When setting up the various Activiy Profiles (“Driving”, “Motorcycling”, etc.), Basecamp gives us the option to avoid various types of roads, including “Interstates”, “Major Highways” & “State Highways”. Does anyone know which types of UK and European roads fall within each of these groups as far as Basecamp and Garmin Navigators are concerned?
Base camp Routing avoidances
- Thread starter P248
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From a Google search:
Hardly a great guide, but...
Odd things can happen in BaseCamp. If I manually create a BaseCamp route in the French Alps, taking D roads (sort of like our smaller A roads and larger to medium and sometimes smaller B roads *) and then ask it to exclude 'Interstates' it will sometimes jump me from one D road onto another.
My best tips are:
(a) Create your own routes, don't have some dumb American'ised machine do it for you
(b) If you want to avoid motorways, simply select windy roads (or whatever it's called) but don't moan when it takes you around roundabouts, they are twisty and you can improve your "Prepare to slow but, look to go" skills, so often lacking
(c) Create some routes for yourself and select or de-select the routing options..... see what happens and try to work out what the names mean and (much more importantly) what selecting them or not, does and does not do. Play about, you can't break it
* You see how difficult an exact correlation is. You just have to sort of 'know' what the roads are like or use imagination. What do you think an Interstate would be like, if your best and just about correct answer would get you out from in front of a firing squad, when the officer had ordered "Ready! Aim!......." I bet you could think of something.....
Hardly a great guide, but...
Odd things can happen in BaseCamp. If I manually create a BaseCamp route in the French Alps, taking D roads (sort of like our smaller A roads and larger to medium and sometimes smaller B roads *) and then ask it to exclude 'Interstates' it will sometimes jump me from one D road onto another.
My best tips are:
(a) Create your own routes, don't have some dumb American'ised machine do it for you
(b) If you want to avoid motorways, simply select windy roads (or whatever it's called) but don't moan when it takes you around roundabouts, they are twisty and you can improve your "Prepare to slow but, look to go" skills, so often lacking
(c) Create some routes for yourself and select or de-select the routing options..... see what happens and try to work out what the names mean and (much more importantly) what selecting them or not, does and does not do. Play about, you can't break it
* You see how difficult an exact correlation is. You just have to sort of 'know' what the roads are like or use imagination. What do you think an Interstate would be like, if your best and just about correct answer would get you out from in front of a firing squad, when the officer had ordered "Ready! Aim!......." I bet you could think of something.....
You could if you wished create a route using basecamp from one end of the country to another with no avoidancies set, and then look at the roads it puts you on, and then select an avoidance or different activity profile to see how the route alters and so on, this should give you a rough idea of how the avoidances or profile changes things.
Long winded i know but gives you a yard stick to work with.
Long winded i know but gives you a yard stick to work with.
I have tried setting routes and changing selections but the results are inconsistent. Since my original post I’ve asked the Garmin help desk, and they don’t know the correlation to UK roads; they’ve referred the question to their development engineers!
I’ll report back here if I get anything more from them.
I’ll report back here if I get anything more from them.
If the results are inconsistent, it really doesn’t matter what the correlation (if any) is between Garmin’s idea as to what a US road title is and that of a UK road. What is it you are trying to get BaseCamp to do by ticking or unticking the avoidances?
If it’s just to create routes guaranteed to avoid motorways, where BaseCamp creates them for you, I’d suggest using your Garmin device (which has an avoid motorways option) then send it to BaseCamp. From there, amend or edit it at will. All in all, it’s just about quickest to create routes yourself, with all the avoidances turned off or just restricted to a very few.
If it’s just to create routes guaranteed to avoid motorways, where BaseCamp creates them for you, I’d suggest using your Garmin device (which has an avoid motorways option) then send it to BaseCamp. From there, amend or edit it at will. All in all, it’s just about quickest to create routes yourself, with all the avoidances turned off or just restricted to a very few.
Fair enough, Wapping, what you suggest makes good sense.
But in case it’s of any interest to anyone, I may have a little bit fore info’. Nothing more from Garmin yet, but I have been doing some more playing with Basecamp. I’m coming to the conclusion that the “Major Highways” selection is the one that causes the most inconsistencies in routing. On some routes it seems to allow the use of motorways for nearly the full route but on others it forces the route to very minor roads, excluding motorways, dual carriageways, and major A roads. When selected to calculate a journey from where I live in Hertfordshire to the NEC, it produced a route the included a complete circle around Oxford, crossing itself again before heading north to Birmingham. Yet when it calculated a journey from home to the north of Scotland the route used the M1, A1, A1(M) etc. all the way north. Selecting “Interstates” keeps the route off motorways, and “State Highways” seems to allow motorways but not major A roads, most of the time. These two options seem to produce more consistent results over a variety of tests.
In conclusion, until I hear something definitive from Garmin I’ll avoid selecting “Major Highways” when using Basecamp.
But in case it’s of any interest to anyone, I may have a little bit fore info’. Nothing more from Garmin yet, but I have been doing some more playing with Basecamp. I’m coming to the conclusion that the “Major Highways” selection is the one that causes the most inconsistencies in routing. On some routes it seems to allow the use of motorways for nearly the full route but on others it forces the route to very minor roads, excluding motorways, dual carriageways, and major A roads. When selected to calculate a journey from where I live in Hertfordshire to the NEC, it produced a route the included a complete circle around Oxford, crossing itself again before heading north to Birmingham. Yet when it calculated a journey from home to the north of Scotland the route used the M1, A1, A1(M) etc. all the way north. Selecting “Interstates” keeps the route off motorways, and “State Highways” seems to allow motorways but not major A roads, most of the time. These two options seem to produce more consistent results over a variety of tests.
In conclusion, until I hear something definitive from Garmin I’ll avoid selecting “Major Highways” when using Basecamp.
The Garmin helpdesk came back to me today. I'm not sure whether it really clarifies things any further, but thanks to to them for digging a bit deeper. Anyway, for what it's worth this is what they told me:
"We have been able to look into this with the help of our cartography team.
They have advised that "interstates" are controlled access highways, and they are always dual carriageways.
Motorways are interstates.
There are also some high-functioning controlled access dual carriageways without the motorway shield that will be avoided as if they were motorways should motorways be set to avoid.
"Major highways" are mostly NOT controlled access but ARE primarily dual carriageways.
State highways are usually single or dual carriageways but are NOT controlled access."
"We have been able to look into this with the help of our cartography team.
They have advised that "interstates" are controlled access highways, and they are always dual carriageways.
Motorways are interstates.
There are also some high-functioning controlled access dual carriageways without the motorway shield that will be avoided as if they were motorways should motorways be set to avoid.
"Major highways" are mostly NOT controlled access but ARE primarily dual carriageways.
State highways are usually single or dual carriageways but are NOT controlled access."
Well, that’s as clear as mud. No wonder that the results, when applied in the UK, are inconsistent.
Lord only knows what happens when they are applied to routes and roads outside of the UK. Use whatever settings you like, I’m going to stick with avoiding the use of avoidances.
Lord only knows what happens when they are applied to routes and roads outside of the UK. Use whatever settings you like, I’m going to stick with avoiding the use of avoidances.
Garmin helpdesk two words that should not be used in the same sentence.
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