Creating Custom Avoidance

Thanks for this in-depth discussion of Custom Avoidances. In my opinion this is one of the most important features of the nuvi.

Please make it an FAQ.

dobs108

I disagree with the "Ferries" are not important as an avoidance.

A friend was going to a new to him location in the deep of winter and the GPS told him how to get there. He ended up in front of a frozen river at a ferry dock !!!

You got me on that one. LOL

I was looking at it more as setting a particular avoidance. In your friends case, setting "Ferry" as an avoidance would have saved him the grief. In my case, there are no ferries nearby, so setting it would not cause me any problems.

Your avoidances will vary, depending on what you're prepared to accept and your concerns on cost vs time, etc.

I dabbled with this very recently. there's a 5.00 dollar toll near me yet there's a service road I could take that runs parallel to the toll road that if taken would save me the 5.00 dollars.

Of course there's a rub such as GPSgeek mentioned; cost vs. time. I opted for the slightly longer route but not having to pay the 5.00 bridge toll.

The custom avoidance actually to my surprise worked...

In Canada and the USA I have my GPS set to avoid toll roads like the plague. I have yet to come across the situation where when I cross borders it wants to re-route me because of bridge tolls.

Having said that once I cross the border into Mexico I MUST remember to change that setting to take toll roads. If I don't do that the GPS continually wants to get me off toll roads.

I hate toll roads and avoid them but in Mexico I will gladly pay the tolls for many reasons.

I'd be interested in seeing how you get the Nuvi to route you from the US to Toronto if you cross anywhere from Port Huron MI to Buffalo NY. with the toll road avoidance turned on.

I simulated a route from Ft Wayne IN to Toronto and the Nuvi spent over 2 minutes to calculate a Faster Time route, didn't wait long enough for it to calculate a Shorter Distance route (after 5 minutes it hadn't started yet), and as you'll see from the this screenshot it simply will not take you over any of the toll bridges but will take you hundreds of miles out of your way:

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/335956.png

The shorter distance finally finished calculating. Similar results but not taking interstates all the way.

Thanks for the write-up, GPSgeek!

This is a great and very practical tutorial. Many thanks for the time and effort!

The route takes me down through Flint, Toledo, along the Lake Erie shoreline, to the Rainbow Bridge. Needless to say, it takes Hwy 20 instead of I80. Then along the QEW to the 401.

Total of 851 km (529 miles) and 183 1/2 hours. It takes 355 km (220 miles) and 4 hours when you allow toll roads. The only "Toll Road" is the Bluewater Bridge that is a $3 toll.

I wonder why the Nuvi would route you past the $3 toll on the Bluewater just to take you to the Rainbow, which the last time I crossed it had a $3.50 toll. I guess one answer could be that the map data doesn't know that the Rainbow Bridge is a toll bridge but then why did it not offer that crossing to me on my Fort Wayne to Toronto simulation.

Anyhow I attempted your Frankenmuth to Kitchener route and again it took pretty much on the same path as the one I linked to above. Here is the screenshot of the route my 3597 came up with:

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/1025759.png

Very useful post. Thank you.

Nice tutorial. Thanks.

Larry F

I have a 4,700km FASTEST route set up from home to Barra de Navidad in Mexico. I also have the bridge set as a waypoint. I do not follow the GPS religiously and change the route the way I want it by interjecting waypoints. The Garmin wants to route me via Chicago and then south on I-57.

I prefer I-75 to Cinci and then I-71, I-65 to Memphis.

All I need to do when in Mexico is to change my toll road setting to prefered.

So unless I'm totally misunderstanding what your saying:

1. Eventhough you say "In Canada and the USA I have my GPS set to avoid toll roads like the plague." you still take a toll bridge to get from Canada to the US in Sarnia/Port Huron, Windsor/Detroit, or one of the Ontario/New York border crossings, which you didn't mention in your earlier posts

2. And you then say "I have yet to come across the situation where when I cross borders it wants to re-route me because of bridge tolls" and that appears to be because you've forced the Nuvi to use a toll bridge by adding a waypoint. Again something you didn't mention in your orginal post.

Maybe I should not assume people use the grey matter between the ears to do that, rather than blindly following what the GPS makes them do.

That is where using MapSource comes in to lay out the trip route and save the route waypoints to the GPS.

As I posted in another thread, in the deep of winter a friend found himself at a ferry crossing at a frozen river. Operator fault !

