Satnav beat by road map

Viknesh Vijayenthiran November 10th, 2006

By Viknesh Vijayenthiran Author November 10th, 2006

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December 31st, 1969 London played host to the first ever race between electronic navigation systems and a humble road map that was run by the UK’s Which? magazine. Reuters reports that this time, cutting-edge technology took a backseat to the simple street directory, which was found to be a more efficient and reliable form of getting from one destination to another. Up against the road map was a Garmin Nuvi satnav, Microsoft’s Autoroute 2006 and the government's official door-to-door travel Web site Transport Direct. The car using the conventional road map took 1 hour and 35 minutes over a planned route, beating the satnav, which took an extra 8 minutes over the same journey with a time of 1 hr 45 minutes and ahead of the Autoroute, which took 1 hour and 49 minutes. The Web site directed car fared the worst, taking a total 2 hours and 19 minutes thanks to a couple of mistakes.

Satnav beat by road map

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London played host to the first ever race between electronic navigation systems and a humble road map that was run by the UK’s Which? magazine. Reuters reports that this time, cutting-edge technology took a backseat to the simple street directory, which was found to be a more efficient and reliable form of getting from one destination to another.

Up against the road map was a Garmin Nuvi satnav, Microsoft’s Autoroute 2006 and the government's official door-to-door travel Web site Transport Direct. The car using the conventional road map took 1 hour and 35 minutes over a planned route, beating the satnav, which took an extra 8 minutes over the same journey with a time of 1 hr 45 minutes and ahead of the Autoroute, which took 1 hour and 49 minutes. The Web site directed car fared the worst, taking a total 2 hours and 19 minutes thanks to a couple of mistakes.

Tags: Odds and ends