Hi Charles
The big problem I come up against is that when I'm with my support
worker-driver approaching a roundabout, he needs to know which lane
on the roundabout to get into so he doesn't have to make a dangerous maneuver.
If your turning right at a roundabout for example on entering the
roundabout you would take the inside lane then prior to the exit
your taking you indicate left and move over to the outside lane, but
if you were taking the first left exit, you would stay in the outside lane.
At the moment the first instruction we're given to pass on to the
driver at the roundabout is "turn left" so the driver sets himself
ready to turn left then we say "oh no its actually right" and we're
not able to say how many exits to pass before the one we should
take, this makes my driver very uneasy.
I completely agree when traveling a pedestrian route the description
at a roundabout is perfect as it would only confuse us if we were
told all about the various exits and sending us the shortest way is
fine, I wonder why the (Tom-Tom) gps system can do this, it would be
really helpful if this were added in the future.
Regards Gavin
Gavin Atkins,
tel: M 07702:051633,
Email: gavin.atkins@xxxxxxxxxx
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and email.
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----- Original Message -----
From: Charles LaPierre <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date sent: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:47:19 -0700
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Roundabouts
Hi Peter and all,
I am assuming from your description you have 4.02 so
this may help
things a little as to the two messages you hear when
entering and
exiting the roundabout.
Think of it this way, when you enter the roundabout you
can either go
clockwise (i.e. Left) or counterclockwise (i.e.
Right). For Vehicle
Routes this will always be the same depending on the
country you are
in and if you drive on the right or left side of the
road. But for a
pedestrian route this can change depending on which way
is shorter
around the roundabout.
So that is the first part of the message, and since the
same routine
is used for vehicles or pedestrian routes this is why
you hear either
turn left/right onto the roundabout. Now exiting the
roundabout has
been improved a lot in 4.02. I know its not perfect but
its a good
start. It will tell you either turn left or right
exiting roundabout
at the point you exit. It has nothing to do where that
exit is when
you are about to enter the roundabout, but rather what
you will be
doing once you physically get to that exit, i.e. will
you be turning
left or right to get off the roundabout. Think of a
roundabout like
any other road you want to turn off of, Sendero GPS
treats
roundabouts like any other road, once you get to the
"intersection"
or in this case roundabout exit which way are you
turning. We also
tell you the direction you will be headed once you exit
the
roundabout so that should help if a street crosses the
roundabout you
will know if you should be exiting on that street North
or wait until
you are heading south.
Being down here in New Zealand and Australia I am
getting a lot of
practice with roundabouts and how people describe
exiting roundabouts
which is a little confusing to me to be honest.
I do like the idea of just numbering the exits and using
that to help
navigate the roundabout exit, but I also have to be
carful the same
will work for pedestrians when you travel the roundabout
against
traffic because it is shorter. (I.e. why force the
pedestrian to
follow traffic and make them cross multiple exits when
you could go
the opposite direction and maybe not even have to cross
any.)
Hope this helps clarify what the system is currently
doing, and
future improvements will be made to help make this more
intuitive.
Charles currently from New Zealand
At 09:13 AM 10/13/2007, you wrote:
Hi All,
I'm new to Braillenote GPS and the list, so please
forgive me if
this has been covered before. I'm migrating from
Trekker
and Wayfinder, and in most respects, I'm finding
Sendero GPS an
absolute joy, with so much power and flexibility
compared with the
others. However, I'm having one problem, relating to
navigation of
roundabouts. I think in the US you call these traffic
circles,
but here in the UK they are everywhere, and it's rare
to find a
journey without many of them.
The way that Sendero GPS gives instructions seems
confusing. For
example, at a roundabout where you are actually turning
right, it
will tell you to turn left onto the roundabout, and then
turn left
to exit the roundabout. It is similar with clockface
instructions. It will say to turn ten o'clock on the
roundabout
and then exit nine o'clock.
What we need is a global instruction that gives you the
direction of
the road you are taking relative to the road you were
on. For
example, Wayfinder would say "turn right at the
roundabout onto X
street", or "take the third exit onto X street" counting
exits clockwise.
It sounds a llitle complicated when you try to explain
it, but it is
a real problem when navigating vehicle routes in
particular. A
wwork-around seems to be to use the compass directions,
but this
needs quite a lot of thought and ssometimes there isn't
enough time or clarity.
Am I missing something, or could this be a suggested
improvement?
Any thoughts welcome.
Best,
Peter
--
*******
Peter Bosher,
Email: peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.soundlinks.com/
Tel': (+44) (0) 1494 794 797
Fax: (+44) (0) 1494 583 146
snail://
SoundLinks Limited,
43 Broadlands Avenue,
Chesham,
Bucks.
HP5 1AL
England.
Charles M. La Pierre CTO
Sendero Group, LLC
Lat. 37 15' 25" N Lon: 121 53' 04" W
