Correct and complete updating of OLD address info.....

[BadmintonSwinger]

1.Will someone please advise WHEN TomTom will actually update their UK (England specifically) maps properly. I am fed up with being presented with missing or incomplete address details.

2. Furthermore, how come when you enter an ESTABLISHED address, only to find TT cannot accomodate it; yet when you enter a postcode,for the same address, the correct details ARE present! (Vice versa can apply)

3. I'm not talking of recent new addresses. I'm talking of locations that have been around for years!

4. Does anyone know long does it take to update speed restriction info from inception by the highways agency?

5. Live Traffic. Is this really worth the money when so little info seems to be forthcoming to allow drivers an informed choice of what next to do?

All answers on the back of a fag.......Thanks in advance

 

[canderson]

1) TomTom updates their maps quarterly. Whether they're catching problems in your area is another question.
2) Street addresses and postcodes are separately coded. In fact, postcodes are in entirely separate files that accompany the map data. They got one wrong and the other right, it would seem.
3) Yes, it happens. Have you reported it to TomTom before? Without reports, they don't often get round to fixing things.
4) No idea on that. Someone back in Belgium acquires all kinds of governmental data, but I'm sure there are bits they don't get. Again, something that can be reported by users for correction.
5) Depends upon where you drive. Live traffic can be incredibly helpful in areas where there is a good bit of road coverage occurring.

To see how much traffic coverage you are getting in your driving areas, you can go to http://www.routes.tomtom.com/ and take a look around. Stop in during a 'rush hour' and you'll no doubt see most of it, but stopping at different times and days will reveal the larger pattern.

To report problems with map errors, give this a try: http://www.tomtom.com/mapshare/tools/ Seems to take them about 9 months to roll these changes out into released maps, though.

 

[BadmintonSwinger]

Hi Canderson,
Thanks for the courtesy of your prompt response.
'Fit for purpose' springs to mind!
I'm waiting for someone/company to provide a complete product. UK maps (Ordnance/Google etc) have been around for years. TomTom have had enough time to at least to be up to date within six months and they're not. Why should I work to inform them. I pay serious dosh for them to do their job properly.
I drive around the UK quite extensively. If I didn't do my job properly, there would be repercussions. Cumon TomTom, get your act together!
Thanks again Canderson.

 

[canderson]

Wish I could give you better news. We find that in some areas, things are updated quite promptly. Most of the laggards seem to be in more rural areas. The 'crowdsourced' approach to map corrections remains one of their tools for now. Note that apart from the addition of roads, many changes can be performed on your own unit for your own use, regardless of whether they are shared with the community. The only caveat is that corrections to speeds are not used in the calculation of ETA.

The two major mappers in the PND business (NavTeq and Teletatlas/TomTom) are stronger in some areas, and weaker in others. In my area, I have better luck with timely updates from TomTom, which is unusual given my location. It's a roll of the dice.

 

[Andy_P]

I think you'll find most of the effort goes into trying to get the ROADS themselves right. Getting every single house number in the right place for the whole of the UK, Europe, America and a lot of Asia is an whole different ball-game and not something that can be done with any of the "standard" mapping methods such as aerial photography or driving multi-camera vehicles around (like the Google cars).

How else can you definitively check every house number other than visiting every one? What do you do about houses, like my parents' one, that only have a house name, no number at all? (They are not in some rural area off the beaten track, but in a London postcode).

Also, how are you going to STORE that massive amount of data on a ~£100 sat nav device? Pretty much all the manufacturers can do is note the positions of SOME house numbers (often 4 or 6 along each street) and then interpolate between them.

Sometimes I think we become blasé about how clever our tech devices are, and just assume everything is now possible.
Also, if we don't report the errors we see, we cannot complain when they put their correction efforts into other areas.

Out of interest, can you give one or two examples of addresses in the UK where you are having issues? (nothing too personal).

As for Traffic reports... again, it'san imperfect system and always will be, just like weather reports. However, just yesterday my TomTom got me out of a hellish trip to work by offering me two different routes I would never thavve thought of. The one I eventually chose was a BIG detour, but the time shown was incredibly accurate and so I was able to make an informed decision whether to take it or not.

 

[joe_peddos]

Have recently moved house when I put my post code in it says no house numbers available. I have discovered the problem is you are routed down the back of the houses. How do I get tomtom to correct the error to show the route down the front of the houses. Delivery men struggle because the unadopted street at the rear of the houses is very narrow and their is an almost impossible turn to get back onto the main road for anything longer than an estate car or small van. joe_peddos

 

[dhn]

Use tomtom.com/mapshare/tools and report using the 'other' section.

 

[canderson]

Have recently moved house when I put my post code in it says no house numbers available. I have discovered the problem is you are routed down the back of the houses. How do I get tomtom to correct the error to show the route down the front of the houses. Delivery men struggle because the unadopted street at the rear of the houses is very narrow and their is an almost impossible turn to get back onto the main road for anything longer than an estate car or small van. joe_peddos

At a guess -- the 'center' of your physical house is closer to the street behind than it is the street for the address. This is caused by the recent (last year and a half) use of the actual building location for an address as opposed to the position on the address' street for the address. To clarify - your TomTom is trying to take you to the closest position to your house as opposed to a position on the street used in the address. I'm not sure if it's really possible to correct this. It's a special pain when a business backs up to a limited access highway (picture a business park backed up to the M1) where your device will try to leave you sitting on the shoulder of the highway because it's closer than the street that is the normal access point.

 

[Arno]

Have recently moved house when I put my post code in it says no house numbers available. I have discovered the problem is you are routed down the back of the houses.

canderson gave you the true explanation.
Someone in the upper floors at TomTom, who does not drive very much to unknown places, had a brain flash and we are all suffering from it.

Your immediate crutch would be to give coordinates with the least number of decimals you feel you can get away with to get to your place.

An example from the Google map. it lists
84 Montagu Ave as 54.998371,-1.640121
Reducing that to 54.998,-1.640 gets you to # 76
but, maybe at your location you could say ~ 2 houses East of there or, the house with the green garage door or whatever works best for you.

 

[canderson]

The problem is that there are times when this feature really helps, and times when it really hurts. Unfortunately, there's no review to establish whether the consequences in each case will fall one way or the other.

 

[Arno]

But if it is your own place, and it was located reasonably once, should that not be repeatable with coordinates.

BTW, you know that it wants me to jump up one level and go through the fence when leaving my place.
Arriving at it, the announcement "You have reached your destination." comes on the second the wheels touch the driveway, crossing the boulevard.

 

[canderson]

Not sure I'm following that question, Arno. At some point, when the building itself was geolocated, the incorrect routing to the nearest 'road' would have begun to occur when that map was released. At that point, it would be necessary to provide coordinates to the correct point of entry in order to avoid the problem.

 

[Arno]

Not sure I'm following that question, Arno.

Suppose there are no house numbers yet for 4140 Cotopaxi Dr, Loveland, Colorado, United States
Something along the lines of instead of giving exact location as 40.43435,-105.130524, say at 40.434,-105.131 the house on the east side and just one north of the mail boxes.