Map Provider Changes

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  • Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 21:38:48

    I probably should add that mostly I'm plotting on country lanes but some of those country routes might include stretches of trunk road.

    Previously, I have used OSM for plotting routes but probably just happened not to include any trunk roads.

    To avoid wet and muddy country lanes in February, cycling on a trunk road can be a good idea and that's what I tried to plot yesterday.

    I didn't really need to plot a single road out and back, but I wanted to try plotting with the changed functionality.  

     

    Well, I don't think there is an easy way to update all the UK trunk roads on OSM.  It's not a major problem for me at the moment, but it might become very annoying ... 

  • Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 21:26:40

    I suspect that the UK trunk road defaults are not going to change on OSM as a whole any time soon.

    Perhaps Plotaroute should simply ignore the OSM Allowed Access tags for the UK and assume that Allowed Access for UK trunk Roads is as per this  ...  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions#United_Kingdom

     

    I also noticed along the way that the UK isn't the only country for which the trunk road defaults don't work, so there might be further requests ...

  • Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 17:57:21

    It appears that the default settings for "trunk" roads in the UK is responsible for making plotting difficult using OSM

    See here ... https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/35124/how-to-go-about-resolving-the-uk-trunk-tag-issue

    This could mean that in most of the country, plotting will be a problem using OSM until someone changes every inch of trunk road ...

     

    I'll try to find out if there is a way to list all the roads which could be "wrong" ...

    Unless all "wrong" trunk roads are updated before the next Plotaroute routing update (seems unlikely), then it will still be more weeks before the further improvements appear ...

    If anyone know how to get a listing of trunk road tags in, say, a UK county, that would be handy.  If it also allowed those tags to be updated ... that would be very handy ...

  • plotaroute admin   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 13:33:02

    Updates to our routing engine usually take place once a month. It takes around a week for us to regenerate a routing network for the whole world using the latest OSM maps and then transfer this to our routing servers, so it's not really practical to update more frequently than this. The next update will be early next month.

  • Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 10:34:51

    I'd already seen that note and I spent time yesterday updating roads near my house on OSM, but nothing changed on Plotaroute. 

    Unless the updates are recognized by Plotaroute immediately, it makes no difference.  I saw another post saying it could be weeks before updates take effect on Plotaroute.  Is that still the case ?

  • plotaroute admin   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 09:16:18

    Hi Colin - have a look at the following FAQ for help with auto-plotting: Why can’t I auto-plot on a path shown on the map? Sounds like the point of origin may be not be tagged on OSM as accessible by bike if you can't auto-plot from this point to anywhere else. We've got a fix for the other issue that you raised about multiple street view tabs -this will be implemented next week. 

  • Colin Hoppe   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 19:02:00

    I've tried to plot routes today and it simply will not work.  Wherever I try to plot I get the message window telling me "UNABLE TO CALCULATE ROUTE".  I get that with autoplot by road and sometiimes by bike.   If I choose "on foot" it will probably use the road I want it to use ... but then wander off somewhere that I really don't want to cycle ...

     

  • Julia Westerberg   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 17:50:07

    This is really sad news since street views are critical for creating walking routes in other towns.  Saves a lot of exploratory time by car/foot.  Paths feature is also missing which is used a lot in city parks, etc.  Hopefully Map Inspector will increase in number. I used the one i found in a town and it required a lot of time/errors to get to the area i wanted to explore with street views.  One needs to print out a town map first.

  • Colin Hoppe   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 10:15:11

    Well, well, well.  I just opened up Plotaroute to plot, but first checked the Latest News.  Google Maps has gone !  Am I disappointed ?  No !

    I long ago stopped plotting using Google Maps anyway.  For cycling and walking I found that OSM, Paths / Trails + other options work better.

    I just tried Google streetview from the Map Inspector and this is a welcome improvement.  Much better than the previous arrangement for dragging the little man on the Plotaroute screen which didn't allow me to see which way the man was facing and didn't allow me to "drive" along the road as well as opening a separate window to use Google Streetview.   So this improvement means that, via Map Inspector, I can go straight to an exact location and I can then navigate better !

    For the UK, Ordnance Survey Maps will be very useful as will be improvements to Paths / Trails.  Map Inspector > Streetview seems to work from all maps whilst on a road.  Very good !  The only downside is that I end up with lots of tabs open with Google Streetview, but closing them is not a problem.

    Not only that , but I'm more than happy to be able to totally avoid all things Google ... apart from my phone, Youtube, Waze, Fitbit, Streetview etc ðŸ˜•

  • Roger Hunt Saturday 20 Feb 2021 08:23:16

    Well, with what I considered a brilliant route planning service, and your decision to stop using street view, you have made my job 200% harder, why companies insist in modifying succesful formats astounds me, I will consider when my membership runs out whether to continue with your service or not

     

    A backward step and the demise of a great service that I doubt if you consulted any customer over .... end off

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