Cycle Travel Question

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Woodtourer
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Joined: 23 Jan 2018, 1:51pm

Re: New Route Planner

Post by Woodtourer »

Richard Fairhurst, we started mapping our route across France today. In the past we have always used RideWithGPS. But today we started playing with Cycle Travel. We plotted the same route on both and Cycle Travel route looked much more interesting!! We even did a sample download on to our Garmin.
A question? It seems,in France, that the road numbers do not display. Is there a reason?
Thanks!
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Good spot - it did show road numbers, but not for the smaller D roads. I've just fixed that so that more of them will show up when you zoom in (for example, http://cycle.travel/map?lat=49.6605&lon=2.9747&zoom=14). The old map tiles will hang around for a while but should slowly be replaced - or you can sometimes chivvy it along by clicking 'Link to this place' in the bottom right, then refreshing the page a couple of times.
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Bmblbzzz
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Just a note on the various comments re RWGPS routes: there is no such thing as "a" rwgps route! It gives different routing according to which of the various maps you select. It's often very similar to but never in my experience so far identical to the routes given by cycle.travel.
Psamathe
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Psamathe »

Bmblbzzz wrote:Just a note on the various comments re RWGPS routes: there is no such thing as "a" rwgps route! It gives different routing according to which of the various maps you select. It's often very similar to but never in my experience so far identical to the routes given by cycle.travel.

I've done a "test route" I have on RWGPS and cycle.travel and the RWGPS is worse than "certain death" (sending you down the A140 and A14 main trunk road!) whereas cycle.travel sends you down what is a far far more civilised enjoyable route (on paper - I've not actually cycles it, I just use it as several "cycle targeted" navigation systems send you on some total madness roads.

(The route is Diss to Colchester).

Ian
Bmblbzzz
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Psamathe wrote:
Bmblbzzz wrote:Just a note on the various comments re RWGPS routes: there is no such thing as "a" rwgps route! It gives different routing according to which of the various maps you select. It's often very similar to but never in my experience so far identical to the routes given by cycle.travel.

I've done a "test route" I have on RWGPS and cycle.travel and the RWGPS is worse than "certain death" (sending you down the A140 and A14 main trunk road!) whereas cycle.travel sends you down what is a far far more civilised enjoyable route (on paper - I've not actually cycles it, I just use it as several "cycle targeted" navigation systems send you on some total madness roads.

(The route is Diss to Colchester).

Ian

Yes, it does if you use the "base" rwgps map. If you try the same having switched to the OSM map (using the drop-down box in the top right corner of the map) it gives a completely different route, through Stowmarket and Hadleigh on mostly unclassified lanes. The thing you have to watch for on rwgps is it's fondness for sending you down bridleways and tow paths which may not always be rideable. One of the advantages of cycle.travel is that when it does this (which happens less often, I find, than with rwgps) it does highlight those sections on the map and turn-by-turn instructions, as it does with main roads, making it easy to avoid them if you want.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

RWGPS uses Google Maps for routing when you have the Google basemap displayed, and Graphhopper for routing when you have other maps displayed. I've not investigated whether their instance of Graphhopper is customised from the default, but I suspect not much.
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Richard Fairhurst
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Just deployed a lot of changes in the routing:

  • be very wary about crossing straight over really busy roads (Vorpal's suggestion)
  • prefer Cycle Superhighway routes in London (mjr's suggestion)
  • other weighting refinements in urban areas
  • show the National Byway in turn-by-turn instructions
  • clickable links for ferry websites so you can see when it operates (assuming the website's tagged in OSM)
  • be a bit more discerning about which tracks in France are cyclable
  • plus various changes in the US which probably aren't too relevant here!
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mjr
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by mjr »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:prefer Cycle Superhighway routes in London (mjr's suggestion)

That seems to have fixed the London example well, but I was hoping for a more general fix so we might not suffer a similar problem with the Norwich pedalways and then every other city that develops its routes. For example, I'd expect http://cycle.travel/map?from=Norwich&to=Wymondham to just follow the blue pedalway near the A11 / B1172 out to Hethersett and then the B1172 to Wymondham (which I think is planned to become part of blue once it's complete), but c.t wants to use the bendier more on-road pink route to the hospital and then ratrunny back roads to Hetherset. How does it figure that out?

It seems like nothing's changed with my Belgian example but that may be more difficult, as it's only about 1½ miles longer than the not-signed-specially-for-cycling easier route.
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Richard Fairhurst
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

I think the Norwich-Wymondham example is just an example of not very good mapping in OSM, I'm afraid!

