Locate Freeway Specific Position

[watergood]

Please help how to use TomTom XL350 to locate a specific place along a freeway. like Interstate 30 1820. It is to locate via maps.google, but complicated by TomTom GPS.

 

[canderson]

Guess I'm not sure what you're after. An ADDRESS on an Interstate highway?

Can you supply the name of the place and town so we can try to figure this out?

 

[watergood]

Like 19204 635, Mesquite, TX, United States. If I use TomTom GPS to navigate, I have to input city, street(I 635 NB/SB), cross street(I have no idea about this information.That is why I use GPS).

It is quite easy to search this kind of address through maps. google but difficult by TomTom GPS.

 

[canderson]

I guess I still don't understand. If you use Google to look that last address up, you find right yourself in the middle of the interchange / cloverleaf of I-635 and US80. You don't normally find 'addresses' on interstate highways! A typical mapmaker would not find addresses assigned to such segments of interstate, and would therefore be unable to legitimately include them. I'm guessing that you did not supply a "real" Mesquite address for us to verify for you. Either that, or Google gets it very wrong -- unless the local homeless guys under the freeway have managed to get a mailing address under there.

Is there a real business or something we could try to look up at that address (the 'name of the place' that I asked about before)?

I will say that in those rare situations where an interstate (instead of the frontage road, which would be correct) is used as an address, you must be careful to correctly select northbound(Nb), westbound (Wb) etc. when you do the street name selection.

More often than not, there will be a frontage road listed separately from the interstate that may include the interstate name (e.g., 10913 W I25 Frontage Rd) and will be numbered.

 

[Andy_P]

I think I see where the OP is coming from.....

If you are talking to friends/colleagues about how to get to somewhere, the sort of suggestion you get will be "No, don't go that way, stay on the A123 and come off later, onto the B5678"

In the UK the TomTom search function is absolutely lousy at finding major road numbers and junctions, so trying to enter a route using the above information can be really hard.
How do you know what "Town" junction 14 of the M25 is? How do you work out that TomTom calls a certain stretch of the A1 "the Barnet Bypass Road"?

One of the most useful add-ons I've put on my TomToms is a set of POIs for all the motorway and trunk road junction entrance and exits. That goes a long way towards solving the problem, but without them you end up resorting to scrolling the map around trying to find 'via' points manually.

 

[canderson]

Dunno, Andy. Sure looks like he's trying to use a street address on an interstate highway to me .. which would be the same as you asking for an address on the M-25. Granted, some people get stuck out on the M-25 for so long that they should probably be having their mail delivered to their auto, but ...

 

[- et -]

I am also unclear what he is asking, but I wonder if he is saying that he wants to navigate to a GPS coordinate.

I don't think that this is what he is saying, but an "address" on an Interstate makes no sense, so I am speculating that he may have been given some coordinate data from a source like a Google Earth satellite view and is trying to use that. Other than this speculation, I am at a loss on how to respond.

- Tom -

 

[Andy_P]

If you put "19204 635, Mesquite, TX" into Google maps, it does come up with a specific location.

It seems to be the back entrance of Prescott Place Apartments on the 635 Interstate Service Road. I've no idea what the 19204 bit relates to, is it a house number?

Prescott Place's actual address uses the road on the other side of the complex - 2861 Franklin Drive, Mesquite, TX

On the other hand, if I start to type "Interstate 30 1820" (from your first post) into Google maps, the autocomplete suggests at least four different places, in Dallas, Mesquite, Rockwall or Greenville, so it doesn't seem a very good way to specify a place!

 

[- et -]

It seems to be the back entrance of Prescott Place Apartments on the 635 Interstate Service Road. I've no idea what the 19204 bit relates to, is it a house number?

Ah, ha. "Interstate Service Road" is a completely different animal than an Interstate Highway. A service road is typically a frontage road that is more like a normal street, and I can see the possibility of an address number there. Even though it still does surprise me a bit, I can remember some places in the US where I have seen this.

- Tom -

 

[canderson]

Exactly. If you want the frontage road, you need to specify the frontage road, and a TomTom usually knows the correct names for these. Google is "guessing" with that address on the assumption that it's what the user intends.

Andy - look at what Google offers for options BEFORE you hit the enter key, so to speak. It's not sure what the story is, either.

To the OP -- if that frontage road is the road you want, then when you select the road name, Lyndon B Johnson Fwy. That's what your TomTom is calling that road, and what appears on Google as well.

 

[watergood]

Come back late. Thank you for all kindly reply. :thumb:
I came across this kind of problem while I deliver food to some apartments on the highway. Whenever I got these special address from restaurant, I have to turn to maps.google to get a rough position first, then drive my car to find the exact place gradually. So I feel very annoying and disappointing.

As Andy said, 19204 is an apartment number. The restaurant does not give me address like "2861 Franklin Drive, Mesquite" instead of "19204 Interstate 635 Service Rd, Mesquite". In that case, there is no problem to discuss here.

Since maps.google can do this special location job, I think TomTom should have the same feature. Like provide option to use apartment number/coordinate data after input freeway name(i.e. 635, I30 etc.)

 

[canderson]

Interstate 635 Service Rd

THAT address is something your TomTom can work with, although it's not 100% accurate. If you look back a couple of posts, you'll see how I found it. There seems to be some argument about what that road is officially called there.

Try 19204 Lyndon B Johnson Fwy in Mesquite.

You'll find that if you drop that into Google, it puts you in the same spot -- not in the middle of the highway! Puts you at an apartment complex called Prescott Place. You're on your own from there, though!

In most cases, you'll be given the complete and correct address for the frontage road, and it may well be something as simple as Interstate 635 Service Rd. In this case, it was a little more complicated.

 

[watergood]

Great! Got it. Thank you so much!