Is this RUT?

[gwilki]

I'm not sure what RUT stands for? Repetitive Uturn, redundant uturns. ridiculous uturns?

I've read many, many threads on how to get the XT2 to behave as most would want it to. I've written Garmin may times, only to be told that what my XT2 is doing is "by design". I would really like to get into the same room as the designer.

Here is my latest issue.

I designed a route in Basecamp. (So, I can't ask Garmin for help.) It is a simple loop, except there is one leg where I leave the loop for an ice cream break, then retrace that leg back to the loop and continue on my merry way. Today, the ice cream leg was closed off. So, I simply kept riding the loop. HUGE MISTAKE. The XT2 started by telling me to make a uturn in 3km. Now, if it thought that I needed to make a uturn, why would I get further away by 3km to make it? I ignored the instruction. After I passed the 3km mark, the XT2 said to make a uturn in 850 metres. Same question. I ignored that one, too. This went on for about 5km, at which time, the XT2 actually started navigating again.
It seems that the XT2 is incapable of re-calculating a route when I deviate from it. I have an old Nuvi that has no problem with this task at all.

Is there some way to convince the Zumo to stop telling me to make uturns and to simply navigate to the next point on the route? If not, can someone please tell me the best accelerant to use to burn this damn thing?

Thanks much.

Grant

[jfheath]

A direct answer to your question.

No. Probably not. But maybe.

I've altered the descriptionbelow since I first posted this reply - as hopefully it will make more sense to anyone coming across this discussion and wanting to know what RUT is.

RUT is not a widely recognised term. It something that I came up with when I first started to understand the XT's weird routing behaviour. If I had to leave a route (either forced or by choice), often it would repeatedly demand that I go back to that point of deviation - rather attempt to take me to the next route point ahead.

Now Repeated U Turn requests are not a fault. You can get them quite legitimately in the following situations

• Missed Via Points (no escape from those)
• Missed Shaping Points (There is an escape from this situation)
• Misplaced route points (commonly - route point on wrong side of dual crarriageway, in a field, rather than on a road, .....)
• Via and shaping points - behave differently and can confuse.
• Failing to pass through the start point of a route.

These sitautions do not hint at RUT behaviour. I know, because I defined the term.
They are often simply user error / user misunderstanding - and we have all been there !!

RUT behaviour shows itself partly by repeatedly asking you to go back (apparently to the point of deviation from the route -either by U-Turn requests or by using side roads, crescents etc to turn you around. But RUT also shows other charactersitics and behaviours which help us to identify it correctly. Mostly I cannot tell whether the XT is displaying RUT behaviour or whether I have messed up with my route points - I need to gather the evidence.

But I have done that. So have some other members on the forum. And once I was able to describe exactly how to make it happen and the circumstances when it would never happen we have three different methods of stopping it from happening on any route.

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But the question - Is this RUT ? is a refreshing one to see. Recognising that you have odd behaviour and not wanting to blame it on an acronym that I wish I had kept to myself !


So To address your ice cream stop issue: It depends what route point you placed at your ice cream stop.

If the ice cream stop was placed as a via point (orange flag) then the Zumo treats it as a Must Visit point. It will keep trying to take you back. Forever.

If the ice cream shop was placed as a Shaping Point (blue disc) it will still try to take you back to it until you visit the point OR you rejoin the magenta line after the shaping point.

In your situation it sounds like you plotted the same road back from the ice cream place - so if the ice cream shop was a shaping point, when you ignored the turn, you would immediately be on the next section of the magenta line. The Zumo wouldn't have missed a beat and would not try to make you visit it.

So I guess that you plotted a Via Point - in which case, what you describe is normal behaviour. You have to visit a Via Point.

Unless you happened to have skipped an earlier route point - in which case subsequent deviation from the route will likely develop RUT behaviour - always, in my experience.

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The Zumo can have two types of route point:

• Via points which are shown on the map as an orange flag.
• Shaping points which are shown as a small blue disc on the map

On the Zumo, Via Points are sometimes referred to as 'Destination' or 'Stops'

In Basecamp, you can view a list of all of your route points in order, by double clicking the route name, or the coloured route on the map.
In that route list you can reorder the route points, or click on each point in turn to highlight the location of the point on the map. This is particularly useful if you select the tick box at the bottom that says something like 'Center Map'' - as when you select a point, the map zooms in so that you can check the accurate placement of each point.

This is made even easier if you select the top point and then use the cursor keys to move down and up the list. You can also untick the box which controls the amount of detail in the route list 'More Info' - so that you can see more of the map behind.

