Odd behaviour when deviating from device route

[RSInterloper]

As usual, apologies if this has already been noted. My XT is up to date with 2024.20 maps etc. Yesterday I was in Hereford and decided to nip over to Cotswold Motorrad. During a quick stop at the side of the road I typed in Cheltenham as the destination. I had fastest route on and auto-recalculate turned off.

On setting off, I followed the nice magenta line with directions down through Much Birch etc to Ross on Wye. At the roundabout there it was clear that the Zumo was going to take me up to the M50, which I didn't want, so I took the turning for the A40. As soon as I hit the A40 the magenta line disappeared and no more directions were given. Fair enough I thought, I have auto-recalculate turned off. However, a few miles along the Zumo suddenly announced "Roadworks reported on the M50, you are on the fastest route". Still no directions however. Another few miles further on I decided to set the destination as Cotswold Motorrad, rather than just Cheltenham. The Zumo then asked if I wanted to add it to the Active Route or a few other options - which I thought was odd as I didn't seem to have an "Active Route", at least as far as directions were concerned. I added it anyway and carried on, still with no directions until at the very last roundabout at the entrance to Cheltenham the Zumo appeared to wake up and suddenly directed me to the turning and roundabouts down to Cotswold.

Is this usual behaviour? I've been using Garmins for many years and can't say I noticed anything like this before.

 

[wilbjr21]

Did you zoom out on the map to see what your calculated route actually was before you set off?

 

[Wapping]

There’s lots of things going on in the opening post.

Let’s try to deal with some of them in some sort of order if we can.

1. The device created you a route from Hereford to Cheltenham. That much is good to know.

2. The route crested by the device, chose to route you down the M50. As, I assume you do not have ‘Avoid motorways’ turned on as a preference, the selection of the M50 by the device is perhaps not too unreasonable.

3. At the roundabout, you decided to ignore the device’s instruction to take the M50 but instead took the A40, That too is fine.

4. You have recalculation turned off, so no recalculation took place. That is fine.

5. Apparently you did not stop the route the device was running or at least you haven’t told us thst you did. That, if so, is fine, too. But as the route has not been stopped, it will have kept running in the background, simply the instructions will cease. It is pointless the device saying, make a U-turn or some such (even if it could) as you have told the device you do not want to recalculate and, not least, you have ‘told it’ (not in so many words) that you’ve decided to go down the A40. In short, going off-route, with auto-recalculation turned off, does not stop a route running.

6. Behind the scenes, you have ‘traffic’ or whatever the damned function is called * running. Over the ether, it receives a message that the M40 is slow (ithe device still thinks you might be heading to the M40) but that the road you are on - the A40 - is now the fastest way anyway to your destination, Cheltenham.

7. You then decided not to go to Cheltenham but to the very specific location of a motorcycle dealership. That is fine. You typed in or selected the location, all fine.

8. The device still has your original Hereford to Cheltenham route running. Or at least you haven’t told us that you ever stopped it.

9. The device then asks, not impolitely, do you want to go:

i. From where you are now to Cheltenham (as that was where you’d ask me to take you on the route that is still active) and then to the dealership, or

ii. To the dealership and then Cheltenham, or

iii. Do I (the device) forget about Cheltenham completely, and now take you straight to the dealership

It might have asked you some other ‘stuff’ to but that might not matter, as you can’t (not unreasonably) now remember.

In short, the device is not a mind reader


* That’s another function I have turned off, as its bleatings only serve to annoy and confuse.

 

[RSInterloper]

OK thanks for the comprehensive reply - I understand that it was mostly user error, in not cancelling the original route, but what was puzzling me was that it gave no directions at all until I was almost at the destination, and then suddenly appeared to "wake up". In reply to the first question, no I hadn't zoomed out to look at the original route, but when I hit the Ross roundabout it was definitely routing me up to the M50. Interesting that it thought that route, which involves going north and then back down the M5, was the fastest. Guess it didn't realise I was on my Classic 350 either

 

[Wapping]

As regards the routing via the motorway, it might well depend on where in Hereford you were sitting and where to Cheltenham the device chose to end its A to B route.

I have just mucked about in MyRoute (different software, different algorithms, I admit) where, just by moving the destination in Cheltenham around (sometimes by not very far) the suggested routing alters completely. Mix in that you have traffic assistance active, might alter things, too.

The XT will sometimes offer choices when it dishes up A to B routes. Did you see a choice? No great matter if you canot remember or if it did or didn’t. it might though be something to look out for in the future.

As to no instructions, that can be down to a variety of reasons. Too many to guess here.

 

[RSInterloper]

At the time I was in a huge queue of traffic heading into Hereford and just did a quick stop at a bus stop to type in Cheltenham (should have used Motorcycle Locations and got Cotswold directly) and set off on the route it came up with - which very handily took me out of the traffic at the next right turning. I seldom use the Zumo in this way as I usually only use it for routes imported from Basecamp. When I feel like playing around I'll try it again out on the road and take some time to see what it's doing. Thanks again.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

As regards the routing via the motorway, it might well depend on where in Hereford you were sitting and where to Cheltenham the device chose to end its A to B route.

