Different routes between same two points? Wed May 28, 2008 8:15 pm
I just got back from a business trip to southern California, and it was my first real work-out with my nuvi 360. The nuvi was a tremendous help on that maze of freeways and performed flawlessly. One thing seemed a little strange though.
We left from a hotel in Downey to drive to Santa Barbara. The nuvi plotted what looked like a good route, we followed it, and arrived within 2 minutes of the ETA. For the return trip I used the same hotel and street address for the destination. The return route was the same as the outgoing route up to about the last 10 miles, then it diverged onto a different freeway and different secondary roads to reach the hotel.
We still got where we wanted to go, but it just seems weird that it wouldn't plot an identical route between the same two points. I don't have the traffic receiver so that can't be a factor.
Routes are not the same forwards and backwards. There can be one way streets, turn restrictions, and other factors that can cause the device to think that a similar route is not equally efficient in both directions.
Think of coming to a four way intersection... is it faster to turn left, or to turn right? When you turn right you are only dependent on one lane of traffic to be clear, that which is going from left to right in front of you. In order to make a left turn there, both lanes need to be clear. So statistically speaking right turns are faster than left turns.
Another example is arriving at a street address on a road where there is a median. Since you can't hop the median, it is often faster to take a different route (often with a couple of right turns) that will get you going in the correct direction so the destination is on the right rather than asking you to pass the destination, make a U-Turn, and backtrack.
Intersection exits don't put you on the same place on the road for traffic coming from both directions, so there can be a difference in the amount of time you spend on the secondary road-- that extra 1/8 of a mile can sometimes make a difference as well.
So there are lots of reasons why it might not think the same route is equally efficient in both directions.
Some of the things that figure into routing that might cause that are multiple lights in one direction left turns or perhaps road classification. What you described is not terribly unusual Of course maybe your nuvi was just bored.
It definitely wasn't bored, not with me in the driver's seat! I think if I had missed one more turn, Jill would've quit saying recalculating and started saying, you dumb-a$$, you missed the turn again!
Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 303 Location: Central California
Wed May 28, 2008 9:51 pm
My Nuvi will calculate the same destination and go a different way . It is almost human like when it does this. Could be I was on the other side of the street the time before, but this has happened on many occasions.
Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 87 Location: DC Metro Area
Wed May 28, 2008 11:12 pm
Mine does the same, and it's NOT because it's finding the faster route for each way. I haven't figured it out at all, but when I am driving from my house to I-270 South, it wants to take me a longer way that involves just as many left turns and much more traffic than when I am coming home from I-270.
That's something else I wish it would do. LEARN!
Oh well. At least, it's very patient. And it doesn't swear at you when you don't listen to directions.
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