Route olanner wants to add superflous ferry return-trip

[memeweaver]

I am trying to plot a route from London to the ferry terminal at Dover. A fairly straightforward and common journey that I want to save as a route due to the traffic complications that can ensue.

The TomTom has a POI for the Ferry Terminal, but unfortunately if I set that as a destination, the route planner tacks on a round-trip to France ( Calais ). If I say that I don't want to include a ferry journey, it tells me the journey is impossible.

I used the Google search to bring down the location of the Norfolk Ferries terminal, but my TomTom warns me that this is on a ferry route. Yes it is, but it's the departure/terminus for the journey, not a point in the water.

 

[canderson]

Are you sure that your TomTom isn't showing you the list entry for the P&O dock in Calais by mistake (the mileage should be a giveaway)?

Just thinking, though .. since they dropped service to Ostende, there's nowhere else for a Dover P&O to go, so I guess it would be a good assumption about destination from that point.

You don't say which TomTom you have, but it might be interesting to enable the "Ferry" POI, use "Browse Map" with POI enabled and zoomed way back, scroll to the Dover area on the map, zoom back up, find the P&O ferry POI, select it, and then press the little blue icon with the + through it, and do a "Navigate to" to see where your TomTom takes you that way.

Maybe P&O is paying TomTom to try to keep you out of the Chunnel

 

[memeweaver]

No, it's definitely on the English side of the Channel, 1.1 miles from the centre of Dover township. I note that the POIs for Dover to include a number of points on the opposite side of the Channel, an extra 20-30 miles away. The route planner insists you have to leave from Dover travel to Calais and then return to the same point at Dover.

Since posting I tried putting in one of the streets on the docks (taken from looking up on Google Maps) but it still insists on the ferry journey.

I'm going to try working back street by street, but I quickly get to a stretch of highway which would essentially require lat/long coordinates rather than street intersections. I have tried Eastern Service Road, and The Fan, both within the CT16 1 postcode area of Dover. They are both held to be impossible to reach without ferry access.

I have a Live XL IQ Europe Routes (which I did list on my profile, assuming it would show up somewhere here).

 

[memeweaver]

I have found that Dock Exit Road as a destination, a few hundred feet away from the ferry terminal avoids the perils of a double-crossing of the English Channel.

 

[daveoftruro]

Have just tried a route to POI Eastern Docks Ferry Terminal on my iPhone using TomTom 1.5 software and it works alright. The 1.5 version has only just been released and includes new maps, so it may be corrected on your next map release.

 

[memeweaver]

TomTom support say it is intentional

My TomTom support person referred it to second-line support "who said they advised if you put a ferry terminal in it will always take to the crossing and back because of the one way system in the ferrry port, it will not tell you to turn round "

This is just ridiculous at whatever part of the story you believe. Why have POIs you can't travel to without continuing? It's like forcing you to continue by train or plane at their terminals. Also ferry terminals pick up and disgorge at the same point and have plenty of roundabouts etc to make them not one-way affairs.

I think I will return the unit.

 

[canderson]

My TomTom support person referred it to second-line support "who said they advised if you put a ferry terminal in it will always take to the crossing and back because of the one way system in the ferrry port, it will not tell you to turn round "

This is just ridiculous at whatever part of the story you believe. Why have POIs you can't travel to without continuing? It's like forcing you to continue by train or plane at their terminals. Also ferry terminals pick up and disgorge at the same point and have plenty of roundabouts etc to make them not one-way affairs.

I think I will return the unit.

I guess what's even more absurd -- let's go back to the "old days" of the P&O out of Dover. P&O used to have multiple cross-channel destinations from Dover. I used to grab the passenger 'foil' up to Ostende or the car ferry to Boulougne. If that were still the case, and you used the P&O docks POI as your terminus, how on earth would the TomTom know what your destination was to be? Calais? Ostende? Boulougne?

 

[memeweaver]

It does tack on a return journey at the end, so the port(s) it visits are irrelevant, but not helpful to planning journey times.

I see that the TomTom online route planner has no problems executing the desired route without an aquatic finale.

 

[canderson]

It does tack on a return journey at the end, so the port(s) it visits are irrelevant, but not helpful to planning journey times.

I see that the TomTom online route planner has no problems executing the desired route without an aquatic finale.

I was just going (for the moment) with the (lame) explanation that you got from TomTom, and showing that it makes no sense. "...if you put a ferry terminal in it will always take to the crossing and back". If that were true, and going back to my "old days 3 destinations from P&O" thought, there would be no way to actually plan a route that DID include a ferry ride. After all, "the crossing" assumes that the TomTom can read your mind and guess which destination you had in mind from a port with multiple destinations, doesn't it? For that reason alone, it makes no sense.

