So does anyone use the Map updates??

[widescreenforever]

I live in a large metropolitan city ( Vancouver BC), , and I'm sure the results would be the same from large city to Large city . ,but was curious to know how many of you either don't use the Map updates .. or rely on others to do so for you .

I am baffled by why map updates aren't as prevalent as one would think.
I am using Map updates at least 5 times a day.. Things from missing POI's to wrong speed zones., in amongst the regular changes such as closed streets that are now open through,, or highway design course changes and maybe a couple of new bridges etc.. that have been up and opened now for 6 months .
But it is the speed zone corrections I find the most challenging, as there are a lot of temporary spots of road construction for months where the speed has dropped from 80 down to 70 yet my tom tom showed 100 as the regular speed zone , ( all in Kilometers , BTW) ..
So question is: How many of you actually use the map corrections tab???
I know I do..

 

[canderson]

I'll do a Mapshare update any time I find a road that is blocked or unavailable in one direction or another. Those blockages are usually caused by one of three things:

Some local governmental agency decides to create a "neighborhood" or somesuch, and starts putting in barriers in the middle of a perfectly good street to bar traffic altogether in both directions. They'll usually throw in a few flowers while they're at it. Annoys the heck out of me.

The second reason is that some local governmental agency decides to turn over a PUBLIC county road to the individuals living along it, and the locals promptly throw up a gate and attach a lock. We're not talking dead end roads here, either... these actually GO somewhere. I have no idea how the transfer of a public right of way can be transferred that way. Gotta buy me one of them Commissioners some day. Definitely worth it.

Last, the mapping service has used satellite data to identify a road that is actually truly private property such that your GPS is trying to route you across private land.

Apart from situations where the road doesn't go per the map, I usually don't do Mapshare corrections. Stuff that requires more work (missing roads) I do directly at Teleatlas' web site. The tools there for "adding" a road are a lot easier to use.

 

[tenderidol]

I just switched from using a Garmin to a TomTom 340TM for the range of customizations. This is my first post

It's been 2 days since I obtained the TT unit and I've used Mapshare for more than 40 entries, the major one being a nature preserve trail being treated as a "road" by the TeleAtlas maps The trail is so long and connected that where ever you wanted to go locally in that area, TT wants to take you through the nature preserve

Based on canderson's posts, I reported this at TeleAtlas webpage which was a rather easy process.

Despite the little quirks of the unit, the extent of being able to customize and tweak is great (compared to Garmin)!

 

[canderson]

Based on canderson's posts, I reported this at TeleAtlas webpage which was a rather easy process.

In the case of blocking a road against use, it is also valuable to make the change ON your TomTom. You can't add a road that it will use instantly, but if you block access to a road, your TomTom will show that "road" with a dashed line down the middle and will cease trying to send you up it during routing. So while it's fine to take my comments about Teleatlas to heart with regard speed of getting a problem fixed, don't hesitate to do all things other than adding roads on your own unit.

And to be fair, I should have added a 4th. Teleatlas (and Navteq, to be fair) will take satellite shots and assume things are roads that are not. Very wide paved paths get picked up in the satellite imagery and set down as roads with "Unknown" for a name. I block those as well on a fairly regular basis.

I've even seen Teleatlas pick up large concrete drainage washes coming down off I-70 in the Rockies and try to turn them into "roads" to nowhere!

 

[tenderidol]

Oh, I did block the road first on my TomTom, since it was driving me crazy that where ever I wanted to go, the first pick was the "trail"

As you mentioned, this was probably picked up from a satellite imagery, since it's a rather large paved trail. The funny thing is that they just gave it a name based on the park that it belongs to, as opposed to the real name of the trail. Oh well... I hope they fix it soon, so that people dont try to go into a nature preserve with their cars/trucks.

Just to give you an idea about the size of the trail, TT showed 11 segments to block it all one by one

 

[widescreenforever]

So one of my questions on this topic I also needed to know.. is:

When you update your maps and hit done.. then you hook up to a web connected PC and log into your account,, your changes are uploaded .. but, What is the position of TOM TOM after this? do they have staff that manually Google street your requests? or do they have other provisions to accept your request?
and if so, how many days or weeks does this process go?
I know I can change (on a temporary or permanent basis) a speed limit change from 100 down to 60.. and my tom tom reflects this whenever I drive thru that area.., but what about the guy behind me who never updates map corrections.. when would that change reflect on his screen??

 

[canderson]

Perhaps one of the other moderators has additional insight into this topic -- I certainly haven't seen more detail anywhere than I'm about to give you.

When you upload changes that you have made during a Home connect, there are two possible paths for the information depending upon the nature of the change that you made... back via MapShare, and perhaps eventually returned within the distributed maps from TeleAtlas.

MOST changes have the potential to be reflected in MapShare updates. The primary exception is an added road or road segment. These are not returned via MapShare.

I don't think that any of us know how changes are vetted at TomTom and then qualified for release via MapShare. What we do know is that there are unknown thresholds, determined by TomTom, that must be met for a change to qualify as "Strict", "High", "Medium" and "Low" in the Home preferences.

