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julianbarker · Lifetime Member Joined: Apr 12, 2005 Posts: 431

The spurious exit from the M25 at the A3 junction is just like that. The 1:50000 OS map clearly shows it, and TomTom routes via it.

jan_buelens · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:54 am Post subject:

After one memorable family trip that ended in a mudbath (had to tell wife & children to get out of the car as I negotiated a wheel-deep puddle), I adjusted the TTN3 settings, assigning slower speeds to the lower 2 or 3 road categories. That did the trick - never got caught again... The problem is that the standard settings don't differentiate enough between road categories at the lower end of the scale, making that shortcut down some muddy "destination road" look more attractive than the marginally longer but comfortably paved "local road".

What made TomTom think that this feature (i.e. ability to adjust speeds assigned to road categories) is no longer required? I know from my own bitter experience in the software industry that any time you remove a feature, the result is user mutiny. I just hope that some of the people at TomTom get navigated with their families down country lanes in family saloon cars, preferably in mid-winter. I'll donate pairs of luxury wellies (rubberlaarzen, gummistiefel, bottes de caoutchouc) for a family of 5 to anybody who can persuade TomTom to put the feature back in TTN5.

MarkHewitt · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:10 am Post subject:

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