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 priority. 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 - For All Programs / GPS.

Note that all may behave different. In principle we have the following classes:

New Generation - Basecamp v4.6 - 4.8, Oregon 700/750, GPSMaps 64 current firmware/66 series, Edge 830/1030, Edge 820 with current firmware

Mid Generation - Basecamp v3.3 to v4.5. Dakota, Oregon 600/650, Montana, GPSMaps 62 series with newest Firmware, 64 with older firmwares, edge 520/820 with older firmwares

Old Generation - Mapsource, Basecamp v1 & v2 & v3.1, v3.2, All Garmin GPS WITHOUT Activity Routing (etrex vista/legend hcx or older, edge 705, GPS Maps 60 series; AND Dakota, first generation Oregon, Montana,GPSMaps 62 series with older Firmwares )

Faster Time vs Shorter Distance

With my maps shorter distance already tries to route over nice ways. If you use "faster time" - especially in combination with car/motorcycle or Automotive mode, 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).

Estimated Arrival time

Garmin is not supporting proper Arrival times for Cycling. Using bicycle the estimated arrival times using "faster time" are simply calculated by averaging 18km/h - hence not very useful. Using "shorter distance" the arrival time often becomes really bogus. Using Automotive, Car/Motorcycle or other modes, the times will be far too short. Also elevation (so climbs or downhills) are not taken into the calculation. This is the same for Garmins own maps.

Road Type Avoidances

NEVER Tick  "Avoid Highways" - It will block the best ways. On my maps, shared use pathes and cycleways are encoded for the GPS as highways. Real highways or big streets where cycling is not allowed are not routable anyhow with the OpenMTBMaps (so no need to avoid them).

Interstates: don't avoid them, you'll miss the nicest trails.

Major Highways: If you tick it you will avoid streets that are nice for cycling, cycleways, cyclepaths, and so on. Well as you want to cycle with this map, I don't think you ever want to tick that box.

State Highways: Don't tick it. Most ways in the OpenMTBMap would be blocked.

Residential Roads: If you tick it, then residential streets, primaries and secondaries are blocked as well as trails that are no fun to bike. May work, but don't bet on it (too often some very short residential street or bad quality trail is necessary to get from A to B without crazy alternations.

Unpaved roads: If you are a XC biker, then yes, try activating it. All ways with mtb:scale=1 or higher are blocked, as well as sac_scale = T2 or higher.

Feature Type Avoidances:

Toll roads Avoid ways, that are only for vertriders. Also avoids biking against the allowed traffic direction, blocks uphills you have to carry your bike (if mtb:scale:uphilll and incline are set properly), or ways were you are not allowed to bike.

Avoid Ferries - Avoids ferries, cablecars, gondolas and mixed lifts.

U-Turns avoids any turn over 120° - best not use, because it will destroy sensible autorouting.

Cable Cars: Does not matter with OpenMTBMaps (or more correctly, does not work, best don't tick anyhow).

Narrow Trails: Does not matter with OpenMTBMaps

Carpool lanes: Avoids all ways where cycling is forbidden (and no more). (is activated by default in all profiles but car/motorcycle).

Date and Time Closures - it is currently not possible with mkgmap to produce maps that react to this setting.

Climbing Paths: Does not matter with OpenMTBMaps.

Roundabouts: Well does exactly what it says. I advice you to never tick this box, else roundabouts are avoided, and then routing likely won't work well.

General Tips and Advices - e.g. Route Calculation Fails

If Routing fails and you need to get somewhere without 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. It it fails with "out of memory" error, you can also change the route calculation method. Another possibility to to deactivate "avoid unpaved roads". Often some very small patches of unpaved roads will hinder the routing to work well. Then just try to cycle a bit nearer using the route, and after a few kilometers (or better say 20 turns) click on recalculate after reactivating avoid unpaved roads.

Attention - Same Map.

You need to plan the routes with the identical map in Basecamp (same country, same date (that is paramount) that you use on your GPS device. Unicode/Non Unicode does not matter however. If you created the route with an older map - recalculate it in Basecamp first - then send it again to your GPS device. Also if you update maps on your device - it will often lead to errors if you try to use an older route (does not have to - but the more months between the map used for planning, and the map used with the route on your device - the more likely you get route calculation errors). To correct this - recalculate the routes in Basecamp with the new map - and send them again to your device. If the route now does not work in Basecamp anymore - its quick to notice. Maybe you will need to move some via points.

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 cycling - or tracks and pathes that are not tagged with tracktype/smoothness so that they are blocked when using "avoid unpaved roads". You should be able to route for 15km minimum to about 70-80km maximum without needing to route over via points on old GPS. Using Mapsource or newer GPS like Oregon or Dakota you can route over much longer distances. Very very long routes 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 straight 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 very 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. 50-100km) 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. For in car use I recommend either Garmin City Navigator maps if you have the doll to shell out, or the excellent Autoroutable maps by Lambertus:  http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ The maps offered here are to be used for cycling, commuting via bicycle and roadbiking. I have structured the Routing Preferences so that small streets are preferred over larger 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.