It would be interesting to do a test plan of a route that used the Brittany line docks in Portsmouth where there are still four possible destinations. One wonders if the TomTom would have a nervous breakdown?

 

[memeweaver]

Dover has multiple destinations from the Eastern Docks but TomTom assumes Calais.

 

[canderson]

Dover has multiple destinations from the Eastern Docks but TomTom assumes Calais.

I know that Dover does, but didn't you say that you had specifically asked for the P&O docks? (having not used my TT there, didn't know that level of specificity was possible, but ..) In which case, unlike the old days, Calais is it. Or was it my post that interjected P&O because of the Calais connection? What exactly does the TT show for "Ferry" options there?

 

[memeweaver]

No, it was you that brought up P&O.

The same entrance is shared by all the lines: DFDS (Norfolk), SeaFrance, ... going to Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne.

 

[canderson]

No kidding. Well that makes the Calais round trip even sillier. I thought perhaps the TT had some different ferry docks available for destinations.

Just fer grins...

In the route planning, one of the options (at least on this side of the Atlantic) is to avoid toll roads, ferries, etc. On my unit, that's found along these lines:

Change Preferences > Planning Preferences

and a few buttons inward, a page as follows:

• Ask me when there are ferries on my route
• Always avoid ferries
• Never avoid ferries

What happens if you select one of the first two options when trying to plan a trip to the docks? Does this avoid the Calais return run?

 

[memeweaver]

I mentioned that in my original post: " If I say that I don't want to include a ferry journey, it tells me the journey is impossible."

 

[canderson]

I mentioned that in my original post: " If I say that I don't want to include a ferry journey, it tells me the journey is impossible."

Indeed - my bad - it's been a few days and I'm beginning to lose track.

Well it's certainly odd, and I'm surprised no one has brought this up here before. It's not like planning a route to the ferry port to pick someone up is all that unusual - or to drop a car there and not take the car across is unusual either. At least you found a suitable workaround. I'm guessing you've set a favorite or POI for that alternate location now so that you can use it in lieu of the docks POI that TomTom provides.

 

[memeweaver]

Also the fact that the TomTom first and second level support folks seemed so blaise about the issue. Having been a software designer for 25+ years (OMG!) I get rather cranky by people like this who basically devalue the industry by lack of interest and understanding.

It took a non-trivial amount of work to find an alternate POI, as the Google POI I downloaded and quite a number of street intersections in Dover near the port were also entangled in the need for a compulsory set of aquatic legs.

I travel a lot around Europe, and knowing that ferry ports are going to be completely undependable as POIs is mildly infuriating. My last trip involved over 6 separate ferry legs, not counting Norway where I lost count.

 

[mvl]

Can you give me the coordinates of the location (never been there before)? Including the start/destination coordinates of the expected route?

My GO 930 has older maps of Europe, but if the issue also exists on the older map, I can check out whether the issue is some type of blockage that can be corrected with mapshare.

 

[memeweaver]

TomTom Routes has no problem with the journey so if they use the same maps as provided with the GO units now, you'd think everything would be OK. However TomTom support are adamant that the ferry journey is intentional so go figure...

You should be able to get information you want from this link.

Route Planner - the best route, maps and traffic info from TomTom

 

[daveoftruro]

I'd suggest the problem is that the exact point of the POI is on the exit road of the ferry terminal, and the only way of approaching that is from a ferry. TT therefore finds the quickest return journey ferry route to that exact point is by travelling via Calais.

As I said earlier, my TT App on the iPhone using newly released 1.5 software (including maps) does not suffer from this problem, so it may be that if you're not using the latest map release, loading that may solve the problem. If you do have the latest map release, then the next release will probably provide the solution.

And you could get around it anyway by defining a Favourite in the correct spot!

 

[memeweaver]

I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot.

1. The exit and entrance roads are identical. The ferries don't move to a different location for loading or offloading.
2. Moving the POI to roads set further back from the port also engender a ferry trip
3. I have the latest map (the version is listed in my signature). If the next map corrects the problem it will probably only be in spite of my efforts to report the problem.
4. TomTom support maintain that the ferry trip is deliberate. However their web-based map doesn't and other ferry ports in the UK I tried don't require one. Why they create a POI like this is a mystery. How would one drop off or pickup foot passengers from the terminal or nearby streets?
4. I have already defined a favourite several streets back that gets away from the problem, but I would expect the bug to be fixed. I would also hope to avoid encountering the same problem at other ferry ports around Europe.