Roads and maps ?

[Kenny Rodkiss]

This shows a track log from holls this year heading along the N240 towards Jaca.
Just comparing with google maps seems a bit confused.
What year will google maps be?
My maps are 2013.2 and even they do not match my track log as can be seen in the bottom pic where the track log shows me going North of Liedena and before that I appear to be driving between two roads.?
Please ease my brain cell

 

[Wapping]

You'll see the 'I'm not on the road' track quite often.

Track logs are always a little approximate (based on how many satellites the device can 'see' at any one moment and the simple fact that the Yanks 'detune' the signal, to avoid bad men sending a rogue Cruise into the White House's front door letter box). Sometimes it can be 15 or more metres out. In steep valleys on cloudy days it can lose the signal all but completely, so has to 'guess' where you went between two known but inaccurate points. That could be a reason why it skirts to the north of the town, instead of following what is obviously the main road across the river.

Google maps is taking the rough track and matching it in as closely as it can. Its estimation does not seem too bad.

You'll live

 

[Kenny Rodkiss]

I thought Google maps was actual photography and showed the actual roads not just a rough guess???
If so then why does gps maps show the road splitting into two ?
Assuming one is the newest straightened out road there is no sign of the old road in Google? still

 

[Bumpkin]

The track-log as shown looks very much like a by-pass and judging by the road layout and the town that looks quite likely to me.

Looking at OpenStreetMap there appears to be a whacking great autoroute running though the place following your track-log precisely.

The lead times in getting data to the update, Google maps and the date of satellite images that are uploaded add a considerable delay.

After using OpenStreetMap data on my Nuvi 765T in the hire car on a recent family holiday to the States I'm tempted to use it on my Zumo 660 as well despite having a NuMaps Lifetime subscription for both Nuvi and Zumo. You can get the data from here for loading onto your Garmin and also for use in Mapsource/Basecamp.

OpenStreetMap data is peer generated, peer reviewed and is open source. You can contribute yourself if you find anomalies. Accuracy, in so much as road position, is as good as Garmin data in my experience and in some areas the level of detail is quite a bit better. The accuracy in terms of data reliability, as demonstrated above, is generally much better than Garmin. This is my 2nd posting today with another, also in Spain, having a track in the Garmin data and a proper road in OpenStreetMap. The latter being what was found on the ground. The data includes many way-points for the usual POI stuff. I found in the States that the address searching isn't great, though I usually set-up relevant points for my tours elsewhere anyway. The address searching maybe better for Europe, I'm not sure TBH. Speed limit display was lacking in the US and I assume the same would apply here as well.

 

[Kenny Rodkiss]

Bang on Mr.B, its that A21 bypass road they are building along side the N240.
Google maps say their imagery is 2012 but there aint no sign of any construction work along the bypass route.
Cancel that pish, just seen a water mark on the map tile in google maps, and it's 2009
Would have thought the gps maps would have been more up to date though.
OpenStreetMaps looks good though.

 

[Kenny Rodkiss]

Think I quite like OSM,

Clearly shows that my track log was correct and the road really is there.

Free really up-to-date maps for free..............

 

[Kritou]

OSM also provides up to date mapping on older devices. Earlier this year, even in the remotest areas of Spanish Extremadura, it provided detailed and current data on my Quest. In spite of heavily populated tiles there were no memory problems

There were a few minor issues with routeing around mini roundabouts but nothing that the Mk 1 eyeball couldn't handle

Why bother with hassle and cost of downloading Garmin maps when the OSM offering is free and so easy to install?

 

[Bumpkin]

I had one glitch in the States with it where it jumped from a route to straight line navigation. This was repeatable for the same stretch of road. Everywhere else it was fine, either just using go-to navigation or with pre-planned routes cooked up in Basecamp.

IMHO it's a viable alternative to Garmin data, especially if you have a pre NT mapping model or don't want to pay for the updates.

I would suggest downloading and area that your familiar with and already have some routes for and then recalculating the routes in each and see what differences you get. IIRC there were differences when I tried that as an experiment with some Welsh routes last year.