Mapsource and winter closure of alpine passes

HMR said:

Something is weird here! Why can't I recreate the problems with routing through winter closed passes on my computer? Must be something with the setup?

Michael (Pan) do you have any ideas?

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Can you tell me which routes you have replicated and post a screen shot here?
If you can not post a screen shot because of whatever reason, please post
the route you have been testing, start point, end point and your settings. I very much appreciate your expertise and involvement.
Egon

'rubber band' feature

Can someone please explain how to do/use the 'rubber band' feature on Mapsource.

Thanks

finesse said:

Can someone please explain how to do/use the 'rubber band' feature on Mapsource.

Thanks

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I had the same problem last week, couldn't find the bloody thing...

Here you go:

PanEuropean said:

OK, I comprehend your problem now.

To 'rubber band' a route, do the following:

1) Create a simple route from A to B.

2a) With your mouse, click on the tool that looks like a little arrowhead, or;
2b) Go to the TOOLS menu and select the line that says 'Selection', or;
2c) Simply touch the 'S' key on the keyboard (not Control-S or Alt-S or anything else, just simply the letter 'S').
It doesn't matter which of the three methods you use, the end result is the same.

3) Now, click once on the route - it will change colour - then click on the place that you want to 'rubber band' it to.

See illustration 2 and 3 on the previous page of this thread - that is what things will look like after you have clicked on the route with the selection tool.

Michael

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From a forum in Germany I hear now that route calculation considers quite a lot of info when calculating, winter closure being only one of them. Others might be if the route starts north and does go south or the other way around.
Apparently it makes for a difference from which side you come in some cases, with the CN family of maps choosing the long way around when coming from the north but hopping over the pass when coming from the south. Which probably explains the Stilfser Joch findings. I have to check.

The thing I do not like is that these winter closure tags are there all year around. So my Quest 1 has got this habit now as well.

If this is really so, should there not be a warning on the DVD reading

‘This product helps you to find the shortest (distance) and fastest (time) route from A to B. This unique feature does not work in the Alps’

or something similar?

Der Lustenauer said:

Can you tell me which routes you have replicated and post a screen shot here?
If you can not post a screen shot because of whatever reason, please post
the route you have been testing, start point, end point and your settings. I very much appreciate your expertise and involvement.
Egon

Click to expand...

I haven't had time to dig deeper into this but one detail worth mentioning is that I'm using my database of 100+ passes all the time. This means that when I plan routes in the alps I just select the passes I want to go through. This way of planning the alp routes just don't leave any options for MapSource to fcuk things up?

Given time I will dig deeper into this and see if I can find any reasons for the problems people are reporting.

HMR said:

Given time I will dig deeper into this and see if I can find any reasons for the problems people are reporting.

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It seems to be a road quality issue. Probably bugs in the road quality information (or permitted vehicle type information) in the map data.

I tested a few places in the Dolomites where I have seen the problem and noticed:

- I'ts not related to winter closure.
- It's not related to if it is a road through a pass or not.
- Sometimes it's related to map version - but not always.

- If I change vehicle type to "bicycle" the problem is gone!

What I have learnt now so far (or, better, what I believe to have learnt).
Map providers are putting more and more info into their maps.
CN8 uses more of this info than CS7.
One bit of info (or tag) for a particular road might be winter closure.
One might be that the road is in the shade of a mountain (north, more snow and for a longer time).
Clever stuff!!
MapSource has no concept of seasons as Garmin is struggling to put that into its routing algorithms (since years I hear).
So MapSource thinks, safe is safe, I ignore your quickest and fastest settings, and goes the long way around if it sees these tags on the shortest route.
Garmin struggles to make these tags switchable (surely everybody will want that in preferences).
I hope now that my Quest is using different routing software which ignores these particular tags so that the Quest is just doing as good a job as it has done with CS7.
I believe now that CN8 on a GPS together with routing software which reads these tags will never give me accurate shortest or quickest routes until it learns about seasons. If so, I prefer these tags not to be there as in CS7, but would still like the updated roads. Michael, what is the all singing and dancing new blue one doing in these cases?

Hello Everyone:

Sorry to have been away from the forum, but I am in Sudan now (will be in Africa until the end of the month) and I have very little internet access - and what I do have is painfully slow.

Anyway - I'm not going to try and answer all your questions about alpine pass routing at a 'detailed' level, because that would take forever to do. Plus (and this is the key point), it wouldn't be productive for either you or me.

I am sure all of you will appreciate that both MapSource and the cartography are designed for use by motorists who generally want to take the best (translation = most trouble-free) route from A to B. Alpine passes are sure as heck not trouble-free: They are closed many months of the year, sometimes closed with no notice even in June or September, they are full of hairpin turns and they have very slow average travel speeds. For that reason, MapSource (and the GPSRs themselves) use the alpine passes as 'routes of last resort', only when it is not possible to route the driver through a tunnel.

