Not allowing routing down a road - A possibly useful side effect

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Last night I was creating a route for possible use in November. A part of the route included taking the D643 ring road south underneath Cambrai. It’s a road I know well and have used lots of times. For some unknown reason MyRoute would not allow me to route along it, it was always routing me into Cambrais itself. I couldn’t understand why but with very quick help from the excellent MyRoute forum I found out why. I’ll share the reason as it might help others in the future.

This is the right turn onto the D643 that I would normally take:

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But when I asked MyRoute to make the turn it resolutely refused to do it:

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The routing was fine up until point 7. The routing was again fine from point 9 onwards. Something was happening at point 8 but I couldn’t work out what. MyRoute’s forum supplied the answer.

There is a road closure on the D643, so the software was routing me around it. Clever stuff really. Here is a screenshot from Google maps, which shows the closure:

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What though is maybe interesting, particularly for TomTom users, is that the TomTom routing option showed the road as open (it’s not) and allowed routing:

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The TomTom routing option must use different data than the default Open Street Map and HERE (Garmin friendly) routing options.

As I probably won’t use the route until November, none of this really matters but it did get me wondering one thing.

If I create the route and ride it today, the road is closed and I’ll be routed through Cambrai. But, if I create the route today, save it away and then fire it up again in November - by when the road should be open again - will the route recalculate to allow me to go along the D643? I guess it should. If it does, I assume this might be a useful function. Here’s what I mean.

Lots of us create routes in advance of a holiday. If MyRoute does adjust routes in real time, based on known road closure data, it follows that it might be worthwhile firing up a route created earlier to see if it adjusts to allow for roads that were open at the time time that the route was first created but are now (some months later) closed.

Everyone can accept that roads do close. But, when hooning along on a day’s route of say 300 miles across very rural France, it is sometimes frustrating to find the route barred and a detour (sometimes of many miles) in place. If you can be warned about it in advance, it might be helpful.
 
MyRoute does indeed adjust to reflect the latest known closures.

I have received this reply on the MyRoute forum / help pages:

> Hi Richard,
> That's right, the route is recalculated every time you open it in MRA, so it may be that you are allowed over a part of the road today and not the next day. This can be due to: road works, temporary (weekend) closures, etc.
>
> I check my routes for closures up to 2 days before driving, using the traffic map layer, TomTom Mydrive and the POI files related to closures in the Netherlands and Germany. In this way I prevent 98% from hitting a closed road.

I have been a long term fan of Garmin, MapSource and then BaseCamp but the more I use MyRoute and better understand what it does do and what it can do, the more I like it. Mix in that my new 1600 will not (unless I change it) be able to run a Garmin device but instead rely on BMW’s bespoke navigation software (which does integrate well with MyRoute) will probably mean that the love affair with Garmin is over…… but I shan’t get rid on my XT just yet.


I think I’ll still create routes in advance but rather than load them up then and there, I’ll do as the fellow above does and postpone the loading up until a day or so before departure or even the morning of setting off. As MyRoute on my iPad / phone links seamlessly with BMW’s and Garmin’s app’s this should not be too much of a problem. No more…..

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Another tip, just received from the MyRoute forum, is to import a track of the route into Google MyMaps, which will also display road closures.

Edit: In a PM someone has asked me how to import a track into Google MyMaps. As I am not a big user of Google maps I had to tap around a bit on my iPad but I found this worked:

First create yourself a MyMaps account in Google, which is free to do. Note: This is Google’s MyMaps NOT MyRoute, the two sometimes being confused by their vaguely similar names.

Then follow these simple steps:

1. On your computer, sign in to My Maps. Note: It seems to work just as well on an iPad or iPhone.
2. Open or create a map.
3. In the map legend, click Add layer.
4. Give the new layer a name.
5. Under the new layer, click Import.
6. Upload the file or photos that have your info.
7. Then click Select.

Here’s a simple track that I created in MyRoute and uploaded into Google’s MyMaps, using the method above, so I know it works.

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Read more about it here: https://support.google.com/mymaps/answer/3024836?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop
 
What I am now struggling with in Google’s MyMaps on an iPad is how to turn the traffic layer on.

If anyone knows, please help.

Thank you.
 
Richard, thanks very much for posting that useful information and all the associated pictures. I am slowly getting to understand MRA and am liking it more and more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What I am now struggling with in Google’s MyMaps on an iPad is how to turn the traffic layer on.

If anyone knows, please help.

Thank you.

I have received a very clear reply from the excellent MyRoute forum on how to do this:

I myself had also some issues in the beginning on how to get this method to work, but here's the method in chronological order, appended with some screenshot.

1. Create the personal map in Google MyMaps (NOT Google Maps) and import the .gpx file of your route. You've done this already! Great.

2. Open Google Maps, (NOT Google MyMaps) and navigate to "Saved" or something like that. My Google maps setting is in Dutch so I do not know the exact text used in your application. Check the symbol for cross check.

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3. Navigate to "Maps" (check the icon for crosscheck due to language differences) to show all your personal maps (created in Google MyMaps). Then click on one of your personal maps. Google Maps opens the map and shows your track/route etc.

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4. Do nothing else but click the back arrow in the top left corner and navigate back to the home screen "Verkennen" (Explore in English?). If all is right, you'll see your route in the map.

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5. Click the layers/overlays and enable the traffic layer.

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6. Zoom in on the route, and check for roadworks. Note: you need to zoom in quote far to see ALL roadworks. Some of them only show when zoomed in quite far!

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7. On a desktop, the process is similar, but buttons and such may differ. From my head, on a desktop one can show the traffic layer immediately after opening the personal MyMaps map. I use this so often, that these kind of details are not remembered.


Whilst it’s not essential, being able to check for road closures on a route (which might have been created months or even years earlier) might well be useful.
 
I have just used the method outlined above using my iPhone.

I got it a little wrong the first time but only because I misread the instructions (moving between the instructions and Google maps, I missed out a piece) but the second time - working through slowly and patiently - it worked just fine.

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Zoom in a bit more and the traffic conditions on more roads on or around the route are displayed:

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Drag the map a bit more and zoom in again and the traffic conditions on the smallest road on the route is displayed:

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I have also done the same on my IPad, where it worked just as well.

I’ll accept that many road closures are easy to navigate around but some are not very well signposted or the instructions not too clear. Similarly, in very rural areas, they can take you mikes off course, using up time. Just altering a route to remove a large one would be worthwhile.

There was a post not so long ago about chaos following a big diversion due to a German motorway being resurfaced, a job that won’t be over in five minutes. Just missing that out woukd be a huge benefit.

For example, I have a pretty standard route around Cambrai, a route which started this whole investigation off). I rarely recreate it, simply just relying on a road that was open before must be open again today, tomorrow and next week. Using the method to check, I can see a section is shut. Knowing in advance means that I can revise my plans accordingly and knock up a quick GPX route to avoid it.

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