Finding scenic difficult

#1 · 28.05.2020, 11:03

Am I doing something wrong? I created a round trip on Route Me and used A and B roads and sent it to Scenic. However when riding it today, it took me on the M3 motorway and I also saw that it tried taking me off a junction, travelling to another roundabout, only to return back to the motorway; I then had it trying to re route me for a few miles.

I also found that it tried taking me into a drive of a private house and no where else to go other than turn round which again upset the system

What I find annoying is the instruction to bear slightly right/left when it is actually a turning right off the main route and bear right / left when the road bends round to the right / left as a matter of course. At one point the main road being travelled went to the right with another road straight on. It was only because I glanced at the screen that the route was showing straight. As such I find I am constantly looking at the screen to check the correct direction to check

Thanks

#2 · 28.05.2020, 11:48

Quote from Guido on 28.05.2020, 11:48
You are not doing anything wrong. When you import a route from different websites/apps it's always important to double check if Scenic calculates the same route as the source website or app does. Scenic uses different map data and a different routing algorithm compared to Route Me. So, it's possible that Scenic takes different roads to get from one via point to the next. Most importantly, when importing, it's key to set Scenic's routing mode similar to the routing mode you selected in the source website/app. So, if you selected 'short' in RouteMe, also make sure that Scenic is set on 'Short' route mode.

Then... I don't know how Route Me GPX files look like. Typically it will contain a route and a track. In these cases I recommend to import the track and make the pink route match the blue route. Here's an example (from another user, but you'll get the idea).

When first importing the track from the GPX it looks like this:

As you can see the pink line (route as calculated by Scenic) is quite different from the blue line. But... if you change routing mode to 'short' it's already matching a lot better.

There are some small mistakes still, like around via point 17:

But this can easily be resolved in this case by adding a via point:

Now, for the 'slight left' and 'slight right'... I'm afraid that's a quirck from the routing framework / map data that Scenic uses. If the route types of the roads on a junction are the same, it determines instructions based on the 'angles' between the road you are entering the junction and the road you should exit the junction on. If the angle is 0 (straight) it assumes you don't need an instruction. In some cases (when the obvious road of travel is straight) this is fine, but in other cases, when the obvious road of travel is not straight (e.g. bending right while straight would be a smaller road you don't want) this is of course not what you want.

In essence this is due to errors in map data. The map data should be able to indicate smaller roads from main roads, but in some areas the map data is incomplete for this. I'm looking into other map providers to get rid of all these problems. Until that time, I recommend to take a look at the screen when you see a junction coming up of which you are not sure which direction to take and you didn't receive a voice instruction yet.

You are not doing anything wrong. When you import a route from different websites/apps it's always important to double check if Scenic calculates the same route as the source website or app does. Scenic uses different map data and a different routing algorithm compared to Route Me. So, it's possible that Scenic takes different roads to get from one via point to the next. Most importantly, when importing, it's key to set Scenic's routing mode similar to the routing mode you selected in the source website/app. So, if you selected 'short' in RouteMe, also make sure that Scenic is set on 'Short' route mode.

Then... I don't know how Route Me GPX files look like. Typically it will contain a route and a track. In these cases I recommend to import the track and make the pink route match the blue route. Here's an example (from another user, but you'll get the idea).

When first importing the track from the GPX it looks like this:

As you can see the pink line (route as calculated by Scenic) is quite different from the blue line. But... if you change routing mode to 'short' it's already matching a lot better.

There are some small mistakes still, like around via point 17:

But this can easily be resolved in this case by adding a via point:

Now, for the 'slight left' and 'slight right'... I'm afraid that's a quirck from the routing framework / map data that Scenic uses. If the route types of the roads on a junction are the same, it determines instructions based on the 'angles' between the road you are entering the junction and the road you should exit the junction on. If the angle is 0 (straight) it assumes you don't need an instruction. In some cases (when the obvious road of travel is straight) this is fine, but in other cases, when the obvious road of travel is not straight (e.g. bending right while straight would be a smaller road you don't want) this is of course not what you want.

In essence this is due to errors in map data. The map data should be able to indicate smaller roads from main roads, but in some areas the map data is incomplete for this. I'm looking into other map providers to get rid of all these problems. Until that time, I recommend to take a look at the screen when you see a junction coming up of which you are not sure which direction to take and you didn't receive a voice instruction yet.

If you're enjoying Scenic and are happy with the support, please leave a nice rating in the App Store. It would mean a lot to me ❤️

#3 · 28.05.2020, 11:57

Thanks for the quick reply Guido, I shall give it a go. One more question if I may. Is there are reason to save blue line as a track. I did this on one short route but got no voice instruction.

Thanks again

#4 · 28.05.2020, 12:00

The only reason you would want to do that is if you can't make the pink line match the blue line. This typically only occurs for two reasons:

The route contains dirt roads of which Scenic thinks you are not allowed to go on (so no matter what you try it won't route you over it)
There is a big error in the map data that prevents you from taking the roads as designed in the other app/website

If you're enjoying Scenic and are happy with the support, please leave a nice rating in the App Store. It would mean a lot to me ❤️