The B1172 section is mapped as "cycleway:left=share_sidewalk" which appears to have been invented by the mapper and isn't used anywhere else in the world, so c.t won't know how to parse that. So as far as c.t knows, you're basically cycling along a B road (presumably with a reasonably significant traffic count associated with it). It will give it a slight uplift for the LCN route, but it won't blindly trust it because there are a whole bunch of lousy signposted LCN(/RCN/NCN) routes out there, and I am very, very loth to be more trusting on that!

Then various bits of the route around the roundabouts are either not mapped at all (e.g. the shared-use link onto the minor Newmarket Road) or badly (e.g. highway=path without a surface tag, so c.t doesn't know it's paved rather than a boggy quagmire). That means the only mapped route c.t can find that way involves actually riding round the A11/A47 roundabout, which obviously incurs a big penalty. I'm also a bit dubious about one section that is tagged as surface=compacted - for an urban shared-use path, really?

Mapping it properly as a separate shared-use cycle track beside the road, rather than adding silly tags to the road itself, and fixing the other issues will let c.t assess it properly. If I have a spare minute I'll try and fix it up in OSM, but feel free to beat me to it. :)

Edit: have fixed it in OSM, it'll show in c.t at the next update.
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RickH
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by RickH »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:I think the Norwich-Wymondham example is just an example of not very good mapping in OSM, I'm afraid!

The B1172 section is mapped as "cycleway:left=share_sidewalk" which appears to have been invented by the mapper and isn't used anywhere else in the world, so c.t won't know how to parse that. So as far as c.t knows, you're basically cycling along a B road (presumably with a reasonably significant traffic count associated with it). It will give it a slight uplift for the LCN route, but it won't blindly trust it because there are a whole bunch of lousy signposted LCN(/RCN/NCN) routes out there, and I am very, very loth to be more trusting on that!

Then various bits of the route around the roundabouts are either not mapped at all (e.g. the shared-use link onto the minor Newmarket Road) or badly (e.g. highway=path without a surface tag, so c.t doesn't know it's paved rather than a boggy quagmire). That means the only mapped route c.t can find that way involves actually riding round the A11/A47 roundabout, which obviously incurs a big penalty. I'm also a bit dubious about one section that is tagged as surface=compacted - for an urban shared-use path, really?

Mapping it properly as a separate shared-use cycle track beside the road, rather than adding silly tags to the road itself, and fixing the other issues will let c.t assess it properly. If I have a spare minute I'll try and fix it up in OSM, but feel free to beat me to it. :)

Edit: have fixed it in OSM, it'll show in c.t at the next update.

I've found an oddity where I was cycling the other day, albeit fairly minor but it is on a numbered (local?) route. Trying to follow the Bridgewater Canal south across the Manchester Ship Canal you have to rejoin the road for a short stretch as the canal has no towpath. Immediately south of the road bridge there is access back to the Birdgewater towpath. Cycle.travel however won't route this way & insists on taking you onto the busy Trafford Centre/Trafford Park road network first. There seems to be a problem with the junction to take you off the road but, with my limited knowledge of OSM, I haven't been able to spot what the problem is to edit the mapping. Maybe someone with better OSM-fu can see what the problem is (Cycle.travel link).
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MrsHJ
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by MrsHJ »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:Just deployed a lot of changes in the routing:

[*]plus various changes in the US which probably aren't too relevant here![/list]


Don't you believe it-planning my first transam on cycle.travel at the moment. It's generated some (I hope) interesting rides in Utah and Colorado where I'm going off the standard routes for a while-I've now got a big atlas for the Utah to check on the ground too. I've also used it to outline generate the eastern express route for me although eventually I'll do that via the GPS on the eastern express website. I need to see if I can download the GPx route onto cycle,travel or google actually to see it in real life.

One thing I would find interesting is if some of the better developed eurovelo routes e.g. In France or Switzerland I could automatically raise on cycle.travel (e.g. By name in the search box) and then divert if I want to rather than dragging the generated route onto the clearly marked EV paths.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

RickH wrote:I've found an oddity where I was cycling the other day, albeit fairly minor but it is on a numbered (local?) route. Trying to follow the Bridgewater Canal south across the Manchester Ship Canal you have to rejoin the road for a short stretch as the canal has no towpath. Immediately south of the road bridge there is access back to the Birdgewater towpath. Cycle.travel however won't route this way & insists on taking you onto the busy Trafford Centre/Trafford Park road network first. There seems to be a problem with the junction to take you off the road but, with my limited knowledge of OSM, I haven't been able to spot what the problem is to edit the mapping. Maybe someone with better OSM-fu can see what the problem is (Cycle.travel link).


Wow - there's something I've never seen before. Someone has added no-right-turn and no-left-turn restrictions from the road to the cyclepath, suggesting that turning onto the path there is actually banned. That seems vanishingly unlikely to me - do you know if it's the case on the ground?

(All of this, of course, is the point of OSM - "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"!)

