Google Maps Navigation not choosing quickest route?

Psycho Sonny said:
do you have a link to the 2 android apps your recommending?
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http://www.66.com/UK/home/ for Route 66 Navigate (which I would recommend over Tomtom) There are links to Google Play at the bottom of the screen.

To get started download the app and then activate the free 30 days navigation and traffic (and speed cameras if you fancy) in the in app store (without them it's just a basic maps program.

However - my note of caution: it's reliant on relatively infrequent map updates from their supplier, Tomtom. If you're driving in areas with recent road layout changes (or sometimes long-term temporary closures away from primary A Roads and motorways - which get picked up by the Traffic) Google will probably have a more up-to-date map.

I'd also recommend using the free ivona TTS voice (search 'ivona' on play store), rather than Google's standard one.

Edit: as mentioned in another thread, I'm currently paying about £5 a month on 3's 3-2-1 PAYG. All you can eat on O2 would cost me about £80-90 more a year. I could buy several apps for that.
 
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tigerstyle said:
Whats the actual cost of Route66?
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Navigation: £15.49 for Europe or £11.99 for the UK (permanent licence)
Traffic: £11.99 for Europe or £7.49 for the UK (1 year)
Speed Cameras: Same as traffic.

By comparison, Tomtom's traffic alone is £18.99 per year or £2.49 a month (even more for a physical Tomtom PND). When I was due to renew it was going to be £25 ish for a year (that's not including buying the app in the first place but it's been reduced a little since then). I'd used it for a year and was due to renew shortly after Route 66 Navigate was launched. It says something about how highly I value Tomtom's traffic that I would have been willing to renew, had it not been for Route 66 giving a cheaper option for the same info.

Tomtom are launching a new, cheaper app themselves soon anyway so I would not buy the old app now or renew a traffic subscription for the old app. The new app is called Tomtom Go and is currently only available in Italy (due to roll out worldwide soon). It's very similar to Route 66 (I suspect they may actually be based on the same API with different skins). Tomtom Go is Freemium. You get 70km Navigation and Traffic per month free. Beyond that it's on a subscription basis. I understand that it's about €4 per month, €20 per year or €45 for 3 years (including Navigation and Traffic).
 
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So Route 66 is £15 for Europe maps and then a further £15 for every other continent or £7.50 for further individual countries. Reasonable enough for offline maps IMO although maps are free on waze/google if you "stream" them.

Then it's £7.50 a year for traffic (something which is free with waze or google nav) and a further £7.50 a year for speed cameras.

The only thing I'm missing which I would like is speed cameras, I believe waze has them built in. Have you tried Waze at all?

How would waze compare to route66?

TomTomGo sounds good if your a light user otherwise it's the same price as route66 although it works out more expensive if you don't decide to pay in full for the 3 years. You didn't mention cameras though is that included?

Basically I want cameras, I don't care about offline maps tbh as you say they can be dated (I can always use wi-fi or my 1GB of data or upgrade to unlimited for an extra £2 a month) to stream them.

Cameras is the main thing, would rather pay for a service if it pretty much guarantees I won't get any points or fines (it pays for itself that way).

How do tomtom and route 66 compare to waze for cameras?
 
I have tried Waze. I was a fairly early adopter and used it more as it was gradually being developed. I put in a fair bit of work to get the maps accurate near where I lived a few years ago. I rarely use it these days though but still have it installed and occasionally fire it up.

Waze has enormous potential, I think. It's current limitation is number of users, which is where it gets most of the traffic info from. Ultimately the problem for me was at any one time I could see maybe another 2-10 users in the same city as me. That doesn't give a big pool for live traffic. I saw it evolve and the routing improved massively as it gathered data but it was very rare that it would actually warn me about traffic.

Currently Waze's potential is also limited by Google refraining from throwing all thier traffic data at it. I think they are basically trying to avoid legal challenges on Anti-trust from the likes of Tomtom. The traffic info is based on croudsourced 'floating car data'. Tomtom, Google, and Inrix all have massive data pools that nobody else can touch at the moment.

I've never been that bothered about speed cameras, as I usually don't go over the limit. Waze is as good as the user pool in your area. If you've got regular users that share the camera locations, it's great. Unlike most apps the camera data is free - a big bonus.

Ultimately, Waze doesn't currently do what I want it to (reliably detect traffic and offer faster routes around it) in my area. I'll keep an eye on it. Ultimately I have no real brand loyalty. I have Google Nav, Waze, Route 66, Tomtom and Navigon all installed on my phone. In the past I've used Sygic, M8, Navfree, Wisepilot etc. I just use whatever does the job.

Actually, I'm encouraged by this rerouting issue with Google. I think partly, the traffic data is geared more for mapping info and less for navigation. Tomtom's traffic info has been geared for navigation from the off. Google will learn lessons and make it better. Competition is good, so long as nobody ends up with a monopoly. That's when innovation can stop.