For us oddballs, who look at mountain passes as the holy grail - all we have to do is try to be a bit less anal-retentive in how we use MapSource and how we use the GPSR. Heck, I spend 6 months every year in Switzerland, ride the passes as often as I can, and I don't have troubles with routes through the passes. Here's why:

1) I set up a route that will take me from my point of origin (say, Zurich) to a village that is about 10 miles or kilometers past the entry point of the pass. That kind of route will always calculate without problems.

2) Once I get to that point, I look up the name of a town on the other side of the pass, and tell the GPSR that I want to go there. It will sometimes propose that I turn around and go back through the tunnel, but if I keep riding along the pass, after about 3 recalculations, it will figure out that I want to go through the pass, and then provide me with directional guidance through the pass (like, as if I need it - who can get lost on a mountain pass)?

3) If you have really long dark winter nights where you live, and nothing else to do with your time than make mountain pass routes, sure, you can force MapSource to take you through a pass. It's easy. Just create a route with a start and end point on either side of the pass (for example, Helsinki on the north side, and Palermo on the south side), let MapSource calculate the route, then rubber band the route through the pass (while working at a high zoom level) until it conforms to the path you want to take.

4) Another strategy - use the route tool to create a route by clicking on a start point, then clicking at different points along the pass (say, once very 5 miles or so) until you get finished and out the other side of the pass.

Really, though, it's kind of silly to look at this as a shortcoming of MapSource - 99.5% of the people who use MapSource or GPSRs never, ever want to get routed through a mountain pass, and the software designers are well aware of that.

As for us - fer' Pete's sake, just route yourself into the beginning of the pass (like I said in point 1, above), then ride the pass, and when you come out the other end, select the town you want to go to and tell the GPSR to take you there. Honestly, who needs routing in a pass? It's like a Channel Tunnel train driver saying he needs routing to get to the other side. He might want to know where he is along the tunnel (and our GPSRs will show us that, even with no route active), but he needs route guidance like a fish needs a bicycle.

Michael

This whole discussion has made me reflect about what I need and what I do not want or need. And I learnt why certain things happened.

I do think it is very easy to travel the Alps by bike. You look up on a map where you want to go, a couple of notes in large letters on a piece of paper taped to the tank and off you go. Even the map could stay at home. Signage is very, very good and the danger of getting lost minimal. This applies to all roads which are designed by traffic planers for the passing through traffic. Wherever there is a tunnel underneath a pass, there is a sign which leads you up to it. One will rarely miss it.

Knowing the area quite well I want every now and then to explore one of the little roads which run parallel to the main ones in the valleys. They are a bit higher up, smaller, little traffic (frequented by the locals mostly) but they have very little signs (signs will point you to the next village but not in the general direction I want to head to, Italy for example, or St. Gotthard).
They have very little signs as the locals do not need them, traffic planers and locals alike do not want them as it would only increase traffic, noise and pollution.
So I need at least a good resolution map if I want to go there , and get lost sometimes if I do not stop regularly and check the map.

So since last year I am using the Quest1 with CS7.
With MapSource and CS7 I make a little route there where I want to explore. These are rarely longer than 20-30 km and run parallel to the main roads but have in-between other roads leading to the main one. Easy done in CS7. 2 Clicks normally (Start, End). Considerable more hassle with CN8 as it tries o get me away from there to the main road, working against me.
Then I just route to the start of that little route, ignoring the Quest till I get near it, follow it till I hit the main road again where I start ignoring it again.
Sometimes I do it on the Quest itself as I spontaneously decide to go somewhere whilst on a trip. Most times easy done.

That’s me, travelling.

Now me planning during the long dark winter nights.

I do not now the French Alps that well. I want to ride the Maira Stuara Ridgeway and the Assietta Ridgeway in the Piemont (Italy). Old military roads up in 2000 m hight; gravel; no maintenance; for 4x4s or nice bikes only. Not in CS7 or CN8. No problem, I only need the waypoint where the road turns off.

I want to get an idea how long it will take me to get there. For that I want routing software which will give me the shortest route (shortest distance! Accurate please). I do not want one which pretends to do so whilst getting me around the long way without telling me, as CN8 does.
Once I have that I decide if I do go there in a day or in 2. If 2 days I probably tweak the route a little bit, include this or that or the other. I spend a bit of time with it, mostly reading travel guides about the area.

Everywhere in the Alps traffic is increasing. Especially unnecessary traffic. Motorbikes are unnecessary traffic. When one is in some of the popular valleys on weekends on a nice sunny day, all you here is loud cans, full throttle to the redline. Sound travels quite strangely there, you can here it all along the valley. People living there don’t like that. Lots of roads are getting closed on weekends for motorbikes.