You contradict yourself in that you stated you set the unit to avoid tolls but then force the route to take you over a toll bridge. If you take the toll bridge, then you haven't "avoided tolls like the plague." As it was being pointed out, you have an exception in your route and should have stated "with the exception of."

Thanks Box Car, that was my point. I spent a fair amount of time attempting to figure out how he could have gotten from Toronto to the US or vice versa with a toll road avoidance on as it's just not possible and I didn't want to leave other members with the impression that it was.

To find out that in fact he has no problem with the toll road avoidance and toll bridges because he forces their use with a waypoint was a bit annoying but not half as bad as being told that he had assumed that people would use the grey matter between their ears which, I guess, means that we are suppose to fill in the blanks when the whole story isn't presented to us.

Oh well.

I can set up my trip as to leave from home and ONLY set my final destination and I still get routed either via Detroit and/or Port Huron "Toll bridges" without any intermediate waypoints set.

There is NO other way since there are NO landcrossings without bridges from Sault Saint Marie to Montreal.

This is using the GPS or Microsoft Street & Trips or MapSource.

Just to satisfy yourself enter Toronto as as starting point and Guadalajara for the final destination and see for yourself how it routes you !

First, you can get from Toronto to the US over a bridge that doesn't have a toll but you can't get back to Toronto without using a toll road/bridge.

The one way you can get into the US from Toronto, is over the Peace Bridge crossing from Fort Erie, Ontario to New York State, which only has tolls going from the US to Canada ( see http://www.peacebridge.com/index.php?option=com_content&view... ).

I have no idea how you can get routed via Windsor or Sarnia, without a waypoint set or the avoid toll roads turn off, as both bridges are tolled in both directions and certainly are not the route I get. I "satisfied myself" by simulating your route from Toronto and on both my 3790 and 3597, using 2015.10 maps, with only the Toll Road avoidance on, I get the same route over the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie which is not tolled, as mentioned above. Here are the screenshots:

For the 3597

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/3597.png

For the 3790

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/3790.png

In Mapsource, I get the same results as shown here:

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/ScreenShot00...

And Basecamp, still the same:

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/t923347/ScreenShot00...

In all of these cases, if I insure that Avoid Toll Roads is NOT TURNED ON, they all route be through Sarnia/Windsor. Are you absolutely sure that you have Avoid Toll Roads checked on your Nuvi when you create this route???

Although I have used S&T for many years I don't recall there is any setting in it to avoid toll roads, at least in the newer versions. There are settings to avoid certain areas but not specific avoidances.

Just did a route on my 3790 and it takes me across the Ambassador bridge down to Memphis, where I would follow to Dallas then south on I-35 instead of the GPS route.

NO INTERMEDIATE WAYPOINTS SET !!!

In my avoidances I have all checked off exept highways and traffic. Set for fastest route.

So if all your avoidances are checked OFF you only have check marks beside the highways and traffic entries? Or do you have a check mark beside all the avoidances except highways and traffic?

10-4

Then I give up because setting my avoidances exactly like yours will only route me via the Peace Bridge and no where near Sarnia or Windsor.

Sorry GPSgeek for hijacking a really interesting thread.

Part of this is a discussion of why Custom Avoidance is needed. This is an interesting discussion and it appears that some models apply a bit more intelligence, than others. Your questions have added to the knowledge.

The 3597, may recognize that it makes more sense to ignore the fact that cross border bridges have fees. Both Basecamp and my NUVI2555LMT create a stupidly long route.

I think this shows that you have to know what to expect on your route and to plan for it. On one leg of your trip, setting the toll avoidance, might be wise. It might be smarter to set a Custom Avoidance, for the next leg.

First off, thanks GPSgeek for this intriguing thread. And to t923347 for his insights. Testing different scenarios, I get the same results as Melaqueman's 3790 with the current 2015.10 map.

http://i59.tinypic.com/29wr6z8.png
Using 2015.10 maps, my 2595 always creates a route from Toronto crossing over the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario (which is tolled). It doesn't matter whether the Toll Road avoidance is set on or off.


BaseCamp  - http://i57.tinypic.com/33c4zg6.png
Mapsource - http://i59.tinypic.com/2eyl0kw.png


MapsSource and BaseCamp both create routes over the Blue Water Bridge crossing at Sarnia, Ontario to Michigan when Toll Road avoidance is set on, and over the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario when not avoiding tolls. This is also true reversing the route to start from Guadalajara.