Right click (PC version) on any route point in the list. A pop-up menu offers all sorts of options - one if which offers either 'Alert on Arrival' or 'Does not alert on Arrival (shaping point)'. You can toggle between the two states.

It is this that determines whether the route point is a Via Point or a Shaping Point.
In the list itself, you can recognise the type of point.
Via points are shown in black text.
Shaping points are in grey text and have '(won't alert)' added.

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When planning a route aim to have just a few Via Points eg to mark stopping places - places that you will definitely visit. Use shaping points to pin the route to particular roads. If you have an optional stopping place, mark it with a shaping point perhaps with a Via Point just before (so that the Zumo alerts you (Arriving at Ice Cream turning on the left) or just after - on the road you will take whether or not you will have an ice cream - which makes it easier should you need to restart the route.

Chapters 1 & 2 in the link below cover most of this. Chapter 2 covers what I have summarised about via/shaping points with illustrations. Chapter 1 covers the types if route point.


https://www.zumouserforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1464


Both of these chapters apply to the XT2

This link BELOW describes RUT behaviour observed, proved and solved for the XT.

So far I have been unable to make my XT2 display this behaviour. Yes it will ask for u turns, but generally these are legitimate requests to get to the next route point faster.

https://www.zumouserforums.co.uk/app.php/ZXT-P103


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nb If none of the above applies to your situation, then I am intrigued and would like to know more detail. I have been trying to make my XT2 to display RUT behaviour, and so far I have failed.

Early days, but it seems that my years of providing evidence have been listened to - but a solution has not yet appeared on the XT.

[gwilki]

Thank you very much for this. I have read your documents before, but since I clearly did not grasp too much of the material, I've read them again.

I believe that I have found the "what" of my problem. I opened the list of points on the zumo and most of them were pink. Not good, I now know. I then opened the list of points in Basecamp and found that many of them were not marked as "don't alert". Clearly, that's why they were pink in the Zumo.

Question: Is there way in BC to have it default to shaping? It seems to default to via. I now know to change them, but since most of them will be via, it would be good to have them start that way.

Now, I am attaching a screencap of a slightly different route. The sole difference between this one and the 'ice cream" one is that is does not head off to the ice cream store. You can see that in two spots, the route reverses direction. The correct direction of travel is down.

Question: What have I done to cause that?

basecamp_1.jpg (34.03 KiB) Viewed 2567 times

[QuantumQuartz]

RUT here stands for "Repetitive U-Turns," and I get how frustrating it is when your XT2 keeps insisting on unnecessary loops. Garmin's response that it's "by design" isn't much help either. One thing you could try is manually skipping waypoints affected by closures in your route directly on the XT2. Checking for software updates might also help. If these don't work, maybe reach out to Garmin support again for more options. Good luck!

[lkraus]

You can see that in two spots, the route reverses direction. The correct direction of travel is down.

Question: What have I done to cause that?

It usually means your points are not in the correct order. You might also see arrows pointing both ways when zoomed out on a divided highway, if you placed a point on the wrong side of the divider.

Jones Falls Rd is not divided, so in Basecamp set your map and zoom to show the route. Then open the point list and click on each point in turn to see them highlighted on the map. When the highlighted point moves backwards you have found the out of sequence point. This is an instance when "Center map" should NOT be checked in the point list, as it only shows one point at a time.

[jfheath]

Question: Is there way in BC to have it default to shaping? It seems to default to via. I now know to change them, but since most of them will be via, it would be good to have them start that way.

No.

Info: If you use the insert tool (rubber band) to add a point to the route, or you use the route tool to build the route in the first place, then where your mouse pointer lands is very hit and miss. You probably have the map detail set to medium to get rid of the clutter on the map, but enough to recognise place names. Basecamp will 'snap' to a nearby known location - even if that location is not shown on the map display. Known locations are usually set as Alerting Via Points. Unknown are locations usually set as a road name and are set as not alerting shaping points. It isn't random, but from our point of view pointing and clicking, it might just as well be random.

Solution: Don't worry about it. Let them be what they want to be and change them later. The first and the last points are always alerting/ via points.

Select all of the route points between the first and last. I don't know how to do this on a mac, but on a PC you left click the mouse on the second item in the list, scroll down the list ( mouse wheel, cursor key) hold down the shift key and left click the next to last item in the list. An aletrnative on the Pc is to select all (Ctrl A) and then de-select the first and last (Ctrl & left click).