There is a possibility that this newest generation of Satellite Navigation is designed with all this in mind. Which would be a good thing! Locals and traffic planers would be pleased. So they should.

The most trouble free route from A to B for the 99.5 % according to MapSource and CN8 will also be the busiest. That is where traffic jam warnings are handy; it actually helps to distribute the traffic there then differently.
So the traffic jam will be shorter. All this makes a bit more sense to me now.

My little bike has a very quite can and a Kat, I ride it as much as I can in a way so that the impact of my riding in that very sensible environment is as small as possible.

I started this thread as I could not understand the different behaviour of CN8 around passes with winter closures..
I have learnt a lot and stick with my Quest 1 and CS7 for a while. It is certainly the best for my requirements.

Egon

Posted a link to this forum/thread in the 2 forums which have been very helpful to me whilst finding out about my little problem. Hope you guys do not mind a little bit of passing through traffic, saves me double posting of everything said here.

Der Lustenauer said:

...With MapSource and CS7 I make a little route there where I want to explore. These are rarely longer than 20-30 km and run parallel to the main roads but have in-between other roads leading to the main one. Easy done in CS7. 2 Clicks normally (Start, End).
Considerable more hassle with CN8 as it tries to get me away from there to the main road, working against me.

Click to expand...

Hello Egon:

Ah-ha - the sentence I have highlighted in blue is the key to comprehending everything.

The cartography itself (CN or CS 7 vs. CN 8) has nothing - nothing at all - to do with routing. All the cartography consists of is a database of vectors that represent the roads - this we see on the screen of the GPSR or the computer - and a set of 'street attributes' for every road that detail the nature of the road - its size, width, speed limits, number of stop signs, type of surface, and so forth. The cartography has no intelligence at all, so far as routing is concerned.

The question of which roads are chosen when a user asks either the GPSR or the MapSource application to automatically construct a route is determined by the 'routing preferences' settings in the MapSource application, or the 'advanced avoidance' settings in the GPSR.

So, if you were able to get the kind of results you wanted from version 7 of the cartography, you should be able to get the exact same kind of results from version 8 or version 9, assuming that the roads you are interested in were not deleted from the cartographic database - an unlikely possibility.

To solve your problem, go have a very close look at how you have set your routing preferences up. Keep in mind that you have more choices available to you, so far as preferences go, in the newer versions of MapSource and with the newer software releases for the GPSR. It is quite possible that your problem might be as simple as having the 'avoid unpaved roads' box checked, or having routing preferences set to prefer major roads. It's difficult to set preferences up to 'prefer passes' because passes are usually neither shorter nor faster than tunnels. But - what you might want to do is take advantage of all the new technology in MapSource and the GPSR to work in a way that might not be immediately apparent:

Just go to the 'Avoidances' section of the GPSR or MapSource, and mark off the tunnel (the primary route that 99.5% of the drivers take) as a 'custom avoid' area - the same way people mark off ghettos, etc. in major urban areas as custom avoids. Now, the GPSR will know that it cannot use that tunnel no matter what - so, if you set your preferences to 'shortest route', the pass will probably be the shortest way from A to B if the tunnel is disqualified, and a route through the pass will be presented to you as the first possibility. The same rationale goes for highways... if you told the GPSR you wanted to go from London to Edinburgh, but you disqualified the A1 / M1 by listing it as a 'custom avoid' - you would get routed along the secondary roads all the way.

Michael

With all due respect Michael
all my settings have been posted further up in this thread (settings picture). They have not been changed at all during my comparisons between CS7 and CN8. However, I did do what you suggested over and over and could not find any change in the final results, and I know it is about how the data is interpreted, going down further in prefering minor roads does not change the result nor do speed settings, show me an example where it would change things in my findings. You explained it with Garmin (CN8) not catering for me. And even worse, in the 0.5 % Garmin does not cater for, I am probably in a minority, no bad feelings about that. I do not regret having bought CN8 or anything else, I am simply glad that the strange behavior of CN8 when compared to CS7 and other routing products got explained to me. I have learned a lot and I am greatful for it. And I truly love your expertise, truly, no joke.
Would love to have a coffee with you sometime, Lustenau - Zuerich is a stones throw after all, at least with your humble VW.
Egon

Hi Egon:

The humble VW is in Canada - I don't think I could afford to feed that W12 in Europe.

Do try designating a portion of the tunnel route (or motorway route) through the pass as a 'custom avoid', and let us know what results you get. I kind of suspect that might be the magic bullet for you. You don't have to be too precise about what part of the roadway you designate as the custom avoid - just enough of it to ensure that there is no other way through the pass other than the smaller road that you want to be selected. In other words, just block off a mile or so of the tunnel or main motorway, that should do the job.