With 2014.10 through 2014.30 maps and Avoid Tolls, both MapsSource and BaseCamp create routes from Toronto through the Peace Bridge crossing at Fort Erie, Ontario to New York State. Reversing the route to start from Guadalajara, MapsSource routes through New York State into Quebec and southwest to Toronto. BaseCamp routes through Minnesota into northern Ontario and southeast to Toronto. http://i57.tinypic.com/30tkv13.png

So perhaps t923347 and Melaqueman's 3790 routing differences might be due to different firmware levels, but I really don't understand why I get different MapsSource and BaseCamp results...

In a previous version of Garmins maps, the stupid thing had me cross at Laredo. Then it routed me east on Mex-2 to Reynosa, then south on Mex-40 to just east of Monterrey and horrible traffic and then north to NL-100.

Incidentally the way to get to north of Monterrey is south from Laredo on Mex-85D and it avoids all the rotten traffic as well as erroneous extra miles added on.

That is what I mean by excercising the grey matter, you need to have an idea from a paper map or Microsoft Streets&Trips or MapSource to know when the GPS screwes up !!!

I have many other experiences where personal knowledge needs to be used to override the GPS !

This fall I will be on a 6,600 mile trip from home across Canada and then south to Mexico. Believe me I am going to study maps so I know when the GPS may be leading me wrong.

I put my trips in BaseCamp and make my route ahead of time. I then loan the saved trip to my Nuvi. That way I can plan my trip on a computer and see just where I am going.
All of that said, I once missed my turn and now that we don't have recalculating announced I didn't know for a while and when I discovered my mistake we were too far to turn back and were on a small and longer road. We finally found a road to take us to the interstate. Needless to say my husband, who was driving, didn't let me forget about it for a while.

I loaded 2015.10 and made sure my firmware was up to date. I had no change in the routing. I can't understand why the 2595 and the 2555 operate differently.

Basecamp routed the same.

Oh well. I'll just have to use custom POIs.

Just updated the 2595 to 2015.20 maps - no change in routing. Both toll / no toll routes use the Ambassador Bridge.

I live in Michigan and had traveled out of state where I set my avoidances to include toll roads. We were traveling to an Upper Peninsula location and the unit wanted to send us through Chicago. I was puzzled until it occurred to me that there is a toll on the Mackinac Bridge. As soon as I turned off the toll road avoidance routing returned to normal. I have a good working old 1490. It's interesting that units handle this differently.

Remember! This is Garmin that we're dealing with!! You must have had Senior's Moment and forgot that very important point.

I picked this up over on the GPS Passion forum and decided to bring it up here for discussion as there is not much user activity on gpspassion. There is a bug in the custom road avoidance on the current 4.40 software (probably earlier versions too). If you add multiple custom road avoidances, only the last one entered is honored. If you go back and look at the ones entered earlier, they will all show the last road avoidance entered even though they are still named as the original road avoidance.

The area avoidance (rectangular box) does not have this issue. You can have multiple area avoidances and they are applied to route calculations cumulatively, as they should be.

Has anyone else with a 3597 noticed this bug?

Edit: I tested this on my old nuvi 855 and it works as it should by recognizing multiple road avoidances. I wonder if any of the other 2013/2014 models have the custom avoidance bug that the 3597 has. Here are the models that support custom avoidance:

And my 3790 continues to route me over the Peace Bridge which only has a toll from the US to Canada and not the other way around.

I don't mind paying bridge tolls, but California toll roads are different. They're are parallel to other highways, so you pay for use when others are congested. Need to setup some custom avoidance. Thanks.

I encountered an unusual situation recently when travelling from Cranbrook to Calgary through Kootenay National Park. The trip through Kootenay Park (Highway 93) is 100 kilometers shorter, but my Garmin always tries to route me north on Highway 95 through Golden BC and then through Yoho and Banff National Parks on Highway 1.

I have my GPS set to avoid toll road, and there is a fee for stopping in our National Parks. But there is no charge if you are only travelling through the park.

The thing is, the same fee (toll) would apply if we travelled up to Golden and through Yoho and Banff! And the GPS kept advising me to make a U-Turn and head back to Radium for the entire 100 kilometers up Highway 93.