CoPilot 5 ETA - Tweaking Road Speeds

lynnk

Hello all ... I'm a US user but can't find a good forum for CoPilot stateside so I thought I'd post my question here where there seems to be a good bit of user discussion. I really enjoy reading everybody's comments.

My questions is regarding the ETA. After using Copilot for awhile now, I am disappointed in the ETA provided by the system. In almost every trip I have taken, the ETA seems to be about 60% longer than it actually takes to make the trip. An example .. on my last trip Copilot estimated 1:53 for the trip ... the trip took 1:10. The roads were all at least 55 mph but Copilot seemed to be using about 35 mph. The desktop application allows you to adjust the road speeds but there is no way that I can see to adjust the speeds on the PPC. Having a good ETA is important to me. I can go to any of the online map programs (like MAPQUEST) and they do a great job of making a close estimate ... it doesn't seem to be such a hard thing to do but every GPS map program I have tried seems to have problems in this area. Anybody else have this problem? Does anybody know of a way to adjust speeds for calculation?

I have written ALK but haven't heard back from them yet.

LYNNK
Sad

lbendlin · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 2:14 pm Post subject:

This is a longer standing enhancement request (since early CP4), but so far ALK have not indicated if and when they will allow street level speed adjustments on the Pocket PC.

There is always a speed range for a certain stree, not just one average speed. So if your signpost says speed limit 55 mph then the map database will have this street as 35 - 55 mph average speed. (If you want to know the exact numbers you have to use Mapopolis - that's the only program exposing this kind of surveying data) .

Using the lower limit of the speed range then results in your observed ETA deviation.
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lynnk · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject:

Here's an interesting item .... I tried one of the other forum member's suggestion about copying trips that you create on the desktop application over to the PPC by just copying the file rather than creating a new trip in the Download Wizard. When I took the trip the other day, I found that the ETA that the unit called out when I was starting the trip was dead on and the directions came thru perfectly. If I just selected the destination and let the PPC calculate it, it was off by about 30%. .... wander why???????

I tried it on the trip home by using the desktop calculated trip vs. the PPC calculated one and the same thing.

lbendlin · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:22 pm Post subject:

the next step would be to physically compare the two files and see where the difference is - that would then be the storage for the road type speeds...
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lynnk · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:02 pm Post subject:

The trips seem to be identical except for a line called DefRoadSpeeds.

DefRoadSpeeds=014141373205281E14013C372823051E190A
DefRoadSpeeds=0141412D1E05191E120137371E14050F190A

That must define the speeds to make the calculation, althought it is certainly not something that one could easily manipulate.

Also, I note that for each trip created on the PPC, there is a TRP file and a PTS file. The PTS file appears to be a whole bunch of latitudes and longitudes. I don't see that file with the routes created on the desktop. Any idea of what they are?

lbendlin · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:17 pm Post subject:

Let's translate this into decimal

01 65 65 55 50 05 40 30 20 01 60 55 40 35 05 30 25 10
01 65 65 45 30 05 25 30 18 01 55 55 30 20 05 15 25 10

The 01 and 05 seem to be just markers, but the rest clearly looks like speeds. Can you set the speeds on the desktop to unique values (13, 17, 19 etc) and then run this again? That way we would know which is which.
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lynnk · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:52 am Post subject:

Did that .. here's the result:

Col 1: Marker .. always 1
Col 2: Freeway Rural
Col 3: ??? always 65
Col 4: Divided Rural
Col 5: Primary Rural
Col 6: Ferries Rural
Col 7: Secondary Rural
Col 8: ??? Always 30
Col 9: Local Rural
Col 10: Marlker .. always 1
Col 11: Freeway Urban
Col 12: ??? always 55
Col 13: Divided Urban
Col 14 Primary Urban
Col 15 Ferries Urban
Col 16: Secondary Urban
Col 17: ??? Always 25
Col 18: Local Urban

lbendlin · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 5:21 am Post subject:

Very nice. I could quickly craft a little proggie that could manipulate these speeds on the Pocket PC... but of course you could also do that by hand. Cute...
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lbendlin · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:56 pm Post subject:

I have received word back from ALK with the details :

lynnk · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:29 pm Post subject:

I love it when a plan comes together! Laughing

HielandLad · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 5:49 pm Post subject:

Lutz,

Please, pleazse do your little program to change these values. I know it can be done manually, but I am not too keen on changing hex values - I don't know how to get the hex value!

Thanks,

Alastair

mark1968 · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:

Alastair wrote: Please, pleazse do your little program to change these values. I know it can be done manually, but I am not too keen on changing hex values - I don't know how to get the hex value!

I second that, Please could you do your little program.
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lynnk · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 9:28 pm Post subject:

I have manually changed the values and it does not appear to be that simple. There must be some other flags or something that prevents it from seeing the changes ... I changed the values in both the Usertrip and the Default file and it continues to calculate the same times ...

lynnk · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:51 pm Post subject:

I am confused on how this program is working. I have changed the line DefRoadSpeeds= in both the Usertrip and DefTrip files to a new string that are faster speeds. So if what has been stated is true, then when I ask the PDA to plan a new trip, it should generate a trip and estimate arrival times with that new data. However, every trip that I generate and save shows a DefRoadSpeeds= line that is different and much slower (always the same). In addition, it appears that the HasRoadSpeeds flag has been set to 1 and a whole list of different road speeds for different states get added to the file each time. Neither the Usertrip of Deftrip files have that flag set (both are HasRoadSpeeds=0). Any ideas on why it keeps doing this???

Also, any trips that I create on the desktop and copy to the PDA do not appear to be using the speeds set on the desktop like they used to. When I first did that, ETA’s seemed to be about correct but now for some reason (after changing the Usertrip and Deftrip files) the desktop files are not computing correct ETA’s either. I tried changing back to the original Usertrip and Deftrip files that I had backed up but I don’t see any change. Everything seems to be using some speed data other than what is in the files.
Sad

lynnk · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:57 pm Post subject:

Ok ... I think I have found the culprit. It looks like the values were all being saved in the GPStrip,dat file. I deleted that and then tried to create a new trip and it looks like it used the updated values that I had placed in the Usertrip and Deftrip files. It also created a new GPStrip file that seems to also now have the new values. Hopefully all is well for now. This has been an interesting investigation ... thanks to all for the help. :P

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