Ultimately 'traffic' is not just traffic. I would not advise anyone to pay for traffic on Navigon or Co-Pilot because what Google provide for free is better. I also wouldn't advise paying for traffic in Sygic - they use the same data as Tomtom but the implementation is crap. To use an anlaogoy - Navigon and Co-Pilot do a road atlas level of detail for traffic. Google do perhaps a 1:25000 OS Map level of detail. Tomtom (incluing Route 66) do A-Z level of detail. The products are perhaps the same category but not the same type.
 
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FrenchTart said:
You could always try not speeding instead?
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It's very easy to do 35 in a 30.

In fact there is a road near me which is a dual carriageway and the limit is 30.

Coppers always hide in the bushes at the end of it and every summer when I go along the road someone has been pulled over. It works so well for them because that road should in no way be a 30, you could easily do 45 on it without even noticing.

I know this though and I always drop to 30 and then I have people behind me practically ramming me because they are all doing 40+ on it. I have to be in the right lane too (the fast/overtaking lane) because that's the lane to get onto the motorway.

It would be this type of situation that a warning would be used for. I don't tend to speed much unless it's one of the above stupid situations where the road limit is ridiculous.
 
Reviving an old thread but closest I can find to my issues.

Since this new traffic routing system has come in I've found maps crashes all the time, sometimes 3 or 4 times on one journey it will force close.

Had a look online but my phone (HTC One S) is pretty old now so hard to find active users.

Anyone else finding this? I've tried resetting and reinstalling the app but no luck.
 
I find it will crash after about an hour of navigation. It freezes up and stops responding.

Pretty common across many phones it seems.
 
Yes, rarely on my Nokia 625, "Here Drive" flips back to the main screen and needs opening again. Very odd, because 99% of the time it will run for several hours with no problems at all. And this of course is not google maps !
 
Hmm whatever they changed seems to require a lot more processing power as the maps app is incredibly slow to load now.

I know its free so I can't really complain but until recently I was using it everyday without any issues.
 
Rusty! said:
I find it will crash after about an hour of navigation. It freezes up and stops responding.

Pretty common across many phones it seems.
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Yes exactly 1 hour into navigation it crashes. Had it happen twice driving to North Wales.
Also it was trying to re-route me even though I had set the route I wanted to take at the start. It changed the route without warning also.

I love GMaps navigation and hope they sort it soon. It has never let me down in the past and I've using it a lot.
 
Si Lad said:
Yes exactly 1 hour into navigation it crashes. Had it happen twice driving to North Wales.
Also it was trying to re-route me even though I had set the route I wanted to take at the start. It changed the route without warning also.

I love GMaps navigation and hope they sort it soon. It has never let me down in the past and I've using it a lot.
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This was why I started trying out other navigation apps back in about 2010. My wife recently asked me to find her another Nav app as it was doing it on her Hauweii Ascend Y300. Navigon, Tomtom and Route 66 Navigate have all been pretty solid stability wise for long journeys.
 
mine is very good but im glad to see im not the only one who gets freezes

my screen goes either black and continues speaking etc or just stops.

for me rerouting due to traffic has been not brilliant but where it does it it works

it has taken me round non optimal routes though. ok in the honda as they tend to be country roads!
 
Sent me down a single track gravel Road that had 4ft deep puddles the other day, luckily I was in the work van.

Also had a route available and it didn't automatically chose it
 
Was driving back from Bristol to Norwich late night a few weeks ago, and two junctions of the M4 were closed, meaning I couldn't get onto the M25 the usual way. GMaps was having none of it and kept instructing me to turn around and go back up and try and get on the M25, and was not providing me an alternative way on. Eventually it routed round the North circular in London, before trying to send me onto the M11 which was entirely closed due to an acid spill. I was aware of the acid spill from earlier and decided to swap to my long laughed at Blackberry Maps (provided by TomTom) and it was miles better. With the exception of the ETA being wildly innacurate, it knew about any hazards further up the road and got me back.

I used Mireo Don't Panic in America, and despite having a totally stupid name, it was fantastic.
 
Closed roads are what really screws up traffic avodance on satnav systems. For road closures, Google currently gets its info from Waze (which is hit and miss). You need to be on a recent version of Android to get the closure data at all. Google does tend to handle longer term roadworks closures via its frequent map updates.

Tomtom has great closure info for the "strategic road network" (i.e. motorways and trunk roads info direct from the Highways Agency) and good traffic flow on lesser roads. You're lucky if it shows closures for lesser A roads downwards. There's an autodetection system but it only works for roads with normally high traffic flow. Map updates are not frequent enough to represent long-term roadworks closures

Garmin / Navigon have closure info for both the strategic network and lesser A roads (TMC table based) but their traffic flow data is very limited compared to Tomtom or Google. Once you get onto B roads downwards, your're on your own.

I'm still waiting for a solution that has traffic flow as good as Tomtom but detailed closure info as per the roadworks.org portal. Inrix XD Traffic looks promising (you can see it via the Inrix Android or iOS app and it will do basic route planning), as it includes the roadworks.org closure incidents but it's not yet incorporated into a turn by turn navigation app. Its traffic flow data for smaller roads doesn't look to be as comprehensive as Google or Tomtom either.
 
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