Then right click on any one of the selected items and choose 'Set to do not alert (shaping point)' from the pop-up menu That will change all but the end two. The option will will not appear if you include the first and last point in the selection, as they cannot be altered.

Then go through and set the few points that you want as Vias individually.

Tip: Leave this to be the very last thing that you do with the route, because any later additions will introduce more 'random' via/shaping points

Now, I am attaching a screencap of a slightly different route. The sole difference between this one and the 'ice cream" one is that is does not head off to the ice cream store. You can see that in two spots, the route reverses direction. The correct direction of travel is down.

Question: What have I done to cause that?

Answer: I don't know. But I can make a couple of guesses. (
[edit. Yes I do, Ive just spotted those two route points at the top of the shot.I'll leave my answer as it was and add a bit further down]

Info: The route points are out of order. Sometimes caused by dropping a point on the wrong side of a dual carriageway, or accidentally dragging and dropping a single point in the trip list. I like Basecamp for a lot of reasons, but one of the best features not offered by many web based programs is the multi-step undo button. And redo button. If you get a 'what happened then / what did I do' moment - you can just undo the last operation(s), and then redo them.

Solution To find them and check the route for others: Display the entire route on the screen. Open up the route list. Set the 'Center Map' and 'More Info' check boxes to not ticked. Move the route and the route list box so that you can see the entire route. Click on the first route point in the list. Note that the selected point is spotlighted on the map. Hold down the down cursor key - or tap it repeatedly. Watch the movement of the spotlight. Any points placed in the wrong order become very obvious as the spotlight seems to hesitate or go back and forth.

Speculation: It is sometimes caused by having too many route points and one or two of them being misplaced, or route points in the right order, but on the wrong side of the road, or on a side road where a turn to the offside is not possible.

[edit]I see two route points at the top of the map. At least one of them is misplaced. You drive on the right hand side of the road and one of the points is set on the east side - the left hand side in your direction of travel. In order to get to it it needs a left turn, across the oncoming traffic. This may or may not be allowed, but the map thinks that it isn't allowed. So there are three route lines plotted one heading south ignoring the left turn, one heading back north to get to the route point, now in the right hand side of the road, one heading back south to where it was trying to get to in the first place. I guess the second route point was placed trying to fix the problem before understanding what the problem was. Not surprising really. It took me a long time to spot it [/edit]

Solution: Having done the trick above with the route list spotlight, do it again with the 'Center Map' option ticked...select one point at a time using the cursor key to move down the list. It zooms in on each point in turn and will reveal misplaced points. Since it takes a little setting the route list and map on the screen, note which point it is in the trip list and continue with the checks on other points. Go back to fix any errors later.

[lkraus]

Question: Is there way in BC to have it default to shaping? It seems to default to via. I now know to change them, but since most of them will be via, it would be good to have them start that way.

You can't make shaping points the default, but you can reduce the number of points that need to be edited. I usually create my routes by setting start and end points, and then dragging the resulting route to the roads I prefer to ride. Drag the route to an intersection and a shaping point will be created. Dragging to a spot between intersections will create a via point.

My XT will announce my approach and arrival at intersection via points, but neglect to announce any turn at that intersection (the display will be correct). So placing vias in an intersection is a bad idea. Beware also of placing shaping points in intersections where you might turn. On one occasion, using the XT, I converted a shaping point at a turn intersection into a via point, and re-started the route. The via was announced, the turn was not, and as I passed through the intersection the XT rebooted itself.

[Peobody]

Dragging to a spot between intersections will create a via point.

Not always though. It will only create a via point if there is a known address at that location, which is most of the time. Unfortunately, you can not tell what kind of point was created until you open the route details and look at each point.

I prefer to create routes by using the Waypoint tool to place points on the roads I want to ride. I then convert most of them to shaping points as part of the placement accuracy review process. Regardless of which method you use to create your route you must still check the accuracy of route point placement so that is a good time to review and set the Via/Shaping status.

Keeping route points off of intersections is a good rule of thumb as @lkraus stated.

[jfheath]

I prefer to create routes by using the Waypoint tool to place points on the roads I want to ride.

Me too. Mainly because the Zumos 595, XT and XT2 will rename many of the route points. But they will never alter the names of route points created with the Basecamp Waypoint tool - whether they are set as shaping points or via points, it keeps your names intact.

(For any MRA users looking in - we are talking about Garmin Waypoints, not MRA waypoints.)

[gwilki]

I want to thank you all for your help and advice.

There is a lot to take in so I want to re-read it all before venturing out again. I'll report back on my success or lack thereof.

Grant