Cycle Travel Question

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:(TCX really is an accursed format - turns out that Training Center, at least, squawks if two trackpoints have exactly the same location, which rather kiboshes circular routes. I've worked around it...)

I've found (with an Edge 605) that in use the end point needs to be slightly farther away (just by a few metres/yards) from where you start than the beginning. Otherwise there is a tendency for the 605 to declare that you've finished your Course as you set off! :?

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
mark a.
Posts: 1375
Joined: 8 Jan 2007, 2:47pm
Location: Surrey

Re: New Route Planner

Post by mark a. »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:I've done a bunch of work today on the GPS downloads:

[list]
[*]TCX should now work properly on Garmins - I've tested it on BaseCamp and Training Center and it works fine, though I don't have a new Garmin unit to test with;
...


Oh, amazing. I'll have to try it out. In the past I've done the route finding on your site then (I can't remember if the reasons are from bad experience or just stupidity on my part) I've had to manually recreate the route in Garmin Connect, since I've never had success with GPX or TCX files. Fingers crossed that TCX works nicely.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Let me know if not - really keen to get this nailed. (And to nail Garmin's programmers to something.)
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:Let me know if not - really keen to get this nailed. (And to nail Garmin's programmers to something.)

Saved TCX files from Cycle Travel opens up OK in BikeHike, but the route is much coarser than one created in BikeHike. They also appear to open in my old Edge 605 OK. Tomorrow I'm out recce-ing a route for Sunday so I've plotted a short route* to the start of that (I know most of it pretty well, except I possibly need a prompt to take the right turning at the end to get to the meet up point) so I'll see how it behaves "in the wild" & report back.

Rick.

(*Even if it did take over 30 via points to get a 9.5 mile route to go the way I wanted it to using direct roads & avoiding a muddy footpath with stiles! To follow a main(ish), but not that busy, road I needed to put a point in pretty much every block. It does seem slightly pointless to repeatedly suggest a doing a right turn onto back streets to get off an A road then after a block - perhaps only 100 yards long - want you to do another right turn back onto the road you just left :? )
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Could you point me to the route (if you've saved it)? I suspect returning to its "preferred" route rather than the route you've dragged it to is kind of inevitable with the Contraction Hierarchies algorithm used by OSRM, the base routing software I use, but it might be tweakable!
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: New Route Planner

Post by al_yrpal »

Apparently the next version of Android will have downloadable Google Maps (I am aware of this facility but currently its Beta). And, Android 6 will doze and extend battery life. I wonder whether it will allow .gpx import and navigation? Presently I use Osmand with cycle.travel and thats pretty good.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:Could you point me to the route (if you've saved it)? I suspect returning to its "preferred" route rather than the route you've dragged it to is kind of inevitable with the Contraction Hierarchies algorithm used by OSRM, the base routing software I use, but it might be tweakable!

The route is called "HW to WLW" (saved late last night) but isn't public. I presume as the admin of the site you can still access it. Let me know if that's a problem.

The aforementioned footpath is probably due to lack of data in OSM, I'll see if I can work out how to sort adding the stiles & mud! :)

The TCX file seemed to work fine in my 605. I thought I might get "off course" warnings but I got none on this route. But then I wasn't following meandering lanes. I was slightly surprised (but not upset) to find coursepoints had been added spontaneously (& without warning). They mostly worked OK, & usually gave the road name, but some were a bit random - a straight ahead as the road passed under the M61 (with no access between the two). Is that down to OSM data? A few roundabouts (there are quite a few on the main A6 route through Chorley) had no coursepoints added.

Hope that helps.

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Yay - glad it worked! I've sent you a PM about the OSM data.