Your GPSR (and MapSource) will remember your 'custom avoids' from cycle to cycle, so, you only have to do this once, and you will benefit from it for all future routes you plan.

I'll try to get in touch with you when I get back to Europe - right now I am in Darfur.

Michael

With all due respect,
the Phaethon is designed for Europe,
the rest
looks like damage control to me.
Would love to discuss these issues with you in Darfur, never been there, (G&T anyone?).
Anyway, my F650 will make it to Zuerich in 45 minutes (CS7 not CN8 obviously, can you beat that on the Pan with CN8?).

PS:
I am straight, married, one daughter, so no worries!

Egon:

I just tried what I suggested to you, using CN 8 and MapSource 6.10.2. Here are the results.

I created a simple route through a pass, and as could be expected, the auto-calculation took me through a tunnel. I then redlined the tunnel by going to Preferences/Routing/Advanced and defining it as a custom avoid. I then invoked a recalculation, and the route took me through the mountain pass.

Pictures are below.

Michael

A couple of bottles of nice Australian Riesling (can not afford the Austrian one over here, similar story than the thirst of your VW probably) have kicked in nicely and you show me a picture of a screen shot of MapSource I have never seen. I am running (let me check) 6.10.2. Where do I find........, allright, got it. Let me get sober again, can you please have a word with the guys writing Garmins Manuals in the meantime (I do normally the quick and dirty approach, but then refer later on to reading the manuals when having problems, this is not in mine, is it? better check!!!! And do some testing.)................I will be back! (old Austrian saying). Hasta la vista.

There is a bit of a misunderstanding her and it probably does not help that you Michael do not have CS7 (and probably have not seen it in years).
I am pleased that CN8 (and CS7) route through the tunnel. No problem with that. So no reason for going into advanced mode.

Let me explain.

I understand the routing option ‘shortest route’ as in ‘give me a route where I have to ride as little km (miles) as possible’. That’s it, nothing else!

CS7 is doing exactly that. I am pleased! It does it in MapSource and in my Quest.

In CN8 ‘shortest route’ as in defined above has been replaced with ’safest and easiest short route’ (as you said earlier on, mountain passes only as last resort) which requires me then to look for the shortest ( in km, miles) route myself.
That it does in MapSource and in my Quest (I kind of hoped that the Quest would not be able to use all the additional info CN8 has).

In the ‘quickest route’ routing option I would allow for all of it, easiest, safest you name it.

For what I need in a GPSR CN8 is a step backward. I have to stick with CS7 in the alps as sad as it is to miss out on the new roads. And I can not have the Quest2 with the nice custom POI’s (speed cameras) as it uses CN8.

What I would love from Garmin is to reinstate the ‘shortest route’ option as it was.

PS Michael, Darfur does not sound like a holiday destination. How are things there if you do not mind me asking?

Pictures.
Route input: Gaschurn; Bormio;
Shortest route from CN8: 264 km
Shortest route from CS7: 181 km
The Quest shows the same with the different map families.

The "Custom Avoids" works great - but not for me since I distribute my routes to many users and I haven't found any way to distribute the Custom Avoids.

Also, the most efficient solution in the Alps seems to be to use Vehicle Type = Bicycle since this makes MapSource select the same roads independent of map version. But also this setup is something I can't distribute....

The only solution that works for me is to nail the route onto the preferred road using a few extra road waypoints.

Der Lustenauer said:

...In CN8 ‘shortest route’ as in defined above has been replaced with ’safest and easiest short route’ (as you said earlier on, mountain passes only as last resort) which requires me then to look for the shortest ( in km, miles) route myself...

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Egon:

I am sorry, I really don't know what you are talking about. To the best of my knowledge the specifications for 'shortest route' and 'fastest route' have not changed, and you are writing statements (such as the one quoted above) that have no basis in fact whatsoever.

Route construction is done by either the application (MapSource) or the GPSR software - NOT by the cartography! The cartography is only a database of information about the road network. There is nothing for Garmin to 'reinstate', because no changes have been made to the application or the GPSR software!

There are numerous factors that affect what roadways are chosen when a route is created. Among them (this list is not exhaustive) are the following:

1) User Specification of 'shortest' or 'fastest' (note that a mountain pass will almost always be neither of the above).
2) Vehicle type specified (car, truck, bus, etc.)
3) Routing preferences such as avoid toll roads, avoid gravel roads, etc. Be aware that all the tunnels in CH are toll roads.
4) Quality of the road for use when compared to the alternatives available.

I've shown you how to accomplish what you want to accomplish. I used CN 7 for over a year, and CN 7 has the same road database and road attributes as CS7, so no need for you to take shots. Heck, I live in CH in the summer, and ride the passes every chance I get. I have never had problems setting up routes through them.

I'm out of this discussion now, it has become circular.

Michael