Route Planners - UK/Europe

[Kestrel_909]

Morning all,

I'm looking for a decent route planning program for my father.

He travels a lot in the UK and odd time into Europe and now that he has invested in his own laptop, wants some program to use when he's away. Also a lot in Ireland and N.Ireland but it seems that most sources aren't particularly detailed and so the good old fashioned paper map works best.

I have searched and read reviews on various ones, Route 66, AA, Autoroute 20xx... Most of them rate lowly on amazon reviews, the only highly rated ones being the TomTom series around £300, bit too expensive as he won't be using it THAT much. Preferably below the £100 mark.

I came aross PC Wound's exclusive offer of MS Autoroute 2006 witha GPS receiver too, for around £80. Any thoughts?

(He also has an XDA original, and could well upgrade to an XDAii as the battery for his original is dying and can't find a replacement. )

Thanks!

[rugmuncher]

Try using the directions feature that is built in to google earth, just click on your "TO" and "FROM" places and it will plot your route with real good directions and you can play a drivethrough of your route too!

[bjkeates]

As far as I'm concerned you can't go wrong with Autoroute. Mine's slightly older, 2003 I think, but it's one of the best programs I've bought and far outstrips any route planner you'll find on the internet. That £80 deal you mention sounds great given that the program itself is very good.

[spannersatcx]

Autoroute, route 66 etc are route planners. (electronic road atlas)

TomTom is gps/satellite navigation.

There is a big difference between the two.

What exactly does he want?

[Irish Steve]

Forget route planning in Ireland

Sorry, but due to the crass and crazy way that the Ordnance Survey of Ireland don't sell their data, probably to protect another semi state called An Post, the post office, there's no decent coverage for route planners in Southern Ireland. Most of the PC based platforms, you will be lucky to get more than the major National routes, with maybe a few minor roads, but in the more remote areas, all you will get will be a spot on the map with a name, and no road structure at all! Autoroute for the UK and Northern Ireland is excellent, with street level mapping that is reasonably accurate. Once you cross the border into the south, there's street level for Dublin, Cork, and possibly Limerick & Galway, and that's your lot, the rest of the country could well be desert for all the road data that's there.

Despite MANY protests, the government have done their usual trick, NOTHING at all to resolve what is a disgrace for a supposedly tourism friendly country.

[Kestrel_909]

Thanks for the replies.
I have played around with google earth but don't you need to be online to use it? Great at home but not as handy when out and about.


spannersatcx,
Good point, I'd say route planner as GPS starts getting too expensive for his general use.

At the moment, its looking like Auto Route 2006 and maybe the PC World deal mentioned above.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The new Tom Tom One's with the Sirf III chipsets can be had for £224 online if you google it. Seems a bargain if you are considering spending over a £100 on route planning software alone. Goes from startup to position fix in about 12 seconds every time I try it. The ability to pocket it and use it on foot around cities is a killer app in my opinion. It made a recent weekend in London an absolute breeze.

Cheers

WWW

[spannersatcx]

I've used autoroute and it sees to do the job pretty well.

[Kestrel_909]

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated.

[Coconutty]

Kestrel,

If your father doesn't want to go down the SAt Nav route, or spend the £££'s then check out the June 2006 edition of "PC Advisor" magazine at your local newsagent ( £3.95 ) - It has a free cover CD containing a full version of "Map & Travel - Travel Planner 2006 / 2007 for UK and Europe"

All that is required is to register the software on line to be able to use it.

Various route planning options as you might expect with up to 25 stop off points, history of previous start and destination addresses, speed profiles for calculating journey times, route options - shortest / fatstest / cheapest etc, cost management, zoom functions and printable maps.

( Mod - this isn't an Ad. for PC Advisor or the software - just trying to help a fellow 'pruner )


Coconutty

[Kestrel_909]

Thanks Coconutty, I shall have a look.