Autorouting

About the Autorouting

The maps offered here are to be used for cycling, mtbiking and hiking. There is a general preference to route you over trails and cycleways. Streets have lower prioty. However note that the GPS will not take huge detours on trails to avoid a primary or secondary highway – even though they have the lowest priority. Autorouting with my maps is unusable with a motorcar. Use another Openstreetmap implementation instead if you intend to use you car. The maps can be used for autorouting on a racing bicycle – however the Velomaps are better for racing bicycles..

Downhill preference on difficult trails

All trails from which I can assume that they are usable downhill only will have much higher priority in the downhill direction, uphill they will only be chosen if long detours are unavoidable otherwise. This means uphill on relatively easy trail, downhill much more technical. In order for this to work you need to use the incline tag correctly. I have rules setup to catch more or less any value, be it incline=up or incline=down, incline=(-)??% or also wrong tags like incline=positive or incline=-. Any way with mtb:scale:uphill=4 or mtb:scale:uphill=5 (see mtb:scale for explication of mtb:scale:uphill) will be avoided on uphill. Therefore please add mtb:scale:uphill and incline tags to all your favourite trails that are too difficult for uphill. mtb:scale:uphill=3 will be considered oneway if incline>15% or incline<-15%.

 It does not matter whether the way itself in the osm database points uphill or downhill. I reverse ways pointing uphill when rendering the maps. This is of course only possible if the incline tag exists on the way.

Usage Instructions

Mapsource/Basecamp vs GPS settings

In Mapsource and Basecamp under options –> autorouting you have a slider to prefer small roads (left side) to highways (right side). The gnarlier trails or the more preference for bicycle routes you want to have (thereby accepting longer over distance) the more you can move this slider to the right. I don't recommend to ever move this slider to the left with my maps, else you will be routed over primaries/secondaries and other unsuitable roads. This slider does not exist on GPS. The GPS will route like if you leave the slider in the middle position (more or less).

Faster Time vs Shorter Distance

With my maps shorter distance already tries to route over nice ways. If you use "faster time" – escpecially in combination with car/motorcycle then an even higher preference for "nice" ways will be used and routes tend to be longer (more detours) overall. With my maps there is no such routing as really shortest distance (it is actually impossible to do really have autorouting on Garmin GPS find the shortest route over long distances). If you use shorter distance the route will be in general straighter and with less detours – also longer overall distances will be calculated without crashing (error notice, no actual crash).

Transport Modes

Please note, etrex 30 and Garmin Basecamp currently don't accept any limitations set with transport mode.  Avoidances like unpaved roads or toll roads do work however. It is well possible that with future firmware updates also other Garmin GPS devices will omit the transport mode selection.

Car/Motorcycle = nearly all types of roads are routable (exceptions are via ferratas and their like). Works well in combination with "faster time". Works well on shorter distances – might produce long detours.

Delivery = equal to Motorcar/Motorcycle but Primaries and Secondaries are avoided (less priority – exept if they are part of a cycle/mtb route, or bridge/tunnel )

Taxi =Racing Bicycle mode – also no bridleways except if cycling explicitely allowed! (You also have to check avoid unpaved roads and avoid toll roads).

Emergency = any way (including via ferratas) is routable.

Bus / Truck should not be used, will end up with very bad routing

Pedestrian no good autorouting over longer distances, will usually give quite direct vias – does not respect oneways. Therefore good if you have to route uphill a "downhill only" way or for via ferratas.

Bicycle = now works very well together with "shorter distance". – Only via ferratas are blocked (just like car/motorcycle). Less preference for "perfect ways". Works well in combination with "shorter distance". Is good for calculating longer distances (not really long, but longer than the other modes)

Basecamp and newer Garmin GPS sometimes do not follow the transport modes strictly.

Avoidances

Avoid unpaved roads Is to be used to a) stay on ways where cycling is not forbidden, and avoid difficult ways, bad surface, tracktype=grade3 and higher….. (does not avoid ways that are for MTBikers only and avoided via "avoid toll roads", therefore you should also activate avoid toll roads). Also tick avoid unpaved roads if you don't want to cycle (maybe forbidden) against oneway streets.

Avoid toll roads Avoids very difficult ways (MTB only, not trekking bikes)

Avoid Ferries - Avoids ferries, cablecars, gondolas and any lift that takes bicycles.

Carpool lanes - NEVER tick this, might destroy autorouting.

U-Turns avoid sharp turns – best not use, because it will destroy sensible autorouting.

NEVER Tick  "Avoid Highways" - It will block the best ways. On my maps, trails, pathes and cycleways are encoded for the GPS as highways. Real highways are not routable anyhow.

— Not possible to set with mkgmap: Seasonal Road closures - it is currently not possible with mkgmap to produce maps that react to this setting.

Estimated Arrival time

It is not possible to have nice routing with correct estimated arrival times for bicycle/mtb use.

Route Calculation Fails

If Routing fails and you need to get somewhere whithout being able to set via points, you can try with “shorter distance” caculation which should autoroute even through heavily mapped cities (actually the better a region is mapped, without sufficient bicycle/mtb routes the more difficult it is for the routing engine to get over longer distances, Enabling “shorter distance” instead of “Faster Time” gets you to your destination quite well (though then also big streets are chosen quite often).

Due to the way the maps are setup, setting your GPS to “shorter distance” should generate routes that are much quicker. “Faster Time” calculates nicer routes, but will take much more time. Setting “Avoid Toll Roads” when using the GPS for bicycling is not so important in cities, you might find that routes are better with it off. Once you route outside of cities, escpcially into mountaineous regions, you will have to activate it, in order not to be guided from one summit through the valley to the next summit…. Essentially in most regions first the nice ways are mapped, now autorouting will work very nicely, as people start to map ways just to get them into the map but not because they find them nice to use, the routing calculation gets more difficult. Oneway streets are still disrespected.

Routing does not work over long distances:

There are two main causes for bad routing:

1. non connected streets in OSM.

2. Not enough streets suitable for mountainbiking/cycling around. Well I bet there are – but probabely they are not tagged according to the tagging guidelines yet. You should be able to route for 15km minimum to about 70-80km maximum without needing to route over via points. Much longer will never work because the routing engine of Garmin is not strong enough (and maybe there are still some improvements to be made in mkgmap). This is because Garmin algorithm likes to go staight for long time (like on a motorway) – routes suitable for cycling or mountainbiking make turns, have many intersections and are not so easy to be routed on. Because I don't want the maps to send you onto big roads, routing will not work over long distances. For autorouting inside your car there are better maps available. Maps offered here are supposed to give you the best routing possible on Garmin GPS for mountainbiking / hiking or cycling.

Solution: Insert additional via-points.

How to overcome problems when routing over long distances:

Routing without via points over large distances (i.e. 30-40km) will often not work, even though by setting via points you will find a way. The better the OSM Coverage the greater the distance you can cover with the autoroute function. Very often ways chosen will be up,down,up,down instead of through the valley – because we prefer nicer and more challenging over simple roads. For getting to the mountain with your car, better take another map. I recommend either Garmin City Navigator maps if you have the doll to shell out, or the excellent Autoroutable maps by Lambertus:  http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php The maps offered here are to be used for cycling, mtbiking and hiking. So you will never be routed onto big ways. I have structured the Routing Preferences so that interesting trails should be chosen over streets. 

If you want to plan you're routes in Mapsource and be sure that recalculation works on GPS I recommend you to read through here:

plan-routes-efficiently following this tutorial and using wingdb you can easily create routes via pc that go over 200-300km. I advise however to make a new route for each day.