I appreciate that there's been loads of discussion regarding satnav systems and their relative merits on the BR, but I wonder if satnav could help with a particular problem that I have. I guess that this is a problem that must be experienced by all multidrop drivers. In the past, my work has entailed travelling from site to site using OS grid references - which I believe don't really suit satnav systems - but now I have to visit sites which are identified by postcode and are generally within an 80 mile radius from my home.
When I looked at a post code map, I could see that it was possible to generally group the sites along the 8-point compass bearings - but then, how do I select the optimum route along that (rough) line, stopping at between 6 and 10 sites?
I'm looking for a satnav that would accept up to 10 postcode values, tell me the optimum route, then guide me along its prescribed route. Does such a thing exist?
Or - does anyone know of a website where I could put in the postcodes and obtain a route? The RAC routeplanner will give me a route in the order that I enter the codes - but AFAIK it won't plot me an optimum route.
Any opinions will be gratefully received. Waino
|
Tom Tom has an itinerary feature so I could program one person's house in, then another, then another and then say....the shops and it would guide me to each of those places in turn along the fastest route.
Come to think of it, my old sat nav that was made by mountain sherpas in the Himalayas out of rocks and wood did that too. I don't know how many you can put in but I can try it on mine tomorrow if you want.
Adam
|
TomTom only navigates in the order you put them in.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
Even if you selected "fastest route" and started it going from where you actually were?
|
Yes, it still assumes you want to vist the places in the order you put them in
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
You're always concerned with the minor details.
|
The thing is, Sat Nav is dumb. It never considers where the schools are and what time the oiks come pouring out, It never considers shoppong areas, rush hours, if you want to finish early near home, or you want a late start near home, or an early start furthest away, circular routes etc etc..
What I am saying, Sat Nav is an aid, but its no match for experience and thought
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
>>What I am saying, Sat Nav is an aid, but its no match for experience and thought<<
That's why I need sat nav even when I know where I'm going.
|
|
|
The thing is, Sat Nav is dumb. It never considers where the schools are and what time the oiks come pouring out, It never considers shoppong areas, rush hours, if you want to finish early near home, or you want a late start near home, or an early start furthest away, circular routes etc etc..
Not yet! I suspect that the satnavs we use now will look specatcularly crude in five years' time, just as the old position-only satnavs look stunningly primitive alongside a colour-mapped TomTom withn traffic avoidance.
I doubt that satnav will ever completely replace local knowledge and experience, but as they become more widely used, I'm sure that the revenue streams will be big enough to support the more detailed mapping and associated data which will allow them to route us clear of school-closing time etc.
Whether this is all a good thing is another matter :/
|
|
|
|
this is a bit more difficult than it sounds.
You are living the 'Travelling Salesman Problem' Google for solutions.
|
Thanks for the replies,chaps. Now you mention it, I have some recollection of 'the salesman's dilemma' as a mathematical conundrum from the past.
I suppose that I'm not really looking for the 'perfect' route - just a reasonable one. For example, I entered 5 postcodes into the RAC Routeplanner for what I thought would be a good route - and discovered that I was doubling back on myself. I could make a few changes and obtain a vastly improved route which would be sufficient, although it takes time to do this whilst making references to a mapbook. It isn't helped by the fact that some sites are in tiny villages which don't show up on the postcode map.
I'm really surprised that satnav or a simple computer program can't help - especially considering that nearly 40 years ago we were able to put men on the moon using less computing power than my Mondeo's ECU.
|
That was a return journey with just one stop.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
That was a return journey with just one stop.
True - but it was a moving target. In the time that it would take me to get to one of my sites, I wouldn't expect it to have shifted much, nor would I have to factor in the earth's rotation, nor do I worry about the changing mass of the Mondeo as fuel is burnt etc. And being a Mondeo, as opposed to a Saturn V, it's (mostly) re-useable ;>)
|
Must be at least 15 years ago now but I remember some dealings with the guys from Autoroute. This was before GPS availability but was a fantastic piece of software back in the days when an amber monitor was exciting! Anyway, they had the facility back then to do multi-drop route optimisation.
They were bought out by Microsoft and it looks like it still has the "optimise route" facility for multiple stops.
www.microsoft.com/uk/homepc/autoroute/routeplanner...x
I haven't looked in detail how this might integrate with GPS, although there seem to be a few product options.
As an aside, I met the guys who invented Autoroute many years ago....they were only a year or two older than me and turned up in a brand new Lotus Esprit Turbo....made my Nova 1.2 Merit look a bit sick in the car park.
|
Yes I met the autoroute guys too, I was responsible for their hardware. In Staines I seem to recall.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
I used to use a program from TNT (the delivery people) who sold the software used by their drivers. It would work out the optimum route for you. The disk I have now though is well out of date.
|
|
|
|
Your requirement is what they call the "travelling salesman problem" in computing... e.g. see www.tsp.gatech.edu/problem/index.html or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem
It can take a lot of processing power to work out the best route because the number of permutations is n!. This is where artificial intelligence, heuristics and/or neural networks come in. Sorry to be a sad IT person but this is going to be beyond your typical sat nav unit if it tried.
To back this up, plan a route and see how many roads analysed. Then factor in a few destinations and the permutations just went through the roof. Brute force on a fast PC for a few stops is doable but not on a PDA, smart phone or sat nav device.
Autoroute does an "optimise stops" functions which is perhaps what you want. It works out the best order to do the stops and then works out the route between the stops. But it does not work out the best route overall. I know PCs are fast now but this is a complex problem.
Rob
|
Just did some testing using Autoroute 2005 to optimise some destinations within 80 mile radius of home. Optimising the route only took 75 seconds for 9 stops, starting and stopping at home (home not one of the 9).
Not too bad but think that each second it can perform more than 3 billion calculations a second. So assuming only 3 GFlops, then over 75 seconds that's 225 billion calculations for my example.... and not going to be quick on a TomTom One :-)
Rob
|
Not too bad but think that each second it can perform more than 3 billion calculations a second. So assuming only 3 GFlops, then over 75 seconds that's 225 billion calculations for my example.... and not going to be quick on a TomTom One :-)
My TomTom ONE has, I think, a 200Mhz processor. About 15th the CPU speed of a new PC (and I know there are lots more factors than the CPU clock in determining performance), but still not bad.
So calculating that on a TomTom might take, say 1000 seconds, or 15 minutes. Not a job for starting off in the car, but would be fine if done with a few minutes to spare.
The solution may lie in better links to the PC. Let the PC do lots of the calculations and upload them to the TomTom, which thereafter wil only have to do a few refinements.
|
|
As I get closer to my destination, I have Lola (sorry, the TomTom) recalulate the route. Tends to make it slightly more optimised. I do find, however, that for the number of times the satnav has shortened a known route, it can also miss out obvious shortcuts and take the long way round.
|
|
|
|
|
ALK CoPilot is good at handling multiple destinations, waypoints & journeys. The version I have does not calculate the optimal order of waypoints though. There is a special trucker version that may be different :- www.alk.com/copilot/truck_ppc.asp
|
On further investigation I'm not sure the trucker version is available in the EU yet.
www.alk.eu.com/copilot/pocketpc.asp
|
|
Many thanks for all comments and suggestions. I've heard that a friend has got Autoroute, so when he gets back from his weekend break, I'll investigate further.
|
|
|
|
