Fastest vs Shortest

[Stephen Mell]

When planning a tour, MyRoute planner and navigation apps are my 'go-to' solutions. However, for everyday SatNav use, I am finding it increassingly irksome.

The problem is that lack of a "Fastest" option as opposed to the defrault shortest routing used by the app.

I live in the countryside and whenever I need to navigate to a destination, the app inevitably routes me across-country, using the smallest/slowest of roads, simply because it is the shortest distance. The journey often takes much longer than if I had been able to take the fastest route (albeit possibly longer in distance) using more main roads.

Surely the app already knows which is the fastest route when it analyses/calculates its route but then discards anything but the shortest?
I have never come across a SatNav device or app that does not offer Fastest vs Shortest, other than MyRoute-app. Even Google maps navigation (free!) offers a choice of routes.

[Drabslab]

@Stephen-Mell In my experience, and as an avrage user, MRA routeplanner is exactly doing what you want it to.

If you give it a starting and endpoint it calculates the fastest route between those points based upon the same Garmin or tomTom maps you find in those GPS systems.

I do not use the navigation tool (still have a TomTom on the motorcycle) but i would be highly surprised if the navigation app would do something else. I guess you have made settings that cause this behavior. You can do the same in the routeplanner:

By the way, we are all simple users here who volunteer to help some other users, not MRA staff, so treathening to "defect to the competition" does not make the impact you probably would want it to have.

[Stefan Hummelink]

@Stephen-Mell Wow, oddly enough I never stumbled upon this issue but indeed, the lack of these simple navigation settings is very unexpected, I can't find those options either and I'm very familiar with the Nav app!

I feel I never noticed it since most of the time my trips are navigated by use of routes made in the planner on forehand and therefore are exactly how I'd like to ride them, but just like you mention, for daily or regular nav use these kind of options SHOULD be available.

Oh well, there's room for improvement ️.

Maybe you can create a default route in the planner that takes you out of your country side the fastest way and from there on switch to regular style navigation as a workaround for now?

[Drabslab]

@StefanHummelink Well, if it is really not possible to autmatically get the fastest route for A to B navigation then this is a shortcoming indeed.

However, I found the below screenshot in the documentation of the navigation app that does suggest you can customise the behaviour.

[Stefan Hummelink]

@Drabslab yes those options do exist, but those are not the same as Fastest Vs. Shortest which every regular nav device offers. Sometimes the fastest route is achieved by indeed avoiding the highways and sometimes even the shortest route actually uses highways... Although these options offer some more tunability but yet it does not provide the simply choice for fast or shortest route.

PS* probably the Nav app automatically calculates fastest route but that cannot be configured...

[Drabslab]

@StefanHummelink said in Fastest vs Shortest:

Fastest Vs. Shortest

I was just guessing that you accidently turned on a few of those options, or possibly the "bicycle" routign options which leads immediately to choosing the shortest route.

Pretty amazing if such an obvious feature would not be available and a definite entry for the "great suggestion" list if it is not there.

On my TomTom 400 there are a heap of such options but I honestly never use them, I seem to have two requirements: or: as fast as possible, or: to follow exactly a route that I prepared myself.

Anyway, updating the navigation app is on the development roadmap so this is one to consider

[Stephen Mell]

Thanks for your responses.
Just to be clear, I am very familar with the planner and the nav apps.
Subject to the options that some of you have mentioned, both apps will always calculate the shortest distance, whether it be between waypoints on the planner or between current position and destination set in the Nav app.
You can get around this on the planner by placing more waypoints, but on the Nav app the whole point is that you are undertaking a route that you are not familiar with and very often, the shortest route is definitely not the fastest.
Unbelievably MRA customer service say that this is on their list, but of low importance!!
I am utterly amazed by this. I mean, being able to select between shortest and fastest is a fundemental tenet of all SatNav devices and other apps, such as TomTom and even Google maps, which is free!
Can I please ask you all to vote this up and get it some traction with the development team.
Many thanks

[Stephen Mell]

@Drabslab Not so much a threat, more a disappointing conclusion of what I will need to do in the absence of such a fundemental option in their product. But I take your point.

[Drabslab]

@Stephen-Mell

I understand, and I am sure you did not mean anything negative.

Adn yuo are rigth that it is fundamental... maybe (and I hope ) it is already covered in a way that is not obvious to us, and if not, it is definitively a "must have" on the navigation priority list

[Hans van de Ven MR.MRA]

If I want the fastest route, I just use the A to B navigation with both the Navigation app and in my Zumo XT, and both routes go over the highway. I never use the shortest - fastest option. But maybe there is a need for it, but as you have already heard this is not high on the priority list and it is compiled by the users.