nuvi 350 routing tendency

Yeah, it does this to me. On my drive home from work, it tries to route me off the MA interstate, onto a local highway (9) with lots of lights.

It *thinks* it will save me about 1 minute of time, based on how the time changes when I ignore it's advice. But that road is always very slow, all the time. Maybe at 3 am it would save me one minute, if I hit all the green lights. Ha!

That road is shorter in distance, and it's shorter in time only under optimal conditions. It always wants to send me there. I wish I could plan a "NEVER GO HERE" spot on the map... a way to blacklist a road or point or segment.

When traveling in unfamiliar territory, I just use the force here... if it looks like it's taking me off an interstate too soon, I just ignore it and follow the biggest light-free road I can find. Watch the time change when it recalculates to get a sense on what it's doing.

Other times, it has the opposite problem. It will take me really far out of the way to save me one minute. In this case, it could have a threshold - if a longer route only saves me 1 minute, just take the shorter one.

But it can really never know where the slow and fast roads are until they start coding in intersections with stoplights.

My 350 used to give me a different route to the same location at different times of day. I started noticing that during general rush hour times it tended to avoid freeways but later at night etc.... it would use the highways, I theorized it was built into the algoritim to take into account traditional rush hours when plotting fastest time. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, we need a "PONI" - Point Of Non-Interest. Maybe some of our software gurus can work on that.

Recently, my 750 tried to route me on a two lane road through several small towns ignoring an interstate 5 miles down the road that went to the same location. The 750 was set to the Fastest route and the interstate was the fastest route.

I checked Google Maps and MapSource when I got home and both calculated the route on the interstate.

My Nuvi 750 does the same thing. Instead of routing down main drives, it sends me down side streets with lots of stop signs and then crossing main drives. Either the maps or software has a serious flaw. Some main drives are shown as side streets also which may be the cause of all this. I'm using the 2009 map. I wonder if the 2008 was more accurate? I will have to try old MIO 168RS and see the difference.

I have been using GPS for over a year I started with a Nuvi 350 and upgraded to a 750. I used to second geuss GPS based on my "local knowledge" but after I started just going with it and found 99 out of 100 times it was dead on. So I tend to trust it more and more.

Sounds like you have your routing preference set for "Shorter Distance". If that is the case, the Nuvi is doing exactly what you told it to do. Take a look at your Route Preference setting and look at your Avoidances while you are there, too. A Route Preference of Shorter Distance will send you down every back alley it can find in order to shave 10 feet off your travel distance, with no regard for how long it takes you to get there. OK I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.

Wish my 350 would figure that out. Last tuesday my 350 thought that the GW bridge would be the fastest way to send me from Elizabeth,NJ to Congers,NY(at 7am). It is set to fastest route with "truck" option. I laughed at it and went up NJ 17. A difference of 2 minutes when it recalculated.

It is easy to pick apart the routes your gps suggests when you are on your home turf and know thae area. However, it still gets you there in decent fashion. Travel to an area that you are not familair with. Your satisfaction level will increase because you do not know the local short cuts but the gps still gets you there fairly efficiently.

Sometimes "Local Knowledge" is mistaken for "Local Habit" by going with the GPS I find new & better ways to get around in town more often than not. Of course there are some obvious mistakes like the GW Bridge route but you just plain know better than that.

I've started to double check the routes suggested by Nuvi/Mapsource against Mapquest and Google Maps. So far, Mapquest and Google Maps are proving more trustworthy IMHO.

The setting of Fastest or shortest seem to send me on the same route and when you zoom out you can see that it is routing you around 2 blocks instead of just staying on the same road. The avoidance settings are not set so there should be no reason for it not to use the fastest route unless the data base shows the distances wrong?