Bizarre routing

[Robin2]

Does Mapopolis usually choose sensible routes? I have just downloaded the demo map for the region where I live and tried a route to an address about 2 miles from here. The address lookup was superb, and the maps look good, but the route chosen for quickest went off in the opposite direction and arrived at the destination after about 6 tortuous miles. I changed the option to shortest and the result was a little better - about 5 miles, using narrow lanes etc. The obvious route is about 2 miles along mostly major roads.
Robin

[Tim Buxton]

I've only tried the Surrey demo map and found the routing to be very similar to SmartST in that the chosen route was almost always the one I'd select (if I didn't know any better).

What were the start and end points of your route (roughly)? I'd like to see for myself what happened if you don't mind sharing the info..
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Tim

[Robin2]

Think I may have found the reason. Some small roads (in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go) have a speed of 58 mph attached to them when I touch them with the pen. So all routes from my home location seem to be attracted to that road. Don't think there is anything I can do about that
I'll send you the details by email
Robin

[AlunS]

The speed category attached to some roads can be a bit haphazard sometimes. I have kind of the opposite problem to you here in Ireland, where a couple of roads that are in fact main arteries for the area are somehow classified as 5mph to 20mph instead of 20mph to 30mph. I suspect it's because there are a few speed bumps here and there on them, but it results in some bizarre routing involving constantly getting off these main roads, travelling a few tens of metres along a parallel road and then back onto the original road again.

Also many roads are classified according to their maximum legal speed, not necessarily what you can, or should, actually achieve in practice, resulting in the kinds of anomalies you have seen.

It's worth remembering that all these routing algorithms are only as good as the data they have to work with, Garbage-In-Garbage-Out as the old saying goes. It'd be nice if there was some way of hacking the map data to change these things though. Now where was that hex-editor I had lying around ...

[SafeHarbor]

Mapopolis tries to pick a sensible route, yes. On Pocket PC, if you see a bizarre route, there are a few things to try. First of all, set your slider to Exhaustive for routing, and second, use Shortest instead of fastest. For highway preferrences, pick Neutral or Aviod.

If the program still is attracted to a road that you don't wish to use, try setting a route-through point on the road that you prefer. Sometimes this can result in an even more bizarre routing to include the route-through point, but sometimes this yields the correct route, too...
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Mapopolis support

[Robin2]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, choosing a route-through point did result in a sensible route in this case. It's very easy and convenient to do it from the map. And the maps themselves are the best I have seen. They are the only maps to show the correct names for a few minor side roads near my home location.
With better voices, perhaps I'll persist a little longer!
Robin

[AMG_Roadster]

I just downloaded Mapopolis last night and I am experiencing the same issue. Whether I pick avoid hwy, prefer hwy, exhaustive, shortest or fastest the route does not change much. For some reason Mapoplis has added about 5 extra turns, almost having me make a circle in the route it has provided.

I will play with it some more and see if I can solve the problem.

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