I have just mucked about in MyRoute (different software, different algorithms, I admit) where, just by moving the destination in Cheltenham around (sometimes by not very far) the suggested routing alters completely. Mix in that you have traffic assistance active, might alter things, too.

The XT will sometimes offer choices when it dishes up A to B routes. Did you see a choice? No great matter if you canot remember or if it did or didn’t. it might though be something to look out for in the future.

As to no instructions, that can be down to a variety of reasons. Too many to guess here.

However you shouldn’t have to use a 3rd party app (MRA) to create a route
The XT should be able to create a route on it’s own accord on the hoof at the roadside or at home/cafe - subject to how you have set your preferences in the GPS
It doesn’t and shouldn’t be so hard

 

[Berin]

However you shouldn’t have to use a 3rd party app (MRA) to create a route
The XT should be able to create a route on it’s own accord on the hoof at the roadside or at home/cafe - subject to how you have set your preferences in the GPS
It doesn’t and shouldn’t be so hard

It does, and it isn’t hard. Just do an A-B route, choose your preferences in terms of route type, then add waypoints by searching or shaping points with your finger.

But if you want a specific route, it’s always going to be easier to construct it on a device with a bigger screen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wapping]

However you shouldn’t have to use a 3rd party app (MRA) to create a route
The XT should be able to create a route on it’s own accord on the hoof at the roadside or at home/cafe - subject to how you have set your preferences in the GPS
It doesn’t and shouldn’t be so hard

Relax, mum.

I used MyRoute, simply as I am away from home and can fire it up on my iPad. It was as experiment, nothing more, to see how (just by moving the start and finish points a little) the routing altered. It did. No doubt the same will happen with the OP.

The OP’s device did create him a route. He then, by choice, deviated off it (with auto-recalculation turned off) but he left the route running.

Had he:

a. Not deviated, all would no doubt have been well.

b. Had he have set his preferences to exclude motorways, then no doubt the device woukd not have routed him down one. All then would have been well, too.

User error crept in, not least when he was confused by the choices presented to him, when he amended the running route.

Why he lost voice / navigation instructions? There are several possible reasons and I can’t be bothered to start guessing. The most obvious one is that recalculation was off, so the device will stop talking to him when he is off route.

 

[RSInterloper]

Exactly so. All I really needed was a route to get me quickly out of Hereford, as I am not very familiar with the town, and onto the road towards Ross, as I know the way from there. It did that admirably. After my deviant behaviour I didn't need instructions but was puzzled by the ones I did get.

 

[Greg Masters]

I'm not clear why you would want auto recalculate to be switched off. Had it been on, the GPS would have had a couple of goes to get you back on the best route (for the routing parameters you have set and its knowledge of your riding speeds) before giving up and recalculating afresh.

 

[Wapping]

In all the years I have had and used GPS devices, I have never used the auto-recalculate function. I rarely, if ever, ask the device to give me A to B routes, where auto-recalculate would make perfect sense, not least as the route was automatically created and calculated by the device in the first place. I create my own routes and, should I go off route for whatever reasons (road closures or making a simple mistake most commonly) I generally trust myself to get back ’on route’ by simply using the display like a conventional map. In short, I prefer to be in charge of the device, rather than it being in charge of me.

Is my method ‘perfect’? No of course not. However, it does remove one of the variables which so bedevils some correspondents to these pages.

Horses for courses, I guess.

 

[Wapping]

Road closures, when I can be bothered to look for them, I find easiest to check for using this method:

Not allowing routing down a road - A possibly useful side effect

Last night I was creating a route for possible use in November. A part of the route included taking the D643 ring road south underneath Cambrai. It’s a road I know well and have used lots of times. For some unknown reason MyRoute would not allow me to route along it, it was always routing me...

www.ukgser.com

MyRoute’s HERE maps does have (in the Gold version) an overlay to show traffic / closures. However, Google’s traffic in Google maps is much more accurate and useful as (unlike HERE’S) it is more up-to-date and is not limited to just the larger trunk roads.

 

[Barnoe]

Its a good point regarding MRA
I have planned routes too and when I've checked them noticed a weird bit that looks to be taking me away from something or long way round.

So I stick another waypoint in, sometimes more and force it to route it..... then on the trip find out its a road closure

So the advice is, if it doesn't route as expected... LEAVE it lol

 

[Wapping]

Indeed, so.

If you place a point inside a road that MyRoute knows to be closed, it will (when it creates the route) try to do its best to route to to it.mYou can see this in this in action in the link in post #13.

You can also see the problem on Garmin devices. For example, when a bod running along a route, comes across a road closure. Many people think that the device will automatically route them around it when they go off-route to avoid the closure, probably by following diversion signs. They then get frustrated when the device reroutes automatically but sometimes recalculates to bring them straight back into the road works further along. This of course is the device’s fault