alas no. It's a combination of Firefox 3 on Suse via the local ClarkConnect firewall . It jbex from windoze via clarkconnect, and from suse via my fobile moan (can't afford too much of that from Zambia, though). but suse via the firewall and the public line sees mainpage as mainpage.bin
Mebbe it has a "most pessimal" setting? The motorway way on that route is far from faster - even according to google maps, with, presumably, standard metrics for the different types of road, it reckons the extra 25 miles takes it up to nearly 2 hours, vs 1 and a half t'other way. In practice, the roads the other way are swifter in places than typical for A roads. Less than half the m/way route is m/way.
On or around Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:56:09 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
route66 has 5 options: car (fastest), car (shortest), lorry (fatsest), lorry (shortest) and pedestrian.
presumably the latter can go the wrong way on one-way streets and can't go on motorways.
There's various tuning options on my main one, such as avoid motorways and certain other things like toll roads, ferries and so on, walking or car, shortest, fastest, and so on, but it would be nice to know what the f*ck "optimised" means! Optimised for what!
Yep, that's the one.
No. It were Maplins, but it don't matter now 'cos the SatNav died a death at the beginning of August.
On or around Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:09:08 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
as I recall, from tuning the route-planning thing on the PC, the biggest effect is gained by altering the speeds for different roads to credible, real-world values. It sends you 80 miles by motorway for a 50 mile journey 'cos it's programmed to allow 70 on motorways but only 40 on single-carriageway ordinary roads, or suchlike - and since they're talking about average speeds, this don't really work, there's not much chance these days to average 70 on motorways, and certainly not if you stick to legal speeds.
On or around Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:43:18 +0100, Sena enlightened us thusly:
for what it's worth, Route66 sends me on the motorway as well. Speeds are probably off.
The "shortest" route is fascinating, uses a whole bunch of minor roads, which would be a rubbish route in practice.
I mostly use " fastest routes" as even though it can send you a few miles out of your way, it takes into account better roads like dual carriageways and you avoid local holdups that, not being from a particular area, you wouldn't otherwise know about, and sometimes I use "avoiding motorways". If I've more time on my hands, such as weekends, I use " shortest routes", which, as Austin says, can be most entertaining. :-) Oh, and still using a Tom Tom 500, never had a problem with it.
Martin
What, of the strain of trying to concoct a route from Bristol to Port Talbot via the second Bosphorus crossing?
This is the old-world approach, sadly still used by the less capable software like garmin, nokia maps and route66, tomtom actually has speed limit data for the roads and while it's not 100% accurate, it's good enough to make its route planning and time estimates quite surprisingly accurate. Barring bad traffic, I usually arrived 5 minutes or so from the predicted tomtom arrival times, whereas with the others it can be half an hour to an hour wrong quite regularly depending on journey types. Now tomtom in the latest software even uses uploaded route traces from other tomtom users to have speed profiles on their servers for stretches of road that are sorted per time of day and day of the week, so times taken by other tomtom users are integrated into the travel time estimates to help avoid blackspots that appear during the weekend get-away or weekday rush-hours. They're far ahead of the rest, shame they're restricted to proprietary hardware. (and yes you can opt out of sending your route data, but that means you don't get to download speed profiles calculated from others' data).
I'm hoping someone will release similarly capable software for the phones, but given the shoddy stuff that's foisted on us at the moment, I don't see anyone who's capable of taking the lead.
When I'm on a motorway I easily average 70 and don't go above 80 (diesel automatic), even on the A303 and M3 during rush-hour I used to take just 75 minutes to travel 66 miles along the A303 and part of the M3 then into basingstoke town centre, I used to do that twice a day 5 days a week and the times rarely varied, and again I never caned it.
Shortest route is for entertainment value only ;-)
On or around Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:57:16 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
yeah, but the speed limits on plain A roads are generally 60 mph, excluding built-up areas, yet I know roads where it's rare to average over 30, and others where, on the same category road, it's possible to average 50. The overall average has little to do with speed limits even if you obey them. I suppose if the map has the data in sufficient detail, it'll know how much of your journey is 30mph rather than 50 or 60, say, and tweak the speeds accordingly.
The "shortest" one on mine takes me through fishboats, and up&down slip roads if the road is curved.
I usually check both, and interpolate between depending on thyme and scenery on route.
Doesn't FWSE maps qb that?
On or around Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:57:50 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
tweaked the speeds a tad, lowered the motorway speeds by about 5mph and the major road one likewise. Mind you, it's got odd names, like "link road". Must look into what they actually mean.
this moved the route a bit, so it's obviously critical. 'course, "avoid motorways" would do it. But then again, I'd only be tempted to use that normally to avoid the M6.
I have very capable Tom Tom software on my phone which links to a Bluetooth GPS receiver in the car (or in my pocket) and I have been very impressed by its accuracy. Its actually far better in many ways than the £1200 built in system the last car had. With the phone clicked into a hands free cradle in the car I get perfect voice directions over the cars speaker system. Only downside is the screen is a little small for reading ETA times etc. Over the internal speaker of the phone it is even loud enough for me to hear the directions in the Land Rover.
Mike
In news:4FEFA9F8A7% snipped-for-privacy@lycos.co.uk, snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net tweaked the Babbage-Engine to tell us:
The one in the motorcar I hired on holibobs recently had a few foibles:
o Tell it to guide you to X with minimum use of freeways and it would tell you to come off at every exit and then rejoin. It would then get snotty if you didn't, and demand that you make a legal U-turn as soon as possible. o Utter failure to believe in the existence of a road clearly visible in both my five year old road atlas and Google Maps. o Trying to send me down a dirt road with ruts deeper than the vehicle's ground clearance, in spite of the system being a Hertz/Magellan joint venture. Hertz do not like you driving their motorcars on dirt roads. o Being totally unable to find the Hertz return area at San Francisco airport!?
Probably a great route for a bicycle.
As I said, it's good enough to make route planning surprisingly accurate. Keep searching for total perfection Austin.
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