Coursepoints are added whenever there's a change in the turn-by-turn directions, and at that point (under the M61) I think it's warning that you're just coming into a town. I'll look and see if it's possible to thin them down. cycle.travel is penalising the A road for high motor traffic levels which is why it won't stay on it. I'll investigate whether it's possible to bend OSRM to be a bit smarter, but I don't hold out too much hope - as a long-term todo I'd like to make the turn penalty aware of the type of road it's on (so turning right off a busy road gets a penalty for crossing traffic), but that's not in the OSRM core, and the developers have recently removed the bit of code I was hoping to pervert to do it. :(
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

Thanks for the message I'll see if I can get the local OSM data updated so it is a more accurate representation of reality.

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

I've amended OSM data for the bits that were wrong locally. I notice that if I add via points it will still sometimes route along the muddy footpath (I changed the surface label to "mud") even though access to the path is marked as via a stile in OSM. (I may be just missing something but I can't see how to add in missing stile data?)

The coursepoints added to a saved TCX seem to be a bit odd (see "Tarp MT GW D" a route we followed last week) - sometimes adding a straight on where there is no choice but to go straight on (it particularly seems to be going over/under bridges with no access between, e.g. 8.7, 8.8 & 14.5 miles. 22.5 miles is an interesting one - a straight where there is no junction but no turn markers at the junctions immediately before or after - left at 22.2 miles and right at 22.9 miles), in one instance adding a left turn when there is just a slight bend with no junction (10.6 miles), and completely ignoring definite left & right turns (e.g. 7.2, 12.2, 24.5 miles). The line for the route to follow is fine (on my Edge 605) and is all I follow (unless I manually add points in BikeHike). Anyone putting any reliance on the coursepoint instructions could soon come unstuck.

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: New Route Planner

Post by mjr »

Two questions and one observation:
Q1. Why are the bike shops saying "Rooms from" after their names?
Q2. Why are cycleway=track currently not rendered on the map and seemingly penalised for traffic levels on the neighbouring roads, leading to some debatable routing decisions?
Obs1. I post here because CTC Forum notifies me of replies while cycle.travel forum still doesn't :(
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

1 is (obviously!) an error - thanks for spotting. 2 - can you give an example?
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: New Route Planner

Post by mjr »

2 - for the rendering: the northern end of the A10 mostly has cycleway:left=track, between the A134 and A149 junctions, but it's not rendered on http://cycle.travel/map?lat=52.7308&lon=0.416&zoom=16 - the routing example I thought I'd found was using the obsolete-or-mistaken cycleway=sidepath tag on the avoided route.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Ah, gotcha. I don't actually import cycleway:left= or cycleway:right= into the rendering database, only cycleway=, so it won't show in the cartography. (The routing profile does take account of them.) I'll have a look at importing them, but even then they'll only show as the on-carriageway dots rather than an actual red-casing cycleway.

In general, it's better to map off-carriageway facilities as separate ways rather than using cycleway=track - the latter is viewed as a "fixme" tag by a lot of OSM contributors. If there's physical separation, even if it's just a shared-use pavement rather than a kerbed lane, better to map it separately rather than as an attribute - just as a dual carriageway is mapped as two ways, rather than a single way with a "dual_carriageway=yes" tag.
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: New Route Planner

Post by mjr »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:In general, it's better to map off-carriageway facilities as separate ways rather than using cycleway=track - the latter is viewed as a "fixme" tag by a lot of OSM contributors. If there's physical separation, even if it's just a shared-use pavement rather than a kerbed lane, better to map it separately rather than as an attribute - just as a dual carriageway is mapped as two ways, rather than a single way with a "dual_carriageway=yes" tag.

Viewed as a "fixme" by a lot of contributors but still included in the documentation? :-? I can appreciate the merits for physical separation, but when the track is completely attached to the carriageway, that seems like extra work for a benefit that I'm not understanding and arguably less accurate (because a gap would be recorded where there isn't really one) and we're not overblessed with cycleway-mapping contributors around here.

Thank you anyway. As an encore (or maybe someone else can see why), why is http://cycle.travel/map/journey/15786 refusing to cross Oxford Street? I'm not very good at understanding turn restrictions.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Post Reply