Wacko traffic auto-recalc routing

[Peobody]

I returned home from a ride about an hour ago. Priority one was to share a screenshot of insane routing that occurred when the XT reacted to a road closure ahead. I was heading West to East. The road closure was offscreen a little bit to the West. The black line is the track of my intended route.
I am posting this solely for its humor value. Well, maybe for its absurdity too.

Screenshot of wacko traffic recalc.png (897.85 KiB) Viewed 1261 times

[FrankB]

@Peobody

I do appreciate your efforts for adding a bit of humour. Sadly it's just another example of Garmin's unwillingness to react on valid customer complaints.

Have a look at the German NaviBoard https://www.naviboard.de/thread/66873-n ... sensperre/ (try Google Translate, it does a reasonable job) It think @Rofor will agree that the issue was reported to Garmin many times, without success.

My workaround is to disable traffic info completely, and load the route/track in Google Maps to check for any road blocks. viewtopic.php?t=1965 But I think you already know that.

Traffic info on the XT might work if you're not driving a route/track. Just use it as a Car SatNav from A->B, without via points.

[Rofor]

@Peobody - Jepp, can confirm this!
This bug/error/feature(?) is known (ignored?) by Garmin for at least two years and i also was affected two years ago in our motorcycle-holidays in southern tyrol.

Many users in Germany/Austria had informed Garmin of this weird behaviour and also this exact behaviour and the re-routing errors was the reason, why 'we' didn't understand, why it isn't possible to turn off an automatic and not stoppable rerouting when 'traffic information' is enabled! Garmin told some users, that they won't to this, because it's 'a feature, not a bug'...

Sadly until today it's not really clear, why sometimes the automatic re-routing 'goes wild' and producers such garbage - maybe the now known RUT problem has something to do with it...

As @FrankB said - only really solution is to disable 'automatic re-routing' and also 'traffic information' - but maybe you could give it another try and report it another time to Garmin, including(!) the screenshot and telling them, that it has been reported many times by other users already!

[Peobody]

I do appreciate your efforts for adding a bit of humour. Sadly it's just another example of Garmin's unwillingness to react on valid customer complaints.

I dawned on me last night while laying in bed that there really wasn't anything humorous about it other than the smile that its absurdity generated.

As @FrankB said - only really solution is to disable 'automatic re-routing' and also 'traffic information' - but maybe you could give it another try and report it another time to Garmin, including(!) the screenshot and telling them, that it has been reported many times by other users already!

AFAIK, there isn't a way to disable automatic re-routing triggered by traffic. The decision then becomes whether or not to disable traffic information. When it works, it's great. My experience puts that at around 50%.

One thing I don't understand is why in some instances you will be offered one or more options to get around a traffic issue and in others the XT just re-routes. Perhaps it is traffic delays the produce options vs. road closure the triggers a re-route. The only reason I noticed this re-route was because two hours were added to my arrival time. I would have not otherwise know about it until I was into it.

BTW, I have sent emailed this to Garmin product support in the hopes that one more voice might prompt action. While attaching the image to that email I realized that the re-route is a combination of routing along roads and direct routing to the shaping points. That makes it more messed up than I first thought.

[FrankB]

AFAIK, there isn't a way to disable automatic re-routing triggered by traffic. The decision then becomes whether or not to disable traffic information.

Those are indeed my settings:
-Traffic, Uncheck Traffic
-Navigation, Off-Route Recalculation, Automatic.

Then it recalculates when I go off-route, but no recalculation because of traffic. There is a 'gotcha'. After you disable traffic, cold-start the XT, Seems that the XT marks roads unavailable due to traffic, but it does not re-enable them when you disable traffic info. A restart is needed to accomplish that. (Read that somewhere on the Naviboard.de site)

[Rofor]

One thing I don't understand is why in some instances you will be offered one or more options to get around a traffic issue and in others the XT just re-routes. Perhaps it is traffic delays the produce options vs. road closure the triggers a re-route. The only reason I noticed this re-route was because two hours were added to my arrival time. I would have not otherwise know about it until I was into it.

That's an easy one to explain (am i correct in thinking that you also, just like me, drive without spoken announcements?):

• 'normal' traffic disruption (like a construction site or so) - Zumo XT will make a re-routing and informs(!) the user of the disruption and ask's(!) visually, if he should use the new route...

• 'full closure' of a road used by the active route - there is an automatic, not interrupt-able re-routing with no(!) visually but only a spoken announcement of the re-routing - this re-routing can't be interrupted, when 'Traffic information' is enabled!

Garmin names that 'a feature, not a bug', for safety(?) reasons - even when many of us told them, that sometimes the traffic information simple could be false, late or not relevant for motorcycles!

[Peobody]

That's an easy one to explain (am i correct in thinking that you also, just like me, drive without spoken announcements?):
'normal' traffic disruption (like a construction site or so) - Zumo XT will make a re-routing and informs(!) the user of the disruption and ask's(!) visually, if he should use the new route...
'full closure' of a road used by the active route - there is an automatic, not interrupt-able re-routing with no(!) visually but only a spoken announcement of the re-routing - this re-routing can't be interrupted, when 'Traffic information' is enabled!

You are correct about me riding with spoken navigation turned off. How inexplicable of Garmin to have that feature without including a visual clue for all alerts.

I heard back from Garmin. They pointed me to a support article on how to turn on Traffic "On request" rerouting, which I had on. They did not acknowledge the resulting reroute, now recognized as impossible to follow except by flying motorcycle. I have pushed for more on that.

[Peobody]

Garmin product support asked me submit this issue to their cartography group via their map error reporting site. That has been done. I'll let you know about any response I receive.

[Rofor]

Sorry, but that is bulls**t - what the heck should this error have to do with a map error?

For me that error appears after an automatic recalculation for a road near Kastelruth, which was allegedly closed after a thunderstorm (there was already a local detour, as i was told in my hotel later, so no complete closure!). At the time the recalculation started, i was on Brenner Bundesstrasse - shortest way to our hotel was along Brenner Bundesstrasse to Eggental near Bolzano, which was about 35km...

The Zumo XT recalculated a completely wired zig-zag route, as yours, for about 160km!!!

Other users in Germany, Switzerland and Austria had also such complete silly recalculations and reported them also to Garmin - this couldn't be map errors!

[Peobody]

Sorry, but that is bulls**t - what the heck should this error have to do with a map error?

My thought exactly. The map error reporting form says:

Use this form if you would like to report a map error. Examples include:

• Map errors or omissions (e.g., roads, addresses, points of interest, trucking restrictions, race tracks, off-road trails, etc.)

• Routing concerns

It disturbs me that they say "report a map error" and then include "Routing concern" verbiage as an example of a "map error". What could I do though. Product support asked me to report it this way so I can only hope that they know the best hands to get the issue into even though we think its wrong. The worst that can happen is nothing so we won't be any worse off than we are now.

My sense is the product support folks are not empowered to pass issues up the chain of command. They are limited to responses scripted in their resources. I raised several issues in my email and they only keyed on "traffic" and "reroute" and responded with a link to how to configure that even though it was not relevant to any of the issues.