Navigation (Walk) not choosing shortest route

orama · February 14, 2019, 15:17:05

Hi folks.. if I set to Navigate to a point on an urban Walk or Hike for some reason Locus isn't choosing the shortest route. If I set to Car it does. Frustrating because Google Maps does this no problem and of course Locus is otherwise far superior. As you can see from the two pics below the first advises me to walk on a curved route as I pass near the beach. The second, set to car, follows the main road directly. Both are paved and I haven't set to avoid highways.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Henk van der Spek · February 14, 2019, 15:22:35

The first one is shorter anyway but probably Open Street Maps does not know there are footpaths along the mainroad.

orama · February 14, 2019, 15:27:30

Thanks for your reply.. careless of me not to zoom the two pictures the same. I was only really meaning the first part of each route. The wider one crosses over the same main road that the direct one takes.. so up to that point at least, the direct one must be shorter. Puzzling. It's a long established main road with wide pavements both sides.

john_percy · February 14, 2019, 15:33:54

Depending on the routing engine you use, it most likely intentionally deprecates walking alongside main roads in order to give you a more pleasant walking experience.

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orama · February 14, 2019, 15:37:26

If that was optional I would think it's a great idea.

Henk van der Spek · February 14, 2019, 15:52:22

I saw that difference in the first part. You should really check it on the OSM website. I have no possibility to do that now myself.

john_percy · February 14, 2019, 15:55:19

It is simply a matter of the weightings in your chosen routing engine. Brouter, Graphhopper etc. With Brouter offline you can tweak the weightings yourself if you really want to.

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orama · February 14, 2019, 16:23:49

Thank you john_percy yes with Brouter I can select shortest, with a Walking profile and it seems at first go to be working. IMHO this should be the default- with whichever routing engine- and maybe with a choice of optional routes to select if desired. It's a shame that (without some tweaking- which I think many would not work out for themselves) that the average user or newbie would probably wonder why Google Maps offers them a 'better' more direct route. Anyway, thanks again- I'll keep testing this.

poutnikl · February 15, 2019, 05:54:24

It is not a shame. Neither for cars, nor for bicycles, nor for pedestrians, is generally the shorter the better. If there is already the shortest profile, there is no reason the walking should be shortest as well. It aims to be rather more pleasant.

Consider the walking profile rather as the easiest level of hiking profiles that would definitely prefer e.g 8 km path in woods to 6 km of sidewalk along a primary road.

john_percy · February 15, 2019, 09:58:45

On the other hand, I can imagine a real life situation where I would prefer a quick walk over a pleasant one. Suppose I am in an unfamiliar city and I need to get to an appointment and an short of time. I would really want the app to guide me by the quickest walking route regardless of the surroundings.

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Andrew Heard · February 15, 2019, 10:06:00

Perhaps 2 profiles, quick and pleasant?

poutnikl · February 15, 2019, 10:08:00

Quote from: john_percy on February 15, 2019, 09:58:45
On the other hand, I can imagine a real life situation where I would prefer a quick walk over a pleasant one. Suppose I am in an unfamiliar city and I need to get to an appointment and an short of time. I would really want the app to guide me by the quickest walking route regardless of the surroundings.

I agree. For such a case, there is already the shortest profile. So may a car driver occasionally need an emergency shortest ride to a repair point. But it is obviously not the reason for default car routing using shortest routes.

Generally, users are near always supposed to choose the routing mode in most routing services, at least fastest vs shortest, sometimes the economic route, or in the case of BRouter according to the profile specific priorities.

If thert is a bult-in shortest profiles, it seems logical to me to expect the custom walking profile is not identical to the shortest one.

poutnikl · February 15, 2019, 10:10:07

Quote from: Andrew Heard on February 15, 2019, 10:06:00
Perhaps 2 profiles, quick and pleasant?

quick=built-in shortest
pleasant=Walking and near all other custom foot profiles. :-)

john_percy · February 15, 2019, 10:13:20

I suspect the built in Shortest would not take a footpath that is not an allowed route for bikes? Or maybe cars?

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poutnikl · February 15, 2019, 10:33:21

Quote from: john_percy on February 15, 2019, 10:13:20
I suspect the built in Shortest would not take a footpath that is not an allowed route for bikes? Or maybe cars? Sent from my moto g(6) plus using Tapatalk

Shortest profile was IMHO intended as the default and the only one foot built-in profile.

Car and bike profiles I am aware of do not consider shortest routes. I has in mind other providers.. Perhaps one of my variants does, but I am not sure just out of mind.