MrsHJ wrote:
Richard Fairhurst wrote:Just deployed a lot of changes in the routing:

[*]plus various changes in the US which probably aren't too relevant here![/list]


Don't you believe it-planning my first transam on cycle.travel at the moment. It's generated some (I hope) interesting rides in Utah and Colorado where I'm going off the standard routes for a while-I've now got a big atlas for the Utah to check on the ground too. I've also used it to outline generate the eastern express route for me although eventually I'll do that via the GPS on the eastern express website. I need to see if I can download the GPx route onto cycle,travel or google actually to see it in real life.

One thing I would find interesting is if some of the better developed eurovelo routes e.g. In France or Switzerland I could automatically raise on cycle.travel (e.g. By name in the search box) and then divert if I want to rather than dragging the generated route onto the clearly marked EV paths.


Excellent - will be fascinated to find how you get on! One of the changes is that it's now a bit less squeamish about riding the hard shoulders of Interstates in those states (such as Utah) where there's often no alternative other than a dirt road.

I'm working on a 'library' of routes like the EuroVelo ones where you'll be able to choose from a list and open it in the route-planner. I've done the hard bit (converting the raw routes into properly draggable routes with via points), just got to integrate it into the site...
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JakobW
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by JakobW »

Just posting to express my appreciation for cycle.travel - it's a brilliant tool, and I'm in awe of all the work put in. Is there any way to get the turn-by-turn instructions into a text file (or a PDF?) other than by copy-pasting? I find when using the print link my browser wants to use the full width of the page, which leaves a fair bit of wasted space - ideally I'd like 2 or 3 columns of the instructions on a sheet that I can stick in the map holder alongside the overview maps.
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MrsHJ
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by MrsHJ »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
RickH wrote:I've found an oddity where I was cycling the other day, albeit fairly minor but it is on a numbered (local?) route. Trying to follow the Bridgewater Canal south across the Manchester Ship Canal you have to rejoin the road for a short stretch as the canal has no towpath. Immediately south of the road bridge there is access back to the Birdgewater towpath. Cycle.travel however won't route this way & insists on taking you onto the busy Trafford Centre/Trafford Park road network first. There seems to be a problem with the junction to take you off the road but, with my limited knowledge of OSM, I haven't been able to spot what the problem is to edit the mapping. Maybe someone with better OSM-fu can see what the problem is (Cycle.travel link).


Wow - there's something I've never seen before. Someone has added no-right-turn and no-left-turn restrictions from the road to the cyclepath, suggesting that turning onto the path there is actually banned. That seems vanishingly unlikely to me - do you know if it's the case on the ground?

(All of this, of course, is the point of OSM - "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"!)

MrsHJ wrote:
Richard Fairhurst wrote:Just deployed a lot of changes in the routing:

[*]plus various changes in the US which probably aren't too relevant here![/list]


Don't you believe it-planning my first transam on cycle.travel at the moment. It's generated some (I hope) interesting rides in Utah and Colorado where I'm going off the standard routes for a while-I've now got a big atlas for the Utah to check on the ground too. I've also used it to outline generate the eastern express route for me although eventually I'll do that via the GPS on the eastern express website. I need to see if I can download the GPx route onto cycle,travel or google actually to see it in real life.

One thing I would find interesting is if some of the better developed eurovelo routes e.g. In France or Switzerland I could automatically raise on cycle.travel (e.g. By name in the search box) and then divert if I want to rather than dragging the generated route onto the clearly marked EV paths.


Excellent - will be fascinated to find how you get on! One of the changes is that it's now a bit less squeamish about riding the hard shoulders of Interstates in those states (such as Utah) where there's often no alternative other than a dirt road.

I'm working on a 'library' of routes like the EuroVelo ones where you'll be able to choose from a list and open it in the route-planner. I've done the hard bit (converting the raw routes into properly draggable routes with via points), just got to integrate it into the site...


Blooming fantastic on the EV routes (will test your amended USA recommendations to see how they look- am also visiting thorn later This week to investigate a slightly tougher bike so I may lean to the dirt tracks at my own risk). Frank Moritz might be worth a contact to include the eastern express route although I guess you'll be sticking with the "standard" US cycle trails which makes sense. +1 for the general appreciation.
BeardyWeirdy
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Re: New Route Planner

Post by BeardyWeirdy »

Another oddity I came across trying to follow route 2 to Plymouth across is

http://cycle.travel/map/journey/68627

Outside Ivybridge - it works fine in the other direction, but fights back if you try and force it in this direction

Is there a etiquette to fixing the OSM (assuming I understand how to do that) since I have never been there is it ok just to apply common sense or do I need to get local conformation?

I guess there is a good guide somewhere on how to fix OSM – could you point me at it? - I am happy to have a go at sorting out the issues.

Richard
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