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'Direct' routing still does not work in v20.31

cwartcam
1 month ago

In Running or Hiking mode (probably others), direct routing does not work. It seems to calculate a route that goes out of its way to take in random bits of park, minor side-roads, or other mysterious diversions. This has always been true on my 955 Solar.

I have routing options "Popularity Routing: Off" and "Calculation Method: Minimize Distance" set. But it looks identical if I turn Popularity Routing on, in a brief experiment.

I don't mind it choosing a "nice" route if I am feeling recreational. But if I just want to get somewhere quickly (e.g. home/a railway station/back to a hotel in a strange city) then if I choose direct routing, I want a direct route.

I know that choosing the _perfect_ direct route is a hard problem, but this is nowhere near that. It chooses a 1.93 mile route from my house to the station (in a city with plenty of direct streets) when the direct route is 1.3 miles, for example.

Here is a screenshot I took once where it decided to leave the perfectly good road I was on to go to a nearby park and back again, approximately 3 sides of a rectangle:

Is this a case of a simple settings flag value being ignored, like "lock on road" was until a recent fix?

Garmin developers, I would really appreciate you fixing this one, thanks!

  • 0 1 month ago

    I recognize this. When I let Garmin choose a route for running, it always give me stupid little detours through alleys or small park paths, while I am on a run of 30km and just want to follow straight lines. The most silly detours I remember before the start, and shortcut them by myself.

  • 0 1 month ago

    I think when the routing is set for "Running & Walking," Garmin (and other routing services as well) attempt to avoid major and secondary roads when possible. These are the thicker, orange/yellow roads on the TopoActive maps. I assume this is a safety thing as tertiary residential roads are usually safer for pedestrians.

    Maybe try changing the routing settings to "Road Cycling" (Activity Settings > Routing > Activity) and see if that helps. This usually allows for routing on major roads.

    Edit: I also believe it will attempt to route via sidewalks and footpaths when possible. These aren't always visible at all higher zoom levels, but could also be responsible for the routing choices you are seeing.

  • 0 1 month ago

    I set routing to "Road Cycling" and Minimize distance, that works quite well. But sometimes I prefer Direct routing (straight line) to just have a bearing and see for myself how to go.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to Duffman19

    Thanks, I just tried 'mixed surface cycling' and for one specific destination from home, that does improve things. But I don't think it's just about avoidances, because it has routed me away from a perfectly good traffic-free shared bike/pedestrian path to go through a park and back again before now. It feels like there is some strong weighting to take in "recreational" places. Although my screenshot here shows a major road, it doesn't just happen with roads (and those roads have pavements/sidewalks anyway).

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to cwartcam

    PS and notice in my screenshot, the total distance on major road (with pavement/sidewalks) is not reduced by the diversion -- it just ends up on a _different_ major road having gone off on that little adventure to the park...

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to cwartcam

    Yeah, I can't explain exactly what's going on with routing. And I agree that there seems to be a strong preference for recreational areas.

    I'm pretty sure most Garmin maps are based on OpenStreetMaps (OSM) data, so there is a lot of information (tags, allowances, direction of travel, etc.) that is not displayed on the map, but still may be affecting routing decisions. OSM is the Wikipedia of the mapping world and can be edited by anyone. It's possible some features are mis-labeled and causing these avoidances. 

    My guess is that the routing algorithms are designed to provide the "safest" path based on underlying map data, presumably for legal reasons. That usually means sidewalks and footpaths (not all sidewalks are mapped on OSM, and, if they are, they may not be correctly connected to give a direct path across a primary road). 

    I've had the same experience as you and agree that the routing isn't great in urban areas. I guess it's still better than nothing. I usually turn to Google or Apple for walking directions in cities.