SP3 & Ferry route problem.

[Taff]

Slowly getting used to the SP3, but have come across a problem which must be easy to sort out, but just can't find it in the users manual. This is currently being used with just the basemap -I haven't managed to download info onto the disk yet.

When setting a route to any coastal "city" near a ferry route, eg Angle in Pembrokeshire, the GPS suggests I board the Pembroke -Rosslare ferry (for 4 miles) before getting off the ferry and riding over water to Angle.

I know that GPS treats ferry routes as roads, so changed the settings between "Shortest Route" and "Fastest Route" with no joy. I then tried setting a "Via Point" for a village near Angle - but still no joy. Will I keep getting this problem until I start using the detailed downloaded maps, or can I correct it easily using just the basemap ?

 

[gazza]

Have a look at THIS thread it may help. I had a similar problem but our resident expert Pan explained it in detail.

 

[Taff]

Thanks Gazza. The waypoint symbol is not a problem (although given some of the wierd symbols you can chose, I think it's a bit strange there isn't a symbol for a Ferry Terminal). My problem is that in this case, I don't want anything to do with Ferries. All I want to do, is plot a route between 2 points which are connected by road (one of which just happens to have a Ferry route near it) without the machine telling me to get on a ferry and ride off it in mid crossing. This is obviously wrong, so I can only guess that it is something I'm not doing right.

 

[PanEuropean]

Mr. Evans:

You raise a very good point. The GPSR's give the user the ability to specify 'avoid toll roads', avoid unpaved roads', and so forth, but not the ability to avoid ferries. You are not doing anything wrong, you have identified a shortcoming in the feature set.

The 'avoid unpaved roads' feature was put in there about 18 months ago at the request of the sport-touring motorcycle community. Several of us have also asked for an 'avoid ferries' option, and I have asked that if the automatically calculated route includes a ferry, that the GPSR warn the user of this at the beginning of the route, lest the ferry not be operating when the rider shows up.

The Garmin software engineers are well aware of these requests, and they are normally quite responsive to requests from the motorcycle community. I suspect that they are waiting until Navteq adds additional attributes to the cartographic data to indicate that a particular piece of 'road' is, in fact, a ferry. Right now, some ferries are coded as ferries (e.g. the Drusus, near Lahr, Germany), but some ferries are just coded as 10 mph roadways.

Short answer: It's a cartographic issue, not a GPSR software issue. But, I am optimistic that Garmin will address it within the next year or so, once the cartography allows the software engineers to do what they want to do.

PanEuropean

 

[Taff]

You are not doing anything wrong, you have identified a shortcoming in the feature set.

Thanks, that's put my mind at rest. Am I correct in assuming that the problem of being told to ride off the ferry mid stream, and ride over water to the destination will be eliminated when I use the more detailed downloaded maps, rather than just the built-in basemap?

 

[PanEuropean]

It will be eliminated in some cases, when you move to using high-end cartography (e.g. CityNavigator), but only if the cartography clearly identifies the ferry as a boat, not simply a slow roadway. At present, this is not handled consistently all across Europe, regardless of the quality of the cartography.

By example, in Germany, ferries are always identified as boats, and you get the prompt to board the boat. In Switzerland, where the quality of the cartography is equally high, the ferries are just identified as 'slow roadways' - same as trains that transport cars across some alpine passes. There is no flag (attribute) set that indicates to the GPSR that your vehicle will not be moving under its own power.

So, to fix the problem, two changes need to be made:

1) Cartography needs to be enhanced, and brought to a common standard, and;

2) GPSR software needs to be enhanced to allow the user to specify that they want to avoid alternative forms of vehicle transport.

Probably this will happen in a year to 18 months. It's the cartography that will take a long time to change, not the GPSR software.

PanEuropean

 

[Taff]

Thanks again. Really appreciated.