Routing - Elevation and curves
  • Is elevation change considered in routing?
    Are lots of turns/curves considered in routing?
    If not, is it possible to implement this?

    Example: You have 2 routes from point A to B. Route1 has 100km, no turns, no elevation change, real travel time 70 minutes. Route2 has 99km, but lots of turns and big elevation change (hill area), real travel time 115 minutes. Would the navigator prefer Route2, because it is shorter? (speed limits are constant for both routes all the time from A to B)

    According to my experience, the Navigator does not consider this and makes ineffective routing through hill area. Especially Balkan teritory. Where some terrible roads across high passes were prefered instead of little bit longer and straiter roads around the big mountain ranges. Navigator calculated several minutes better time across high pass, but the reality was very different. The travel time was usualy 1,5 to 2 times longer.


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  • +1 on that. Travelled all across europe
    and in places like Austria and other mountain areas current router tries to make dangerous "shortcuts" - main road goes around hill, but navigator tries to shortcut it with local road over the hill even though it is not only pointless but dangerous.
  • Agree. While you can influence this behaviour somewhat by tweaking your vehicle settings and road weighing, you can never rule out some awkward shortcuts. Don't forget, the app relies on the OSM road classification and sometimes small mountain roads are classified the same as that major road avoiding the hills.

    I got caught out in Italy taking a seemingly shorter road through the mountains rather than the flat road around it and spent several hours longer!

    An improved smarter routing would surely be the breakthrough for this app. Often enough my partner was tempted to pull out the Google app as that won't guide you through some ridiculous back roads.

    I understand that OSM is far from perfect. But the suggested method using elevation and curviness would be a great start!

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