POI Accuracy

Thanks for the advisory. Will you be submitting the bogus listings to the various file maintainers so that they can fix those locations? If everybody did that, it would be no time at all before everything was corrected. It's kinda difficult to ask a file creator to personally verify locations all over the country. Love's truckstops supply coordinates for their locations on their website. Guess what -- in TX, there were at least two locations with bad info. No file creator could be expected to somehow cross-check that info.

I made a small poi file and found it to be close but not right on. the listed place was across the street. as soon as job pressures ease up i'll fix it..

I use google earth most of the time for POI file coordinates, and many times have noticed that it will place you at an incorrect location. (middle of a forest when it should be in a city.) Some of those you catch others you may not. As Bentbiker said we hope that the users of the POI files will help us verify the locations so as to attain accuracy. (Being in Calif., I don't see myself verifying locations in Maine anytime soon).

Yes, and you know the old saying, you get what you paid for. Since you didn't pay for any of those, and they are all user generated POI files, there are bound to be errors, especially anything that is nation wide.

Since this is a user to user web site, then POI creators and those of us who download those POIs depend on other users to feed back errors and corrections when possible. Hopefully over time, the files get more accurate.

So, while it is nice that you found lots of problems, if you didn't do anything to document those issues and report them back to the maintainers of those POI files, then you are not helping at all and this thread was kind of a waste of time. If you did report them back, then thanks for helping out this community improve the POI files hosted here to make them better.

PT

if you are going someplace for the first time, and it's important for you to get there on time, you might check the Custom POI with the built in POI's. Most are duplicated. If they are at different locations, I usually trust the built-in ones, but those have been wrong too.

To check, first choose the custom POI as the destination. Then use the near function, choose "destination". Hit the built-in POI icon and you will find what is near your destination. The built-in POI you want should be the first on the list at 0.0 or 0.1 miles. If they are off more, you can always call the location and find out their correct address, then use the GPS address function to take you there.

GPS gives you the ability to never be surprised. If you are surprised, it either means you are not diligent enough or you are too trusting.

i wish there was a way to confirm if these listings are accurate- such as a percentile?
(ie.. JOE'S CHIPOTLE LISTING IN MARYLAND: 100% ACCURATE)
i think such would increase people's trust in them.

it'd be nice to know theyre accurate beforehand instead of driving to find out youre in the wrong place!

want to know something odd? i was looking for this place that supposedly does window tinting.. it took me to a residential... HUH?!! underground business?? oh and ive had more 'HUH?' moments.

The problem I see is that the creator of the file NEVER checks their Emails, I found a couple of errors and sent them to the Creator and he has never sent me back anything acknowlegeing that the has it or has fixed it, I dont really want to bother Miss POI for something like this cause the way it is now she has her hands full,

I have used google earth for my home address and iteven puts me 3 houses down the street from where i live. I also noticed that the live maps, goodle, and yahoo maps are not up to date they are still about 2 years old. I know of new subdiivisons in my city that have been there 1-2 years and it still shows as a open field. So as others have said we do best we can with what we have.

I do look up each coordinate individually and it takes a lot of time and patience. I have found huge discrepancies sometimes between the different "geocoder sites."

I used terraserver.microsoft.com on one location coordinate search, then decided to visually look it up in Google Earth. If Google Earth's coordinates can be trusted (and I'm not totally sure that they can be), the terraserver coordinates were in a farmer's field a half-mile west of the actual location of the property. So, my point is that it is virtually impossible to know without actually being there. For that matter, my nuvi 200 base POI for a WalMart store in a western Kansas town was off by a half-mile.

williea

I am working on a POI file at the moment but haven't submitted it because I want to physically visit each place first. I must admit that I want to play golf at each location, also, but that is beside the point.....No, not really.

As soon as I visit the courses and verify the POIs I will submit the list.