Routing comparison : MFM vs TA vs MSM NT

[kwlee]

On CNY Day 1, I went to this place called Fo Guang Shan temple in Jenjarom.
After dinner I followed my Nuvi (MFM 100208) to go to Taman Kajang Utama. As I am totally unfamiliar with the area, I just blindly followed the suggested route based on Faster Time.
Wow, it was a scary drive , though it did lead to my destination.
Some part of the route took me through some very obscure, dark and winding road.

The next day, not convinced that the route is the most optimal one, I made a comparison between MFM 100208, MSM NT 2009.40 and TeleAtlas NT 2009.31 with different routing option (Faster Time vs Shorter Distance).

See attached .gdb file.

MFM map recommended the same route regardless of routing option.
MSM NT map gives the same recommendation as MFM on both routing options.

TA map is the interesting one.
On "Shorter Distance", the route is similar to MFM.
On "Faster Time", the route goes via the "Putrajaya-Cyberjaya Expressway" which is safer and seems more 'logical'.

Does anyone know why TA map gives better routing in this case ?
More importantly is there anything the community can do to help to improve routing for MFM ?

[alyem]

From the routing is very clear that MFM and MSM is giving you the faster and shorter road recommended.

Here I TA like Papago it give you an alternative road to choose which is longer distance and time.

[antyong (retired)]

TA's routing is better. I have updated the routing data for MFM map. Thanks for the feedback

[kwlee]

@ alyem :

As you have pointed out, TA's "Faster Time" route is longer in both distance and time and yet this is suggested over the "Shorter Distance" route which is even shorter in time.
So my guess is factors other than speed limit are taken into consideration when calculating the travelling time. One important factor I can think of is the number of Traffic Light junctions along the route.
May be Mapsource / Nuvi does not factor-in traffic light impedance when MFM map is used.

So, the secret sauce for giving better route suggestion lies in something else, such as the 'routing data' as mentioned by Anthony, or traffic light junctions.

I have another example here. See attached .gdb.

These are 2 short routes in Singapore. Again I compare the route suggested by MFM, MSM & TA.

MFM's route has 2 traffic lights. MSM gives the same result.
TA's route has only 1 traffic light, the junction of Ave 1 & St 41 has a short slip road that bypasses the traffic light at that junction.
When you compare the distance & time using MFM map, indeed MFM's route is shorter. But when traffic light junctions are taken into consideration, TA's route will be faster in reality.

I think this is because cgpsmapper has yet to support traffic light impedance in route calculation. Just my $0.02. May be other sifus here can enlighten us.

By the way, you can easily copy the active window by pressing Alt+PrtScr. This will save you an extra step of copy and paste.

Cheers.