Fastest / Shortest! There should be a middle

[Jorg]

Haven't been here for a while now. Too much work going on right now
But I've been using the TomTom loads.
What I noticed is that when setting a route the fastest way could be faster cause there are always some unecessary longer roads on the route.

My dad still uses a route planer on PC and prints maps which he uses on the way (oldschool ). However in his software you can actually set a fader value betwenn fastest / shortest. And with the fader set at about 75% to fastest you get the best results.
That means it still uses all the Motorways and countyroads but also uses some shortcuts when you're in a city.

Wouldn't it be great to have that feature in the TomTom? I mean it can't be too hard to implement, or am I wrong there?

 

[battom]

I think they use the option where you can choose a route that doesn't exceed certain speeds instead?

 

[Nextourer]

Fastest takes into account the speed limit of the road (and distance... sorta).
Shortest takes the shortest distance regardless of how long it takes to get there.

Fastest is flexible. When you change route or miss a turn, it'll recalculate and redirect you

Shortest is not flexible and if you miss a turn, it'll tell you to u-turn and go back.

 

[battom]

I used shortest today to get to a place I needed to be and didn't feel like taking the highway. I missed a turn and it acted as it always does... just rerouted me to another street.

On that note, the shortest route, thought it said it would take me 1.5 hours to get there in the beginning, only took me 45 minutes. Which was faster then the 'fastest route' plan... odd. But then I know the roads and I knew traffic on the highway would have been longer in time.

I think you just need to play with / test the different route options you have, I have noticed though... if I change my options mid-trip, sometimes I get that "medium" effect....

 

[Nextourer]

I used shortest today to get to a place I needed to be and didn't feel like taking the highway. I missed a turn and it acted as it always does... just rerouted me to another street.

On that note, the shortest route, thought it said it would take me 1.5 hours to get there in the beginning, only took me 45 minutes. Which was faster then the 'fastest route' plan... odd. But then I know the roads and I knew traffic on the highway would have been longer in time.

I think you just need to play with / test the different route options you have, I have noticed though... if I change my options mid-trip, sometimes I get that "medium" effect....

what the heck?

maybe I do need to play around cause everytime I use Shortest, the route is basically set in stone and I'll have to "u-turn" otherwise it's not happy.

 

[Jorg]

I use shortest always when I'm in the city and stay in the city. Seems to work best for me then.

I use fastest when I have to travel longer distances.
What I meant is if the TomTom was a bit "smarter" and had the option to exactly do that. Use shortest within cities but use motorways when going out of town. So if I traveled from one city to the next it would use best of both worlds without me having to re-calculate the route.

I think you have to have to see that PC program to know exactly what I mean. It really works great there.

 

[DrMatt]

As my final "dissertation" project when getting my BS in Computer Engineering, I wrote a program that, given a map, would find a "good" route and give you directions. What I learned was that "good" means different things to different people. "Fastest" and "Shortest" also have interesting meanings as well...

As a bitter side-note, as I was presenting this project to technical Alumni and experts in the field, the big "push-back" question I received was "How is this at all useful?" and then spent fifteen minutes trying to convince people of it's usefulness. I was unsuccessful... Oh... and then ten years later, Yahoo and Google come out with their maps/directions. A very popular feature... Oh... and then there's the nav units... Bah! I should've made millions...

 

[battom]

Yeah well had I known Yahoo was going to be the first big internet search company 15 years ago I woulda made millions too.