Quite a while back (April), we released a new version of our scenic routing algorithm. Unfortunately due to some issues we had to revert that release and go back to the drawing board. Today, is the day that everything will work as expected!

The website has been update with 3 very major improvements.

Scenic routing / roundtrips

At MRA we have quite a lot of interesting route data. Due to the hard work of our RouteXperts, we know where you should be driving. Besides that, we also have an external dataset that indicate thrilling roads. Why not use this data to improve our routing algorithm? This was the idea that we worked on for the past months

When you now generate a scenic route or roundtrip, the quality of it will be a lot better than before. As we use those roads to identify where your route should go. Besides that, we modify the route a bit to remove unwanted u turns in the middle of a street.

Besides that, we also improve the user experience of the scenic route / roundtrip generator on the website. Not much has changed regarding functionality, you just need to click way less

Are you using the app? No update required! Improve routing is available immediately too!

RouteXpert library

Who uses the RouteXpert library? Quite a lot of people actually do but this can always be more! The content in the library is simply amazing.

The biggest issue with the library is that you simply cannot actually easily find the routes you are looking for. When moving around the map, you'd see the start of all routes but not actually what route it is / how it flows. All those issues are of the past!

When you open the library as of today, you immediately see the routes on the map. You don't need to scroll down to get the preview. Even better, the routes shown match the ones that are visible on your map

Zoom in more and you see exactly what routes you can choose from.

By making these changes to the RouteXpert library it has become way more fun to find the routes you want to drive. Another minor change is that we've modified the filters to be a bit more realistic to what is used.

Did you know that you can now hover on the icon in the RouteXpert library to get a quick preview too?

A extremely nice result of these changes are also that the library has become more useful for everyone around the world! Getting suggestions for popular routes in The Netherlands when you are in the UK is simply stupid.

Custom overlays

Now you might be one of those users who says "I want to do everything myself". We respect those a lot as we are quite alike

For you, we've added 2 new overlays! The MRA RouteXperts overlay and the MRA Scenic overlay.

The first one displays all the RouteXpert used roads. You might want to use those roads too.

The second one displays roads from a custom data set that should be thrilling to drive.

As you can see, the RouteXperts traveled almost every road in The Netherlands whereas not a lot of thrilling roads can be found. Why don't you try out these overlays in your own area?

Note: the zoom levels at which these overlays can be used is slightly restricted.

Summary

With these changes we hope to elevate route generation to a new level and make finding the best routes and roads even easier!

Cheers,
Corjan