Re: Magellan RoadMate and Garmin 2610 compared

Curtis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> From further testing it appears Garmin has bowed to commercial
> pressure. IF you have two routes. Route one being the direct route and
> the other being through the long way business district it will always
> choose the business district. I ran a couple of test driving and it
> always picks the business district.

I haven't been able to confirm this, but this would likely be a map issue,
not an autorouting issue since the MapSource map shows the same effect for
the example you provided.  There might be an autorouting algorithm issue
in that it's reluctant to take you off the "current" road in this
circumstance since the two paths appear to be highways.  It's hard to
say, of course.

> > > Greenwood lake to nanuet:
> > > The last one was my favorite. IT told me to go north on rt17 for 6
> > > miles, get on NY thruway travel south  to my exit. You have to
> > > understand that it just had me back track  6 miles as both highways
> > > run side by side.  IF I just took rt 17 south I would cut 12 miles off
> > > the trip.
> .
> > 
> > You mentioned initially that you were getting incorrect overpass handling?
> > Do you have any examples of those?  This is very intriguing.  :)
> > 
> The greenwood lake to Nanuet gives me the error.

Okay...I loaded this puppy into my 2610.  Using the _basemap only_, I got
exactly the behavior you described (though I didn't look at the overpass
issue).  However, when I loaded the Mapsource map region that covers this
journey then generated the route, it ran correctly (no backtracking, etc.)
In fact, you didn't really true backtracking on the highway...the basemap
just had you taking Hwy 17 north to where it intersected I-87.

So...I'd say this problem you had was specifically a basemap issue.  And,
I'd go as far to say that this is not entirely unexpected.  The basemap
is not intended to provide door-to-door routing, optimal routing or,
dare I say it, even accurate routing.  They are there to allow you to
load street detail at the endpoints of your trip, but not have to load
all the interstate and highway regions in between.  You are always going
to get suboptimal, if not outright screwy, routing on the basemap when
you try and do anything more complicated than "go straight".

It could be that your other problems are related to using the basemap vs.
the Mapsource maps.  I will tinker some more, but I think we've got the
Greenwood Lake to Nanuet mystery solved.


Cheers,
-+JLS

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