I have created several snow plowing routes using waypoints and shaping points that work quite well except for a minor issue. Generally when I want the route to make a U-turn at an intersection, all I need to do is place a shaping point in the middle of an intersection. About 80% of the time the route will say make a U-turn and the other 20% it will say make hard right or hard left. The hard right/left is also an issue when I want the route to make a U-turn at a dead end. Is there a way to force a U-turn prompt so it appears 100% of the time?
I have tried several items. As I mentioned before, sometimes one point in the middle of the intersection gives the U-Turn, but other times it doesn't. In those cases I have placed two shaping points, three shaping points, a point before and after the U-turn point and a point before and after and two shaping points at the U-Turn point. I've probably tried items I forgot to mention here as well. But it is odd I have had cases where the two shaping points worked to provide a U-turn. It just doesn't seem like there is one foolproof method to generate a U-turn that I can find.
Try setting both Basecamp and device to calculate route by shortest, not fastest, method. Be aware that the "Avoid U-turns" option causes the device to try to make a left or right turn to circle the block instead of turning around at a point on the existing route to reverse course.
Add Edit: Consider carrying a vehicle NAV device in which road route re-calculation can be disabled: A backup non-touchscreen button push hiking model such as the Garmin 64s with AA batteries, if not a higher end primary Drive model if the budget allows.
The leaves should fall off the trees by Black Friday Sales, but urban buildings combined with snow may affect gps signals and recalculating in a plow may be nerve wracking. Once an entry level Drive/Nuvi/ gets lost in an urban canyon with a route such as this, you may have "issues". Good luck.
We had deactivated "Avoid U-turns" so that is not an issue. All the routes I have set up are set by fastest method so I hesitate to change everything to shortest, but at the same time it never tried to have us circle around the block instead of doing a U-turn. The only issue is it says make a "Hard Right" or "Hard Left" instead of make a U-turn in about 20% of the cases.
We are more suburban than urban so we have not had an issue with signal interference to date, but of course we have not tried it in poor weather conditions yet.
Garmin had recommended I put the two points almost on top of one another to "force" a U-turn but I had much better luck placing one point in the middle of the intersection.
. All the routes I have set up are set by fastest method so I hesitate to change everything to shortest, but.
Once again I suggest that you change the calculation method to "shortest" routing. Why? Because all road categories on your device are not rated at the same speed, but "shortest" routing ignores speed differences and may eliminate unwanted turn directions etc., . You can change it back to "fastest" if you so choose. Use of an excess of points may be advantageous if the gps device decides you are off course part way through the plowing and starts auto recalculating.
I attempted the shortest routing and there was no change to the route. It still read "Make a hard right" or "Make a hard left", not make a U-turn. Again in most cases it says to make a U-turn, and where it doesn't it says make a hard right or left back onto the same street. It never tries to route me in a loop to avoid the U-turn.
Just to be clear, are you talking about turn by turn instruction being incorrect while the actual routing is correct or are you unable to get the routing to reverse direction. I hope this makes sense.
I'm not sure anything can done about an incorrect instruction. In your use do you go by a verbal instruction, symbol or line on a map? Does a hard right/left symbol/instruction ever occur in a non-u-turn situation? By that I mean for your purposes could you always interpret that symbol/command to "make a u-turn"?
It just occurred to me that the "Hard (right/left} Turn" direction usually refers to turning more than 90 degrees onto an intersecting road. Usually these turns look more like 135 degrees. So it sounds like the device routing directions are working as well as can be expected. Whether the turn is right or left may depend on the exact positioning of the turn around point relative to the upcoming intersection.
Or not. I can't bring myself to actually test this out on Basecamp or a device yet, since the OP seems to have a handle on things. Good luck.
This issue seems to pop up more often when the geometric configuration of the intersection is not all 90 degree angles, such as dead ends, angled streets and streets that have multiple names (street has one name on one side and another name on the other side), so maybe this is the issue.
My work around has been to create a TourGuide point and accompanying MP3 file that tells the driver to make a U-turn since we use the units with an internal MP3 player.
The hard right/left symbol only occurs in U-turn situations so we have instructed the driver to treat it as a U-turn and make a U-turn when they see that symbol. I just wish it said make a U-turn.
