Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Basecamp estimated travel time

2398172
over 2 years ago

I planned a route through France which is approx. 590 km long. Part of the route uses toll-free highways, The majority of the route is along "departementales" (secondary roads).

Setting for all plans: motorcycle - shortest route. Setting shouldn't really matter too much because I forced BC go on and off highways using extra via points anyway.

Plan 1: using Map City Navigator Europe NTU 2022.2. Distance: 587 km. Travel time: 12 H 21 min. 

Plan 2: using Map Openstreetmap Freizeitkarte France edition March 2022. Travel Time: 10 H 10 min.

The discrepancy is more than 2 hours for exactly the same route. Does anyone know which estimated travel time is the most realistic?

Just out of curiosity I imported my GPX in TomTom MyDrive. And TomTom comes up with an estimation of 8H 33 min!

I can understand that different maps and different route planners will produce somewhat different time estimations. But 2 hours for the same route using the same planning software just because the map is another one? Doesn't make sense to me. And then about 4 hours difference between Basecamp and TomTom for exactly the same route? That's really off the chart.

I plan to drive there a couple of weeks from now, and then I will find out which planning is the most accurate, but meanwhile I'd like to hear from experienced users what to expect. I don't want to arrive at my hotel way past latest check-in time.

  • +1 over 2 years ago

    Mapping software clasiify roads by type and assign a speed limit for each type.  The summatioin of mileage for each type divided by its assigned speed limit determines the travel time.  It's not hard to imagine the difficulty created when dealing with many countries in a single map set.

    I would suggest playing around with the Average Speeds found under Edit>Options>Activity Profile, scroll to the bottom of the Routing time anc click on customize.

    If you live in France that is probably all you need to do (speeds are probably too low for the higher level roads below the top one).  If you plan on routing in multiple european countires or if  France isn't you native country, I would suggest creating a new profile based on the Motorcycle profile - call it something like "Motorcycle France".

    This can be done from Edit>Options>Activity Profile then click on the "+" next to the displayed profile.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Garmin devices learn your driving style, so I never rely on BaseCamp times no matter which map I use.  As you're comparing times from 2 maps there are likely to be significant differences over a long route. I import routes into my device and look at the time it says, I find those times remarkably accurate.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to BTLAAKE

    Thanks for the tips, but that doesn't really answer my question. I played around with the speed settings and the estimated travel times change as expected for both maps: higher speeds yield shorter travel times, but the difference between the maps remains. Surely a difference in road classification between the maps is the true reason for the difference. I can live with that. But I still don't know which of both maps produce the most realistic travel time (and referring to the speed settings: what are realistic average speeds)? In my experience you have to do a lot of uninterrupted  kms on a 120 km/h highway to get an average speed close to 100 km/h.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 2398172

    I'm sorry, but I don't have any European maps and I don't know your exact route.  The only information provided is 590 km on mostly secondary roads (60%? 80%? passing through towns?).  I also don't know your riding tendencies.

    I google search of speed limits for Fance provides 130 kph for the top tier roads, 110 kph for divided highways, 80 kph for secondary roads and 50 kph for all others.  At 80 kph with no stops, 590 km would take ~ 7 hr and 20 min.  If 10% were through towns and cities that would be 59 km @ 50 and 531 @ 80  or about 7 hr 50 min.

    I would start by setting the highest level at 130, the next at 110 the others at 80 and residential and collector roads at 50.  The chances are the average speed wiill be a little slower on the non-50 kph roads - say 5 kph (3 mph).  You may have to change the 110 setting to 80.

    You can also make short routes exclusively on the different roads to figure out what speed the map is using.  By changing  the speeds limits in the options one at a time, you will discover what classification the map has assigned for that road.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 2398172

    As I suggested, the most accurate will be the time calculated by your device using the Garmin CN map. You can play around with BaseCamp if you wish but your device will do it all for you.