Closed roads not recognised/ avoided?

Stuart Rutherford

Hi everyone, I'm new to MRA and excited to try it out. One thing I noticed is that when I set up and tried out a nice twisty round trip local to where I live in Brussels, part of the route generated took me on a road that is closed for works, and has been for a long time (it is also shown as closed e.g. on Google Maps). Is this normal that MRA doesn't avoid closed roads? Or can I somehow get MRA to generate routes that avoid closed roads? Thanks for any help anyone can offer!

Nick Carthew

@Stuart-Rutherford With a Gold RoutePlanner subscription you can turn the traffic layer on in the overlay maps. My example shows slow moving traffic on the roundabout (red). If the road was closed it would show a black line. But road closures will only be shown if the HERE map has the information for them. Sometimes this is slow to arrive and sometimes it doesn’t arrive at all!

Con Hennekens

@Stuart-Rutherford, I have been on a trip to Oostwinkel, near Gent, last weekend, and noticed the same thing. Twice I faced a long-term closure due to mainenance, but it seems that Belgian road owners don't share details with the map creators much... By the way, both times I was able to continue by steering my motorbike over a bicycle path or short piece of grass

Stuart Rutherford

@Nick-Carthew Thanks a lot Nick! I'm a gold subscriber, so I went in and had another go at creating the 'scenic route' with the layers you mentioned. I noticed that the 'traffic info' tick-box only appears if you go into create route (and not on the quick 'create scenic route' option. But even when I created a route with 'HERE' map and the traffic info box ticked, it still didn't know the road was closed. I guess the map info is not up to date, but I'm a bit surprised as its a fairly busy road, which has been closed for months. Anyway, I'll keep playing around with it and seeing what solutions I can find! Thanks again!

Stuart Rutherford

@Con-Hennekens Thanks Con, indeed, looks like map info isn't updated very often in Belgium

Corjan Meijerink

@Stuart-Rutherford What is often updated in Belgium? Their roads need an update for the past decade

Stuart Rutherford

@Nick-Carthew Hi again Nick, I looked more closely, and indeed you're right, there is a black line next to the blue route line showing the closed part of the road! But the route still takes me that way - now I just have to work out how to get the route to work around it - probably i need to add and move way points, but I still have to work on learing a bit more how to do it all - thanks again!

Nick Carthew

@Corjan-Meijerink said in Closed roads not recognised/ avoided?:

@Stuart-Rutherford What is often updated in Belgium? Their roads need an update for the past decade

Ha ha That may be true but let’s not single out Belgium for having poor roads. The UK has its fair share of potholes and non existent diversion signs as you will remember from our recent Wales tour. And of course a fallen tree. I was very disappointed that the tree was not indicated on the HERE map

Nick Carthew

@Stuart-Rutherford said in Closed roads not recognised/ avoided?:

@Nick-Carthew Hi again Nick, I looked more closely, and indeed you're right, there is a black line next to the blue route line showing the closed part of the road! But the route still takes me that way - now I just have to work out how to get the route to work around it - probably i need to add and move way points, but I still have to work on learing a bit more how to do it all - thanks again!

Yes, unless the full closure details have been lodged with HERE mapping and they update their map the routing algorithms will not know that the road is closed. The traffic overlay is seen in real time and is a useful feature for Gold subscribers.
You can either re-route around the closure or remove any route points within the affected part (to save skipping them later) and allow the local diversion signs to take you around it. Personally, I would re-route.

Drabslab

@Stuart-Rutherford said in Closed roads not recognised/ avoided?:

Thanks Con, indeed, looks like map info isn't updated very often in Belgium

or anywhere else for that matter.

I just drove through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Italy and France.

Conclusion is that many (and I really mean many) speed restrictions on TomTom or Here are incorrect. Funny(?) side is that Here and TomTom are often wrong in a different way.

And I got one case in France where a sign on the left side on the road said: 30km/h, with another one on the other side saying 70 km/h and a big 50 painted on the road itself. I kick myself for not going back and take a picture.

M.A. de Bruijn

I had something similar , we where in Steinach Germany and there was a route there in the libary, after a minute i hit a closed road and it was even shown on the route map, but MRA kept insisting to go that road !
gold member HERE map

Nick Carthew

@M-A-de-Bruijn said in Closed roads not recognised/ avoided?:

I had something similar , we where in Steinach Germany and there was a route there in the libary, after a minute i hit a closed road and it was even shown on the route map, but MRA kept insisting to go that road !
gold member HERE map

If there are route points on the closed road the app will try to take you there. You can skip those route points and the app will redirect you when you start to follow the local diversion signs.

HighPeakRider

We have a local road closure shown on Google and Apple maps but seems open on the app?

Con Hennekens

@HighPeakRider, In the online MRA planner on all three map brands there looks to be no closure...

Does anyone know where the traffic info comes from if you select this?

The MRA navigation itself shows that the road is being maintained, but does not route around it. Also it shows no slow traffic, where it does that on other locations... Could there be maintenance without an actual closure?

Nick Carthew

@Con-Hennekens TT MyDrive shows a full road closure. And according to this website the road is open at weekends.

https://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/highways_and_roads/roadworks/a537-macclesfield-to-buxton-vehicle-restraint-system-upgrade.aspx