It seems rare that TomTom ever gets around to verifying MapShare changes on their own -- you'll notice that if you slide the level to "Strict", it's unusual to see any MapShare corrections at all. Who are the "trusted sources" whose changes appear in "High"? We have no idea. How many is "many" to qualify for "Medium"? No clue. One would imagine that a setting of "Low" would allow everything to come through, but we certainly don't see a lot of updates here even at that setting. Makes you wonder if there are still some sort of filters being applied.

To your next question as to timing ... I don't think we've ever taken the time to investigate how quickly MapShare edits are cycled back to the community, even at the lowest trust threshold. It would be a fascinating study to find some little, benign spot, make a modification via MapShare, and see how long it takes for any of the others here to see that modification appear in a MapShare update. It would also be interesting to get a community effort going to then hammer away at that spot and see if we can discover how many is "Many".

Anyone interested in an experiment such as this?

 

[mikealder]

There have been examples of new roads being added in the V845 map release then removed with the latest V855 map.

From what I have seen of Map Share in the UK it only serves to degrade the accuracy of a map, there are numerous examples of major roads being blocked (M4, A34, being notable ones). Because of this I simply don't use Map Share having experianced first hand what happens when the data is wrong, sixteen mile detour instead of a three mile trip from hotel to work in North Scotland. Another far more local to me error that sends me around the side streets as some idiot tried to add a mini-roundabout (rotary), somehow they managed to block the road.

In principle Map Share is a great idea, sadly it suffers from poor implementation, near zero levels of verification - Mike

 

[canderson]

...there are numerous examples of major roads being blocked (M4, A34, being notable ones).

In my limited experience with those two motorways, I think I can understand what might lead someone to mark those as "blocked" - at least a lot of the time. Does progressing at 0mph (0kph) qualify as blocked?

You mention a single incidence of a badly constructed rotary correction -- are you setting your share "trust" level to "take 'em from everybody", or the "Medium" level? I haven't had any trouble with "Medium".

It would be REALLY nice if it were possible to view/review and perhaps even edit a "local" copy of the mapshare information we receive. Are you aware of any facility ever created to even view them? I'm sure I've never seen anything that would crack and view the MapServePatch.dat file, but has TomTom ever had an online tool of any sort? I haven't seen one for as long as I've owned one of their products.

 

[widescreenforever]

I'm sure in todays age of technology that a Tom Tom 'Screener' would be able to verify any change with Google Maps , Google Earth and good ol fashion email to the business's nearby ...

But it should not be ignored all together,, nor should the 'new' updated info be automatically accepted ..
There must be some good ground work to compliment the legwork of others ..

 

[tenderidol]

Thanks for pointing out the "trust level" (I had no idea). I'll change mine to Medium, so that modifications of some crazy people will not go through -hopefully-

 

[mvl]

I'm sure in todays age of technology that a Tom Tom 'Screener' would be able to verify any change with Google Maps , Google Earth and good ol fashion email to the business's nearby ...

In the USA where Tomtom and Google have competing maps, verifying with Google Earth would be copyright infringement.

I've found Tomtom's mapshare/tracklog process allowed their maps to improve dramatically from 2007 to mid-2009. They pretty much caught up to Navteq in the USA at that time.

But since then, mapping improvements have been virtually non-existent in my area, and I've actually seen more community-created errors than fixes. I think this is a combination of two things:
1) Tomtom laid off way too many people in 2008/2009 in an attempt to prevent a default on their debt from the Teleatlas purchase. In the end they were forced to restructure and dilute shareholders, but Tomtom application and map quality just hasn't been the same since. Tomtom started hiring again in 2010, so hopefully quality will start improving again.
2) Teleatlas took over Tomtom mapping in 2009 (Tomtom used to validate and fix Teleatlas maps before that), and reports are that Teleatlas has a much more mistrusting culture around mapshare/community input. It appears things are starting to turn (Teleatlas is more trusting of the community), and map 860 should be back on the path of improvement, but the late 2009/early 2010 maps were mostly unchanged in my experience.

 

[Michael Quinlan]

...but the late 2009/early 2010 maps were mostly unchanged in my experience.

I can agree with that. I've been making the same corrections over and over again with every map update since I got my Go 740 over 18 months ago. It's possible they've ignored the generosity of contributors for too long and some/many may nor longer contribute, and may in fact stop buying map updates, believing that their own updates are more valuable than those they can buy from TomTom.

 

[JEfromCanada]

Quality of Mapshare Info

I've had my TomTom XL340S for nearly a year, and am actively adding my updates to the MapShare community. My decision making process with respect to buying map updates is to use the TomTom Home software's itinerary planning capability to map out a trip. I'm assuming this feature uses TomTom's most current maps (as opposed to the version I currently own), and therefore, if I see improvements in the itinerary planner, that's my signal to buy an updated map.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen ANY improvements in the online maps, even at the TeleAtlas site, since my purchase.