A 4x4 profile for LoRouter / BRouter

[Viajero Perdido]

I understand more profiles are on the way for the new LoRouter in LM4, but in the meantime...

I've found the existing car profiles to be extremely reluctant to route down an unpaved road, instead making ridiculously long detours to stay on pavement.  Internally, it appears to assign a speed of 1 or 2 km/h to unpaved roads, which is slower than walking.  To me, this seems like a bug.  Here in Canada, we have many unpaved roads where 80km/h is a comfortable speed; some are secondary highways.

Also, the existing profiles won't route on highway=track.  But sometimes a destination is at the end of a track, thus you can't route to it, unless you switch to an MTB profile.

Here, attached, is a tweaked version of an existing car profile that I've tweaked to fix both these issues.  I make no claims about its quality, as I've only managed to understand it well enough to make a few changes, and they seem to work for me.  If it works for you, all the better. 

Drop it in your Locus/router/profiles2 folder, then select it from the Routing Profile drop-down.

[Radim V]

Hi, thanks for sharing the adjusted profile. Currently we are trying to figure out what the expectation for car routing actually is. More car profiles may be coming. The fact is in central Europe we consider the usage of unpaved roads or tracks for cars problematic at least. (Not so well documented restrictions and gates are one of the reason). I will do some review of the legal state of the "unpaved roads" access. Once more feedback similar to yours comes (Which I expect to be the case for i.e. Scandinavia), we may use your local knowledge. Thanks! 

[michaelbechtold]

Hi Radim,
in Germany agricultural roads may be unpaved, but still open to public traffic (own risk). Some are "protected" by a traffic sign, but no barriers.
Forest roads may have barriers, unpaved or paved, regardless.
With OSM lacking systematic QA and mapping rules enforcement you will not find rules for BRouter that will solve the issue.
Offering route ALTERNATIVES simultaneously to the user I consider the best - and only - viable option.
In the case we are discussing, one alternative would forbid unpaved, the other would include them.
Once you have established this alternative mechanics, this opens up for much more fun, because you would allow to configure which (2 - or 3) profiles would be used to offer the alternatives.
Could be flat versus steep, paved versus unpaved, ferries versus no ferries, you name it.
Cheers
Michael

[Viajero Perdido]

To clarify, in my part of Canada, the majority of roads in farmland (example) or forest (example) are unpaved, but usually gravel and often in good condition supporting speeds of anywhere from 30 to 80km/h. We generally take the shortest path.

Also, our roads are almost always on public land and legally accessible to the public.  (If not, well, we try to tag it as such.)

Sounds somewhat different than Europe. 

PS, without my tweaks, above, "Avoid unpaved" had no noticeable effect.  It would always "avoid unpaved" regardless.  (In English, "avoid" is not absolute, it suggests "avoid if practical".)

[Viajero Perdido]

I did a little behind-the-scenes beta testing of some updated profiles (thanks Radim!), so can suggest that the profile I uploaded above will soon be obsolete. 

[SonnyS]

This type of profile is EXACTLY what I've been hoping for. Very interested in your "rugged" profile, and I'll be more than happy to try the next version :-)

Thanks , Sonny

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[francisco]

In my country, Portugal, Locus is very often used in 4x4 offroad and considered the best of all gps apps for 4x4.
The 4x4 profile (off-road with occasional road to link trails) is a must.
It is not possible to have updated maps with gates and so on, for now and next years in many european countries. But it is with protected/environmental areas, and maps are already updated on that. This is the main feature, not only for 4x4 off-road, but also other activities
When we plan off-road, or do it, we have to choose where to go "in-loco": gates, private roads, forest works on progress, etc.,  obtain necessary authorizations, and so on. In Europe there is few cartographic information on this, differently from USA, so Locus doesn't have to worry with what doesn't exist.
This profile is a plus for Locus.