"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:54:25 +0000, Mike Hughes
wrote:

Test carried out by BBC using one of the latest Sat Navs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ne/7143897.stm

Seems that the taxi driver using the traditional knowledge can still
beat the Sat Nav.

stands back and waits for comments

Did you actually watch the programme though?

There were three legs

Box Hill - Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium - Parliament Square
Parliament Square - Greenwich.

The Sat Nav beat the taxi by about 10 minutes on the first leg as the
taxi driver got stuck down country lanes just like the Sat Nav system!
On the second leg the taxi only overtook the BBC car on what looked like
the Edgware Road and then ducked and dived down some back streets off
Park Lane to cut through to Parliament Square. What was more galling was
the taxi driver saying "well mate, make sure you avoid Piccadilly and
Piccadilly Circus and dive round by Buck Palace to get to Westminster".
The only issue being, of course, that his diversion off Park Lane took
him exactly in the direction of Piccadilly and not Buck Palace but heh!

On the second leg the taxi gained about 15 minutes or so. This lead
expanded to 27 minutes by Greenwich.

The point of the programme was really to show that the Sat Nav
"congestion avoiding" element of the software / system was not very
sophisticated. The big difference being that what counts as a jam for
London was showing as clear on the system.

But OTOH, a congestion avoiding SatNav is an "executive" product that
occupies the niche slot that once was occupied by bog standard SatNavs.
Once, few people owned sat navs and they were luxury produts. But now that
your average man in the street is buying them, he is still not going to be
buying a GPRS-linked congestion avoiding version.

tim